Occasionally you discover something so pleasing, so satisfying, so right that the world is suddenly a better place. The sun shines brighter, the birds sing louder – or if you, like Kinukitty, are sitting in a recliner that’s been temporarily parked in the middle of the dining room for so long you are forced to admit that’s actually where it lives now, and it’s past 1 a.m., and your eyes feel like someone’s scraped them down with extra-fine sandpaper, perhaps it would be more appropriate to say the piles of crap all over the place seem less squalid and the roving dust bunnies seem less aggressive. Playful, even.

I do have a point, and that point is that I’m in love. Again. And I owe it all to the Hooded Utilitarian’s very own Suat, who gave me the best tip ever: Crossdress Paradise. Suat! I don’t have words.

I sat in the recliner and watched three specials all in one go, and when I was done, my face hurt from beaming at the computer. I smiled so much it aggravated my TMJ. It was worth it, though, and I went to sleep with a sense of peace and goodwill and whatever that I have seldom known.

Crossdress Paradise is described as a Japanese game show, but I don’t see much game. All the show you could want, though. I’ll set it up for you they way they do, because frankly, nothing about this show could be improved on, not even if I understood what they were saying. Really. The language of Crossdress Paradise is universal. The show opens with two good-looking young guys chatting amiably. They are immediately likable despite the language barrier, and also unbelievably, hilariously funny, if the laugh track is any indication. When the hosts call out “open curtain” – in English, for reasons that are obscure to me – the glitzy silver curtain goes up, and the camera cuts first to the amazed faces of the hosts, and then to the studio audience full of gleeful, amazingly homogeneous high school girls, a sea of clapping, squealing, foot-stomping young ladies wearing almost exactly the same school cardigan, pleated uniform skirt, and big, baggy socks. These girls are not just happy with the transformation (which the home audience hasn’t seen yet) – they are so happy they are losing their collective mind. Finally, the camera cuts to the main event, a cute high school boy, sitting on throne (well, a flower-festooned, wing-backed wicker chair of the sort that featured in a lot of ‘80s prom photos) and dressed in drag. Not frat party drag, either. These guys are done up to pass.

Their hair is styled, their makeup is luminous, their smiles coy and sparkly. After letting us stare in amazement for a few moments, the boys then perform the ceremonial wink at the camera, which is accompanied by an adorable little sound effect. Then, we get another look at the crowd, still going wild. The first special I watched introduced six boys, unveiled one at a time, with lots of close ups to show off their dewy foundation and pearly lip gloss. There are also lots of close ups of them clutching nervously at their knees, trying not to flash all of Japan in their short skirts. One of the most endearing tells all the boys shared was the constant blinking against the unfamiliar onslaught of heavy mascara and liquid eyeliner. I recognized it instantly as a problem I too suffer from, on the rare occasions when I try to dress up and fit into society. I sympathize, pretty crossdressers!

There are several more specials in this series, and they basically make the same joke over and over and over – take the boys out, fool people into thinking they’re actually girls (sometimes by establishing a romantic attraction), and then, the punch line: Ha, ha! He’s a boy! What? Ha ha ha ha ha ha! They obviously think it never gets old, and I have to say I agree. Over the next two episodes, the boys learn to model, and they do a runway show. People are fooled and then everyone shrieks in amazement and hilarity.

A couple of things struck me about this. First off, it’s all very, very cheerful, and everybody is as good-natured and happy as can be. It’s like stumbling into an alternate universe where social injustice, original sin, and global warming never happened. People abuse Oxycontin to feel like this. Also, the boys really want to do a good job. The show isn’t about cross dressing in the sexual sense (although one of them really, really got into it, and I think a new world might have opened up for him). It’s all about humor, and of course Japanese teenagers are under pressure to do well. Even if what they’re doing well is cross dressing. When the TV star flirts with one of the boys, or the model pokes a couple of fake breasts because she can’t quite believe her eyes, the boys are obviously proud. That’s part of the reason it’s all so much fun. There’s no humiliation.

