30 Day Yaoi Challenge, Day 20: Male Models Everywhere!

Posted on March 30, 2013 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

Restart by Shouko Hidaka

Tadashi is a male model who is feeling very down on his luck. In addition to being rejected at a bunch of auditions, one of his fellow models, Aki, is ignoring him after they had drunken sex one night.

Tadashi feels totally inferior to Aki, who has just begun to land international gigs, and doesn’t feel like giving his all to his work because he can’t compete with the popular Aki. But it turns out that Aki is just mad that Tadashi never returned his confession of love! (Tadashi was too drunk to remember.)

As they reconcile and begin their new relationship, Aki is able to inspire Tadashi to work harder and not give up.

The story is then retold from Aki’s point of view as he recalls how long he’s had a crush on Tadashi.

The rest of the volume consists of two unrelated stories about a young model and the photographer who falls in love with him; and a college student who can’t let go of a now-deceased old flame, but finds solace in his younger brother instead.

This volume was going so well for me until the last two stories. Both were about May-December couples, in both cases the younger person was almost ready to graduate high school. I’m only giving this book a pass for that reason, although it still made me a bit unhappy. Also a photographer hitting on a model like that sounds like every model’s worst nightmare.

Tadashi and Aki’s story was really good though. I felt like the reader got to see a good chunk of the modeling world and that Tadashi’s insecurity and the resulting depression he faced was real. And his reaction to Aki’s advice was well-written too. Instead of just cheering up immediately, Tadashi only began to recover when he realized that Aki’s advice was right, and even then he still didn’t escape his insecurity immediately. It was a relatively slow process that built Tadashi up into a more confident person.

It was also refreshing to see a BL/yaoi manga about someone in a profession other than businessman or yakuza (or yakuza-related.) Too much we see the generic office worker doing something that makes their job look only like mountains of paperwork and hours spent impressing clients, but that’s really just mangaka shorthand for “I was too lazy to do any research about what my characters do for a living, so here are some stereotypes!” Boooring! With this book, you can definitely see that Shouko Hidaka did some research on what models do on a day-to-day basis and used that in her manga. Bravo, I say! I wish more mangaka of all genres did that.

I don’t have much to say about Hidaka’s art other than that I liked how she used different hair lengths and textures on her characters. Wispy short hair with long bangs can get rather boring. (Especially after 20 days of yaoi!)

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30 Day Yaoi Challenge, Day 19: You Call That Shy?

Posted on March 29, 2013 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

Shy Intentions by Syouko Takaku

Yoshiyuki, a middle school art teacher is visiting his dying mother in the hospital when he runs into the enigmatic Kaoru, who is taken by his beauty.

Yoshiyuki is in no mind to start a romantic relationship, but when Kaoru’s grandmother passes away and Yoshiyuki’s mother dies soon after, he finds himself running into Kaoru’s arms.

The two start seeing each other, but Kaoru struggles with emotional intimacy until his friend Akira points out just how hard he’s fallen for Yoshiyuki. Unfortunately, Yoshiyuki mistakenly thinks that Kaoru is cheating on him with Akira. It takes a major declaration of love for the two to reconcile.

Months pass and Yoshiyuki accepts a head teacher position and agrees to tutor one of Akira’s friends for a teaching examination. As he does so, he begins to suspect that Kaoru and Akira are cheating on him again. But then it’s revealed that Akira’s friend is Akira’s boy friend and all is well (Aside from the boyfriend failing his teaching exam.)

Now this was a good manga. It wasn’t great, it’ll probably never make anyone’s top 5 manga list, but it was a solid read. The characters struggled with real emotional issues, they didn’t stop to ponder whether or not they were gay, and there was the depth to back everything up for the readers. They also had things that struck them in existential ways, like something poetic someone said to them or the color of a rock. It’s stuff like this that really helps a yaoi manga become something worthwhile and not just another formulaic book made to sell sex.

