Review: SEDUCE ME AFTER THE SHOW

June is Pride Month, and as such we're going to be doubling up on reviews.  We'll be covering two manga per week: one BL title, one yuri title.  We'll be starting out with our best foot forward for BL, with yet another anthology by one of our favorite mangaka.

SEDUCE ME AFTER THE SHOW (Sho ga Hanetara Aimasho), by est em.  First published in 2006 and first published in North America in 2008.

PLOT:

This anthology covers the travails of men (and cats?) who are torn between their passion for their crafts and the alluring men who wander into their lives.  Be they dancers, painters, actors, or musicians, all of them end up surrendering to love to try and overcome the pain of their pasts and the complications of their present.

STORY:

Once again, I find myself looking at a est em collection that covers a couple of her favorite topics: hot European dudes and the performing arts.  Save for a chapter that focuses on a pair of cats (no, I'm not joking about that), all of them are artists in some shape or form.  It's actually a very effective and subtle way to tie the stories together, something that most BL anthologies lack.  The passion for performing arts also allows est em to use it to contrast with the romantic passion the characters feel for others.  You could accurately describe a lot of these chapters as love triangles between the new hotness in these guys' lives and their own emotional needs and dreams.

The strongest story of the lot is the titular one, where a half Spanish-half Russian dancer has a fling with a Hollywood actor during the making of a film.  While it starts casually and ends somewhat cynically, the relationship they share ends up reigniting the passion they felt for their respective crafts.  There's also a chapter featuring characters from another est em manga, Age Called Blue, where an older member of a band tries to convince a younger member to join them on-stage.  

The second half of the book is sadly not as strong.  The chapter with the cats is the oddball of the collection not just because of the obvious, but because it's the one non-romantic chapter.  Instead it focuses on the feeling of loss they feel after their owner's death.  The final chapters are just OK, be they about a waiter who takes up painting after getting involved with a critical patron or a couple brought together by a link they share through their grandfathers.  I should note that an OK story from est em is still a healthy step above the best of most BL mangaka, so I'm not being too harsh here.  Regardless of quality, it's an anthology with a slow-burn approach and a sincere love for art.

ART:

Just as Seduce Me After the Show is sincere about its love of art, I'm sincere (as always) about my love of est em's artstyle.  As per usual, her men are lean and muscular with heavy-lidded eyes, strong jawlines, and beautifully styled hair.  Her knack for evoking smooth motion in still image is still present here, be it the swish of a flamenco dancer's skirt or the cat-like slink of a man sliding around his apartment.  Her panelling is elegant and while her backgrounds may come and go, she often uses that negative space to frame a character or heighten a mood.

RATING:

Seduce Me After the Show is a brillliant and well-structured anthology.  It's got all the quality we at the Manga Test Drive have come to expect from est em in both its writing and style.  It's a great book that I wish wasn't so thoroughly out of print.

This book was published by Aurora Press.  This book is out of print.