And that is perhaps the most important thing about the show. It’s about boys wearing dresses and makeup and passing as girls, and none of the humor comes from belittling them, or the girls watching them, or the myriad of bystanders who can’t tell what they’re looking at. (Well, as far as I can tell. They could be saying anything, I guess. But it all looks so damned amiable!) The American viewer thinks, over and over, that this couldn’t possibly happen here. There’s no way any version of a show like this could happen in the U.S. Only in Japan, the home of yaoi and fertility festivals where people carry around enormous carved penises. Also the home of cheese ice cream and caramelized potato KitKats. (They can’t all be gems.)

I urge you to carve out four or five hours and watch Crossdress Paradise until you absolutely have to get out of your recliner RIGHT NOW because you have to pee and get yourself a good old American KitKat (chocolate, as God intended), and then probably go to bed. You can thank me (and Suat) later.

Two of Hearts, Kano Miyamoto, 2008, Deux Press

Cat reaction shots. I love gratuitous cat reaction shots.

And you know what else I like? Romantic tales with damaged people who help each other heal. Which is what this story is about. There’s an older guy who suffers from writers block – which is, of course, a manifestation of his inability to have a real relationship. (Of course, everybody suffers from writers block, and of course people who aren’t able to really connect with their deepest emotions write books all the time, but we’ll let that slide because there’s no need to be obstructionist.)

So, what we mostly have here is a sweet little story about two people finding each other. There’s the blocked writer, Haruya, and there’s a magnificently fucked up high school boy, Maki. Maki has OCD and a stutter and crippling shyness and some very difficult personal circumstances, and he’s really quite appealing. Haruya is kind of letting his life drift by but is obviously a pretty good person, as he’s moved to go far out of his way to help Maki when he happens to run across him. Their interactions are pleasantly ambiguous, initially, and their growing relationship is satisfying.

Except. This is another one of those yaoi titles with a bizarre rape scene (or near rape – they get interrupted just before they get to the full monty) that just leaves you scratching your head. It seems to come from a “guys are different” kind of place, but it doesn’t play right. The motivation is extremely sketchy, and no one reacts anything like appropriately. “Oh, sorry I was getting ready to rape your emotionally damaged boyfriend who’s still in high school – Oh, don’t worry about it.” “Sorry my friend tried to rape you; he’s just upset because he’s been in love with me for years and I’ve been ignoring it – Oh, that’s fine, then.”

This weird lack of concern over what should be a seriously traumatizing event is part of what ruins the ending for me. Miyamoto is so determined to make everything heartwarming and sweet and happy that she goes overboard. Everybody is going to be fine, all the problems be damned. I like a dazzlingly romantic ending as much as the next yaoi fan, but this time, the happy-ever-after is cloying. There were some interesting complications, and suddenly everything is – all right. Maki is able to get it on with Haruya and straighten out his life. The rapist is able to help Haruya write that prize-winning novel everyone knew he had in him, and to move on with his life and find someone who loves him. Haruya is able to realize that he loves Maki and to work past his emotional distance, write brilliantly, and love selflessly. Just all of a sudden, like Miyamoto got fed up with the whole thing and decided she needed to wrap this up and move on to the next manga. Which might well have been the case – and I’ve been there, Kano, I really have.

So, is it wrong for me to be disgruntled in the midst of all this comprehensive bliss, just because I find it kind of under-motivated and sudden? I don’t know. There’s a lot to enjoy in this story, and it will not leave you weeping, even if you’re in a state where you’re feeling sorry for yourself and you’re getting overly emotional and sniffly over the whole Jon and Kate Gosselin saga (so brilliantly, ably, and thoroughly covered in Us Magazine). I wouldn’t have bothered to tell you about Two of Hearts if I didn’t think there was something special about it. But – you know. There are problems. Forewarned is forearmed.

Oh, right. The cat. It’s a stray that Haruya takes in and grows to love. Get it? Yes, of course you do. It’s still pretty cute, though.