The characters even did some things, sexually speaking, that was more like what real couples would do instead of what usually gets shown in yaoi. Even better? There was nothing non-consensual!

The art is sketchy, and reminds me vaguely of Honey and Clover, but somewhat appropriate considering the delicate feelings that are discussed in the first part of the book.

Shy Intentions is a book I’d recommend to readers who really like to root for the main protagonists in their BL/yaoi, and it’ll work for those who like the sex scenes too. :)

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30 Day Yaoi Challenge, Day 18: Kizuna vol 3

Posted on March 28, 2013 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

Kizuna… You almost managed to stay away from rape. Almost…

Kizuna volume 3 by Kazuma Kodaka

The last volume left of with Kei being knocked out by some thugs, one of whom is impersonating his half brother, Kai. The thugs decided to see how Kei knows Kai, just in case they can glean anything out of him, and take him back to their headquarters.

Meanwhile Ranmaru gets worried and calls Masa and Kai to let them know what’s happening. Masa tries to mobilize his men, but when Kai hears the news, he sneaks out from under his body guard and joins up with Ranmaru to save Kei.

They get there, but Kei’s identity as the heir of the Sagano family has already been discovered. As a result, he’s been beaten, shot and painfully strung up by his arms.

Kei is too hurt to be moved, so Kai attempts to call an ambulance, but is captured by the enemies. His bodyguard/assassin, Tashiro shows up, but can’t get a good shot without killing Kai in the process. This causes Ranmaru to take up the sword again in order to bring down the ringleader and his men. As Ranmaru is about to charge, despite Kai and Kei screaming at him to stop before he taints his hands with blood, the volume ends and we’re treated to a short story about two lookalike angels that visit Kei and Ranmaru.

The next volume continues as Masa and Tashiro manage to divert Ranmaru’s sword just in time for him to remain innocent. But unfortunately, the ringleader turns his gun on Masa and almost has him killed by Tashiro’s mentor, J.B., who has been waiting outside to make shoot his target. Kai manages to save Masa and the ringleader dies, but only because J.B. doesn’t want to kill children.

With that, it’s a mostly happy ending as Kei recovers in the hospital and successfully proposes to Ranmaru. The unhappy couple winds up being Masa and Kai, as Kai tries to apologize for his earlier reckless behavior, but winds up getting rejected by Masa instead.

The story then switches back to Tashiro and J.B., whose complex relationship has been hinted at throughout the last two volumes. It starts when J.B. meets Tashiro for the first time at a church he frequents. As the church is threatened by thugs who want the land, Tashiro wishes he could protect the church and its orphans with physical force and begs J.B. to teach him how to kill. It isn’t until one poor girl gets raped (yup.) that J.B. gives in to Tashiro’s requests. They wind up living together as J.B. teaches Tashiro the basics, but Tashiro becomes increasingly desperate. They sleep together, but J.B. leaves the next morning, which causes Tashiro to become the cold-blooded killer we see in the main story.

I would be upset about the rape of the poor girl (who is painted as a very, very tragic figure both before and after her attack,) but it’s hard to be. This isn’t a gratuitous rape where it’s played to titillate the reader (probably because it’s hetero rape) or done just because. Despite the fact that I *suppose* something else could have happened to make Tashiro desperate enough to become an assassin, I think it would have been just as violent. And Tashiro reacts very strongly in favor of the victim, which is better than some past rapes we’ve seen in Kizuna. So I suppose that could all be worse, aside from the fact that it turns Tashiro into a ruthless assassin.

I liked the writing in this volume a lot. I was really expecting non-con and other stupid shit to happen in the main story what with Kei being kidnapped, but it didn’t. Kei’s proposal was cute, and Tashiro’s back story was also appropriate considering the amount of screen time he and J.B. got. If they had just faded into the background, it would have been disappointing.