The Way to Heaven, Yamimaru Enjin, 2009, Digital Manga Publishing

Why don’t I like this book? Well, for starters, the backward E in Heaven. Let me share my thought process with you. I said, good lord, that’s a beautiful cover. Those young men are gorgeous. Must read pretty book! What’s it about? Oh, who cares! What lovely art! Why the hell is the first E in Heaven backward, though?

I found that E annoying, and I should have resisted the lure of pretty tie-boy and gone with my initial misgivings. (I’m drawn to the tie itself, not just the prettyboy wearing it; the color, the rendering – it’s a very nice tie. It’s the best thing about the manga, so I urge you to take another look and fully enjoy it.) Unlike the guys in this story, though, I haven’t been plucked from my painful personal drama by a hot and annoyingly playful alien who agrees to give me another chance by allowing me to go back in time for an additional fraction of a second for every test tube I can fill with blood or semen. Looking deep into my heart, I find that I’m really, really OK with that, though.

I’m sorry, I can’t advance the narrative because I keep going back to that damned E. You know what it reminds me of? The logo for Angel, a sort of proggy glam rock band from the 70s. I had pictures of them on my wall and was especially enamored of Punky Meadows.

In fact, this picture right here might have been the initial building block of my lifetime interest in prettyboys. This post is starting to have a monumental, historical sort of feel, isn’t it? Wow. I feel so close to all of you right now. I hope you’ve enjoyed this sharing thing as much as I have. Anyway, I used to have an Angel t-shirt that pleased me immeasurably, partly because I really liked Angel, but mostly because the logo reads the same upside down as it does right-side up.

I drew it on my notebooks and stuff. Nifty, isn’t it? Well, you, The Way to Heaven, are no Angel logo.

Where does this book go so wrong? It isn’t like the plot isn’t clinically insane. There’s the afore-mentioned gathering of fluids. Also, the alien riffs on Sailor Moon. (This gets pointed out, by the mangaka or by the translator, but I was already on it because, in the spirit of over-sharing I’ve just established, yes, I read the whole Sailor Moon series – and no, I can’t explain myself; it’s just one of those things, like Us Magazine and peach Fresca). The drawing is nice throughout, and the two main characters fall in love, just like they’re supposed to. By the way, one of them gets turned into a vampire, all the better to collect the blood, and the other one gets turned into a werewolf (not that he ever turns into a wolf or uses any werewolf powers), the better to collect the semen. Wait. Huh? Don’t ask me – I don’t know.

Here’s a plot sketch. A former boxer, who was forced to quit the sport because of an eye injury, walks across a pedestrian bridge and falls off it while trying to rescue a puppy. Pretty tie-boy sees this happening and tries to save him. They both go overboard and get hit by a truck. A lovely alien lady, who’s been sent to save the earth by setting up an energy recycling system, tells them she’s chosen them for her pilot project. For every vial of blood and semen they collect, she’ll let them go back in time a fraction of a second from “ground zero.” That setup didn’t push any buttons for me – I mostly was just upset because it looked like the dog died. Also, I don’t know – going out and collecting vials of blood and semen for a really, really long time (especially when it’s made clear that semen-guy would rather not – which doesn’t seem like the wrong response, I don’t think) – not sexy. Just isn’t. I realize there are no absolutes in what people find erotic, or in anything else, really, but – this isn’t an especially hot setup, is it? Maybe I’m missing something.

Or maybe that’s supposed to be the funny part. Because the back of the book says “The Way to Heaven passes through comedy, drama, and steamy passion on its way to spiritual Shangri-La!” I assume they mean Shangri-La as in finding true love after a life spent searching, rather than in the sense of the Nazis looking for an ancient master race that hadn’t been ruined by Buddhism. Although, who knows, really. I wouldn’t put anything past this book, and to tell you the truth (since we’re sharing so much already in this post), I had kind of stopped paying strict attention by the time I got to the end. So maybe they slipped some kind of Raiders of the Lost Ark subplot in there and I just missed it.