That being said, the Kodaka’s art is turning out to be a big disappointment for me. Whereas the last volume seemed to hit the right style notes, this volume is awkward, like Kodaka was transitioning between the art of volume 1 and the art of volume two. It doesn’t make any sense. Plus, whenever Kodaka tries to draw someone that’s not a smooth-faced pretty boy, she winds up putting too many shaded spots on their faces and it just makes her art look like it belongs to a style that is not her own.

It just struck me, but I think I’m getting really sick of this manga being about these young men being pulled into crazy yakuza-related shenanigans. If I didn’t have two more volumes of Kizuna to read for the yaoi challenge and if I was collecting each volume one by one, this is probably where I’d subconsciously decide to collect other manga before buying the next volume of Kizuna.

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30 Day Yaoi Challenge, Day 17: Sword Euphemisms Everywhere

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

I did it. I dropped the ball and took a one day break from the 30 Day Yaoi Challenge. I’m disappointed with myself. Though, if I may forgive myself here, there wasn’t much of a chance for me to read manga. Too much face time with my mom. Whelp, now I’m back. I may try to do two posts in today if I can manage it.

Kimi Shiruya-Dost Thou Know? by Satoru Ishihara

Two rivals meet during the final match of a kendo competition. As one, Katsuomi Hanamori, walks away with the trophy, it sends him and Tsurugi Yaegashi down a spiral of frienship, love and really blatant kendo euphemisms.

Yaegashi and his younger brother move into Hanamori and his younger brother’s town, which means the two elder brothers run into each other more often.  Hanamori wants to see Yaegashi as a serious rival that he’d like to “cross swords with,” but he just can’t help falling in love with Yaegashi.

Hanamori finally makes his intentions known after a passionate kiss late one night while they’re looking for their missing younger brothers, but that doesn’t mean that Yaegashi wants to be “defeated” by him. The two keep competing and getting “stronger” in order to better face their opponents in the next “match,” until Hanamori confronts Yaegashi with more passionate kisses during the summer festival.

It is there that Yaegashi rejects Hanamori, declaring that he won’t “lose everything” to Hanamori. This makes Hanamori decide that he’s going to make Yaegashi “submit by force.” They both strive towards their goals during a joint summer training camp between their dojo, which culminates in the two of them having an epic kendo battle with an excellent “making the penises kiss” visual metaphor when the two of them cross swords at the climax.

With this, the two clear up their rivalry and head their separate ways as they go to college. It isn’t until months later that Yaegashi “surrenders” and lets Hanamori be with him, just as their two younger brothers start to get involved with each other…

I almost want to blame a gay friend of mine who has been reading my yaoi challenge reviews for making me think everything is a euphemism, but in Dost Thou Know? everything really is a euphemism.

That being said, this is a solid love story. Hanamori questions his feelings and whether or not they can face each other in a match, but doesn’t really question his sexuality (a bit of a relief after all those “I’M FALLING FOR A MAN? THIS IS SO WRONG! But I can’t help it…” characters.) Neither does Yaegashi (he just doesn’t want to be “defeated.”)

The two are much more intertwined than I implied in my description. Rather than the common trope of throwing two characters until they finally get together, Satoru Ishihara has one of the younger brothers study at the same dojo as the opposite elder brother since the younger brothers are also kendo rivals. This means that Hanamori mentors and looks out for Yaegashi’s younger brother, which is a major component of the overall plot, and vice versa with Yaegashi and Hanamori’s younger brother. They come together first as rivals who are both concerned about Yaegashi the younger, but become friends in the process.

Also noteworthy is the character’s devotion to the ethics of kendo, which I found to be much more educational than other manga with kendo elements like Kizuna. Even though everyone’s really focused on kendo, to the point where it’s a surprise when Yaegashi the elder gets into medical school, these seem like fully-fleshed out characters that are not written without thought. It’s just that so much focus is put on either kendo or their relationships with each other, that there’s hardly room for anything else. (Except the younger brothers, we get to see a bit more of their lives outside of kendo.)

The art is a typical BL style from the early Aughts, but rather appropriate at the same time. The older boys are tall and muscular, but also pretty and not drawn in an overly masculine fashion. The younger boys are cute-looking in comparison, but still have defined muscles when they show a bit of skin.

Overall, I think the best part of this manga is reading for the euphemisms. It turns what would be an otherwise forgettable manga into something more memorable and witty. It’s hard not to smirk or giggle when another euphemism pops up.

Aside from that, I don’t have anything to talk about except that I don’t think I’ve ever seen someone use iaido as a euphemism for showing someone your dick.

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30 Day Yaoi Challenge, Day 16: Mr. Convenience

Posted on March 25, 2013 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

Passover begins tonight, and so the most difficult period of my 30 Day Yaoi Challenge begins! (First there’s tonight’s Passover seder cutting into my reading time, then there’s Wondercon this weekend, then I’m going on a trip to the Bay area next week…) Can I manage to keep posting daily until the end? We’ll see!

Mr. Convenience by Nase Yamato

Kyaaah! I loved this manga! It’s premise was pretty original, it’s characters had motivation, it was even funny and the art was so cute!

Takashi is a jack of all trades at his brother’s staffing company, getting all sorts of odd jobs every day. Despite the fact that he doesn’t rake in a lot of cash, Takashi finds his work rewarding. That’s why, when a strange e-mail is sent to his company asking for a friend, Takashi takes the job seriously.

The e-mail was sent by a young, but lonely businessman named Aki who has a lot to get off his chest. At first, Aki only wants Takashi to come by once, but Takashi finds that he can’t in good faith let Aki handle all of his stress alone. The two spend more time together and Takashi starts to fall in love. Unfortunately, Aki begins to think it’s because Takashi needs the money and tries to distance himself. (And, of course, fails to because this is a yaoi manga and there’s always a sex scene.)

The second half of the book focuses on another jack of all trades at Takashi’s company, named Miya. One day, a strange client asks for Miya and then propositions him. Miya tells him off because he doesn’t do that kind of work, but the man belittles Miya’s job in the process. Regardless, Miya keeps accepting this client’s job because he pays well and winds up falling for him a little. The two wind up having sex during one of Miya’s scheduled jobs for him, but Miya can’t think of a better way to get intimate with him except to ask for more money. (The guy had been consistently asking about “that” kind of work, after all.)

But then the man reveals that he’s an investigator named Tateishi who has been sent there by Miya’s rich family, who are very concerned that Miya is putting himself in danger. Miya, who left home because he felt too pampered there, feels extremely betrayed and is pressured to go back home. Tateishi begins to feel like he misjudged Miya, and the two talk it out. Of course, they wind up confirming their feelings for each other and Miya gets to go back to work for the staffing company (although he has to live at home for the time being.)

There wasn’t an non-consensual stuff in this volume. (But the sex is still hot, in case anyone is looking for that kind of thing!) In fact, I don’t think I can find anything to complain about! I actually thought this volume *might* be about prostitution, in which case I would have something or another to talk about.

It was actually quite funny, lots of little quips and jokes were fit into asides and places like that. The art is cute too, although everyone’s a bit too pretty and/or cute. I just figured out that Yamato is the creator of Cigarette Kisses, so I’m going to check that out sometime. A few of her other works have been picked up by Jmanga and Deux, and some of those were even rescued by SuBLime. (Which is good, because I used up my old points on Jmanga, but also bad because not everything was rescued and I used my old points before I realized…)

I wholeheartedly suggest you read Mr. Convenience! More Nase Yamato please! (But not any of her shota-con stuff…Please.)

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30 Day Yaoi Challenge, Day 15: Sleepless Nights

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

Sleepless Nights by Sachi Murakami

Sleepless Nights is about a high school boy named Miyabi who works in a convenience store in a heavily gay area of town. He’s very used to gay men cruising in the store, even harassing him and his coworkers. But one night he notices a cute boy in the store and winds up going to a love hotel with him.