So. There are plot complications, but the boys find true love. The set up and plot complications made it impossible for me, however, to give a damn. I mostly just wanted the book to end – and, there, at least, it did deliver. If what I’ve described sounds like just the thing to you, I’d suggest you run over to Amazon.com and buy it now because even though it was just released in February, it seems to be out of print. While you’re there, you might want to read the five-star reviews, which compare this to The Matrix. It doesn’t especially remind me of The Matrix, but I didn’t especially like that, either, so maybe this book was just a bad fit for me. The art is certainly pretty, and there is sex and romance. Either way, go in peace.

Tale of the Waning Moon, Hyouta Fujiyama, 2009, Yen Press (Hachette Book Group)

I like Hyouta Fuyiyama. I liked Ordinary Crush and Sunflower and Freefall Romance and probably Lover’s Flat, although I don’t remember anything about that one. I think I liked it, though, because I remember that I read it, and the memory doesn’t tarnish my feelings for Fujiyama, so I’m sure it was fine. This book – Tale of the Waning Moon – is nothing like those books, though. Well, that’s not true. It’s like them in that the blond uke looks pretty much the same in every book – but I see that as a feature and not a bug. Besides, if we were to rule out titles in which the characters looked just like other characters in previous books, we wouldn’t be able to read multiple series by Kazuya Minekura, or Sanami Matoh. And that would be a damned shame.

Tale of the Waning Moon is not a modern love story, like Fujiyama’s other manga. She wrote this for a supplement to a video gaming magazine and thought it would be fun to do a fantasy role-playing game sort of thing. (Or so she said in the end notes, and I have no reason not to believe her. Why would she lie?) The story does read as a fantasy role-playing game. It’s set in an alternate universe where people journey on foot or horseback for days through forests, and shit like that. I have to give her credit because reading this book feels really a lot like playing a video game, which is kind of a cool thing she’s done. Don’t you think? Unfortunately, I fucking hate video games. That’s really my problem, though, and not yours.

And I basically like the book anyway. The premise is simple – elegant, even, if you don’t mind sheer lunacy (that’s a pun, by the way, what with the moon thing – oh, never mind) and a little sort-of non-consensual sex to get the ball rolling. As it were. (Wow. I’m on fire.) The story stats off with a bang (there I go again!), with the cute blond uke – Ryuka, in this incarnation – getting, er, manhandled by Ixto, the spirit of the third-quarter moon. Not the waning gibbous or the half moon, mind you. The third-quarter moon. Then we find out how Ryuka got himself into this situation. He got drunk because his girl left him for someone with more money, and then he accidentally went off to a magical hill to throw up. Because on this hill (it is said), once a year, when the night is most filled with stars, if one speaks his wish out loud, it will be granted. Fortunately, Ryuka doesn’t say, “Oh, my God, I’m so sick I wish I could die,” as perhaps you and without a doubt I would have done. Instead, he wishes for someone to love, who will love him in return. Nice, huh? Good Ryuka! I was proud of him.

And then Ixto descends, and Ryuka’s troubles really begin. He rejects the choices presented to him by the cards of fate because they’re all men, and that won’t do because he’s straight. (Ha, ha, ha! Poor, silly Ryuka! Like we haven’t heard that before!) All right! Ixto says, since this is apparently (and obscurely) the go ahead to ravish Ryuka, basically against his will (although there is not exactly a lot of struggling), and put a spell on him so that will make Ryuka’s body need to travel and seek Ixto out. And the yaoi video game begins. Ryuka gets lost in the forest, gets help from Ixto’s moon cat boy (who has ears and a tail and a little medieval cross-dressing go-go outfit and is supposed to be cute and sexy, I think, but consistently squicks me right out), meets all the attractive men who were pictured on the cards of fate, gets into trouble, is almost kidnapped, etc. etc. You know how it goes. Adventures are had. Additional rapes are narrowly avoided. The horse turns into a handsome man. It could be the story of any of us, really.