Miyabi thinks that the boy will be just a one-night stand, he’s straight after all, but then the kid, named Shuuhei Nakatani, winds up transferring to his all-boys high school and becoming his roommate! Talk about awkward.

Things immediately become uncomfortable for Miyabi. Not only is he trying to deal with leftover feelings from his little fling, but he and Nakatani don’t see eye to eye about love and sex, complicating all the attempts they make to patch things up between them.

All the arguing makes Nakatani start spending most of his nights outside their room, which Miyabi hates because he assumes that Nakatani spends them cruising for gay sex. He finally confronts Nakatani about it, and they reveal their true feelings to each other.

The final story in the book is about Miyabi and Nakatani’s neighbors: the flamboyant Shinoi and the reserved dorm coordinator Kouno. Shinoi winds up rooming with Kouno to protect him from overly-zealous attackers, but also falls for the shy student.

Kouno also has a problem sleeping with others in the room, so he is constantly forcing Shinoi out of their room, causing a bit of tension. After accidentally revealing his feelings for Kouno in a very public manner, Shinoi figures out that they both like each other.

Oh man, this manga’s cover totally deceived me. There were ties and what looked like business suits, but they were high school uniforms! Agggghhhhhhh!

I don’t have any inherent problems with romances between high school boys as long as things are consensual and there are no may-december relationships involving teachers, but often times they’re full of the kind of melodrama that puts me off of BL/yaoi. Either that or I feel like all the tropes that I usually find to be acceptable in shoujo manga are just too forced when applied to young gay boys. I also get a bit bothered by the general idea that these are underaged kids being depicted in an erotic manga. Sure, they’re teenagers, but does that make it okay?

Luckily, Sleepless Nights is all consensual, there are no student-teacher romances and the sex scenes are kind of drawn “from the waist up.” (Meaning that the mangaka purposefully avoids showing the graphic parts. You see hands, limbs and torsos, but you don’t see any genitalia, fluids, etc.)

Happily, this continues a small streak of consensual BL/yaoi that I’m enjoying. It’ll probably all end when I pick up the next volume of Kizuna in a few days, but what can you do?

One thing that I did like about this manga was how Miyabi was shown to be exploring his sexuality in spite of what he thought it was. This makes his switch from “straight” to gay a little bit more believable. (Although I do wish his character was fleshed out enough to tell us why he’s so intent on being straight at first.) Likewise, I liked how Shinoi and Kouno didn’t play the “am I straight or gay” game at all. It was more of a “by the way, I’m also gay” reveal.

The art style isn’t really special in my opinion, but still serviceable. I enjoyed this one, but I can’t say I’m super-fond of it in general. It was still kind of moody and melodramatic in that same way that I don’t like. There’s hardly any story outside of the two main protagonists and the supporting characters who get a side story. But even with all that attention, everything’s almost always about the romance.

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30 Day Yaoi Challenge, Day 14: A Love Song for the Miserable

Posted on March 23, 2013 by Daniella Orihuela-Gruber

No, fair readers, I did not forget you today. I just found myself busier than usual today!

A Love Song for the Miserable by Yukimura

 

Asada, a hopeful young businessman, has gotten depressed because he feels like his ideas haven’t been acknowledged at work. After getting drunk one day, he collapses into a bush until another man named Nao, who is lost and looking for directions, finds him there. As a thank you, Nao offers to treat Asada to a cake at his family’s shop.

A few days later, Asada shows up to find the shop closed, but Nao lets him in and treats him to cake anyway. This strikes up a friendship between the two as Asada’s taste tests help Nao to improve his baking skills. Asada even begins to fall in love with Nao, but suddenly Nao announces that he’s moving to France to become a true pâtissier, and Asada freaks out and ends their relationship on a sour note.

Three years later and Asada is finally where he wants to be at work. During the planning stages of an event he’s working on, he runs into Nao again, who is now an up-and-coming pastry chef in Japan. The situation between the two is tense, however Asada not only needs Nao for his event, but he wants to rectify things with his old friend.

Unfortunately, Asada finds out his division is about to be outsourced right as he patches things up with Nao, which sends him spiraling back into a depression. Nao tries to console him and confesses his feelings for Asada at the same time, but as he tries to get more intimate with Asada (read: jack him off without paying attention to the fact Asada is saying no,) Asada pushes him away and decides he cannot stand to be with Nao.

Asada then tries to quit his job before he’s outsourced and run back to his parents’ house in the country. His plan is foiled, but since he won’t speak to Nao, Nao thinks that he’s already gone away. Asada gets in contact with him before Nao makes it out to the boonies, and that’s when Nao convinces Asada that he loves him despite any faults or failures. The two reconcile and Asada goes on to discover that he can pursue his passion at other companies instead. D’aww.

This was actually a REALLY GOOD MANGA. Perhaps I feel that way because there are pastries involved. I’m part-Austrian and I’m convinced there’s a genetic disposition that Austrians have that results in a manic of good sweets.

But more importantly, I like how this manga treats depression. I suffer from it myself and while the first depiction of Asada’s depression is a little dramatic, the way Asada comes out of it and the second depiction of his depression feels much more spot on. Basically, Asada falls prey to his own mind when he sees Nao being so easily successful when Asada feels like such a worthless failure. It completely incapacitates him to the point where he cannot feel happy about Nao’s feelings for him, something that would instantly perk up someone who isn’t feeling depressed. I can tell you from experience that depression can really mess up things that should otherwise make you feel happy, and that even someone’s passionate love for you can’t bring you out of it.

I also like Nao as a character. He is wonderfully supportive of Asada, even when Asada is depressed. Despite the fact that he ignores Asada’s protests about getting intimate, it’s clear that he just wasn’t paying enough attention when he does realize what Asada wants. (More on consent later.) He also persists in trying to help Asada through his depression and expressing his love as a means of support. All in all, I just really like that Nao doesn’t ever give up on Asada after confessing to him. Not everyone sticks around when they realize you’re depressed, so having someone who is a true support pillar no matter what makes all the difference.

As for the situation where Nao accidentally… I’m willing to not let it affect my judgment of this manga. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that a) Asada was sending out mixed signals like pulling Nao closer despite not wanting to get intimate, b) Nao was under the impression that Asada was saying the opposite of what he truly meant out of shyness (meaning Nao would think that “stop” meant “go,” and c) Nao immediately stopped when he realized that Asada was crying. In fact, I really like the fact that the creator allowed Asada to break down and cry, giving Nao a chance to realize what he did was wrong and that he should stop.

A lot of yaoi mangaka would try to smooth things over with slick, romantic dialogue here or ignore it completely. But both Nao and Asada are true to life here: if a person was having an emotional breakdown as they were being sexed against their will, they would start crying; and if the other person truly loved them, they would stop what they were doing and try to honestly comfort them.

That being said, this is why it’s important to get clear consent from anyone and everyone you’re hoping to sleep with. Even in a relationship where feelings are supposed to be mutual, people can be on different pages sexually. It’s best to check in with partners in a manner that doesn’t pressure them, even if just to be extra careful.

Back to the review: The art toed the line between kind of sketchy here and there, and somewhat clean. For example: there are a lot of suits in this manga, so the suits would be drawn carefully and turn out clean, but the faces and other body parts would be more sketchy and stylistic.

I am quite sad to find out that the only other Yukimura manga published in English is a short story in a multi-artist collection that’s probably long out-of-print. I think this mangaka has lots of potential, as evidenced by crossovers into the mainstream manga world, so I’d love to see more from them.

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