And, somehow – maybe because I’m such a sap – I did begin to like the budding romance between Ryuka and Ixto. (Yup; that sap thing is a good call. Also, I’m obviously not overly worried about the non-con situation. It strains one’s willing suspension of disbelief, but did I mention the story also features a horse turning into a handsome man?) There are a couple of genuinely sweet scenes between them, and you start to feel a genuine longing and affection. So much that I find myself sad to see that volume 2 may be a long time off. I went to the Yen Press Web site and didn’t see a sequel in their upcoming titles (through mid-2010). This was just published last year in Japan, so maybe the second collection isn’t done yet? I don’t know. If it shows up, though, I’ll buy it. Cat boy and all.

Prince Charming, Akemi Takaido, 2007-2008, Digital Manga Publishing

I love Akemi Takaido’s drawing style. I love her pretty boys so much that she can almost do no wrong in my eye. Although I should explain that the three volumes of Prince Charming are her only works that I’ve actually read, as they’re the only ones that have been published in English. I do have a small stack of manga by her that are in Japanese, and they are beautiful, but I have no idea what’s going on. So I don’t actually know if Prince Charming is representative, story-wise. Being able to read this one did not enhance my Akemi Takaido experience as much as I’d hoped it would, though.

I’m not crazy about stories where high school teachers seduce their students, or vice versa. (Which is unfortunate for me, given the vast amount of yaoi centering on this plot device – or these two plot devices, if you’re like the Eskimos who supposedly have hundreds of words for snow.) (Which they don’t – not hundreds, anyway – and there aren’t exactly Eskimos anyway, much less one Eskimo language, and it’s all relative and stuff, but we shouldn’t let this sort of equivocation keep a good metaphor down.) If you do like these stories, and you haven’t read this series yet, I suggest you stop reading and just go buy it, because I think it’s a pretty good example of the genre. Otherwise, you’re going to need some more convincing. And I don’t know if that’s what I’m going to do, much as I’d love for so many people to buy this series that some publisher decides to scoop up all Takaido’s works and publish them in English. Or maybe I don’t want that at all. Maybe I’m happier not knowing what she’s saying.

The plot is pretty much exactly what you’d expect. There’s a debauched, hot, surly teacher. Students go for him. One student, Yuasa, catches him, using blackmail to close the deal. Yuasa winds up living at the teacher’s apartment, and the teacher obviously likes him, despite his curiously flat affect (the teacher’s, not the student’s). The student’s two friends are there all the time, and the teacher makes noises about wanting them to leave, but he never goes so far as making them go. The complications that drive the plot are that friend A wants the teacher, and friend B wants Yuasa. And you hope it works out that way, although that seems unlikely, since that’s not what happens with this particular yaoi plot device.

And that’s the rub, I guess. I quite enjoyed the complications re. who might end up with whom. I wanted the wrong people to wind up together. I was supposed to, and I did, and that made me feel kind of manipulated and cranky. And feeling manipulated by an obvious yaoi plot device is – well, stupid. I think my angst indicates that Takaido has something going on here. In general, I’m perfectly happy to go along with the conventions of various yaoi plot devices. I’m not one to whine about clichés. I think I wanted more here because the details of the relationships between the guys who aren’t supposed to get together are so compelling, while the details of the relationship between the characters who are supposed to be together don’t do it for me. But I suspect I’d be happier if I liked this convention more.

I spent the entire series feeling mildly perplexed about the two main characters. All the other characters are more appealing, even Nee-san, a random cutie we see a few times at the convenient underage gay club the three friends frequent. Friend A is surprising and sexy, and friend B is strong and stalwart. Yuasa – has nice hair, I guess. The teacher gives off a nice air of being about to completely fall apart and ruin his life, but his freakish lack of expression makes even that slightly bland and uninteresting.

Oh, but the art! Takaido does so much with so little. Look at these expressions!

While I’m gushing about Takaido’s art, here’s the panel that got me hooked (not from this series).

So clean. So perfect. (Happy sigh.) It’s probably just as well that the Prince Charming story didn’t thrill me to my core. It might have been too much. I might have spontaneously combusted. So, now that I think about it, whew! That was close! I’m a little disappointed, but at least I’m not a film of greasy black stuff coating my dim chambers, or a little green globule clinging to my drum set (depending on whether you favor Dickens or Spinal Tap). Hey, lots of people do spontaneously combust every year. It’s just not widely reported.

I Shall Never Return, by Kazuna Uchida, 2007-2008, Deux Press

I don’t know. This five-volume series is like a love affair that you try to describe to someone a few years later, and you open your mouth to explain your actions, and nothing comes out because you’re just thinking, no, I was into that person, I’m sure of it, but the details somehow elude me. And yet, I can give you a plot summary for any episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. So what I’m saying is, it’s not you, I Shall Never Return. It’s me.

I’m pretty sure. This is “a true masterpiece of early yaoi,” the back cover tells me. It was originally published starting in 1992 (through 1995 or so – I seem to have misplaced Volume 5, God knows what happened to it, but surely nobody really cares anyway – what’s a year or two among friends?), and it does have an old-school feel about it. Which is fine. It doesn’t feel particularly dated to me, either in look or content. I’m sure the disaffected young hottie turning tricks because he just doesn’t care what happens to him theme played a little fresher seventeen years ago – I mean, it had to – but I’m a fan of that particular yaoi cliché, so no harm, no foul, either way.

It’s a very small story, for five volumes. And I’m OK with that as well. I never met a good obsessive bit of character development I didn’t like, and if there’s one thing this series does, it’s develop it some characters. Convincingly, even. I’m not going to say much about what or how because I don’t want to give it away, and details won’t help you decide whether you want to read it or not, anyway. There’s a torrid romance between two high-school age boys, with some love triangle action that gets resolved one way or another. Normally I think nothing of providing spoilers, but it wouldn’t be right for this story because there are a number or moments where things could go either way, and the fun comes in wondering what path the character will pick, and how you feel about it. I will say that the ending won’t leave you depressed and sad and cranky and casting about for some stale bit of forgotten chocolate at the back of your desk drawer.

Looking back over our days together, I Shall Never Return, what I appreciate most is that your characters are genuinely sort of complicated in a real-life-ish sort of way. They make unexpected choices, some good and some not so much. And the two main characters love each other. Not in a swoony and completely unrealistic-outside-of-yaoi way (and I’m not putting that down, either), but in a kind of believable real-people-making-real-life-choices sort of way that maybe isn’t exactly swoony but does feel good, especially because the feeling good thing isn’t a foregone conclusion. (Sort of like the love story between Wharf and always-surprisingly-no-matter-how-many-times-you-see-the-reruns stacked Deanna Troi.) (Look, I wove in a Star Trek: The Next Generation reference!) (Also, I ask you, why should the Germans get to have all the hyphenation fun?)

I cared enough about the characters and was curious enough to see where their lives would take them that I wound up reading all five volumes of this series. This isn’t so unusual, in itself. What kind of a Gluey Tart would I be if I weren’t good for five volumes? Damn straight. Here’s the weird thing, though. I bought them one at a time. This may not sound at all weird to you. That would mean you potentially have a healthier and less obsessive relationship with manga than I do. I buy the first one, and if I show signs of liking it about a quarter of the way in, I take steps to get the rest of the volumes in the series immediately. (Sometimes radical steps, in the case of an older series that I came to late and had trouble tracking down used copies of; there was a tense time there getting hold of volume four, although I see that I eventually wound up with two of them – but that is my way, and I’d like to try and think of it as charming). But with I Shall Never Return, I bought one book at a time. I’ve never done that in my life, but for some reason I kept thinking each volume might be the last one I’d want to read. Which never was the case, even with the last one.

So, I don’t know what my problem was. Is. Maybe I was in the mood for yaoi craziness instead of a mostly small-scale and quiet romance. I recommend it to you, though. You’re less shallow than I am. I think you can really make it work, and it deserves that.