The Wallflower, Tomoko Hayakawa, Del Ray

I’ve been following this series for a long time – I started with the first volume in 2004. I have all 21 volumes out so far (the run is 24), although I stalled out somewhere in there and I’ve only read 1-16. This has caused me mild anxiety. “But why, Kinukitty?” I hear you asking. “Please, tell us all about it, no matter how boring!” Well, how nice of you. I think I will.

When I fall in love, I become irrational. As I finish each volume of a manga, the specter of having to wait several months for the next one makes me twitch and yell out random obscenities and become despondent and stuff. Cue the irrational hoarding behavior. I try to wait until I’ve accumulated three or four volumes before I’ll start reading again, trying to, I don’t know, concentrate the anxiety. Or minimize the bouts of insanity. This strategy plays out in various ways. Sometimes I forget the series exists for six months at a time, which is perfect. Then I buy the last three volumes, read them in one big, happy wallow, and the cycle repeats. Sometimes I fall out of love with the series and decide I’d rather eat pocket lint than finish it. This usually happens only when I’ve actually bought several volumes in advance. But sometimes, when I really, really, really love a series, I just won’t let myself read it for, like, a year, hoping to completely forget about it for so long that eons will have passed by the time I think of it again, and all the volumes will be available, and I can sit down and read them in one long, orgasmic orgy of happiness and completion.

And that, gentle reader, is my situation with The Wallflower. I keep buying each new volume as it comes out because I’m deeply afraid they will disappear from the face of the earth in the interim and I won’t even be able to buy them used and then I’ll die. But, at the same time, I pretend I don’t know the series exists, because I’m not ready to break down and start reading it again. This is where a genuine case of multiple personality disorder would be helpful. Every time I buy a new volume and add it to the stack, I’m in danger of upsetting the delicate “balance” I’ve established.

Which is what happened with volume 21. I’d been holding out on actually reading Wallflower since volume 12 – released in, holy shit, June 2007! That’s a lot of holding out. I am amazing! (Ahem.) But it’s all over. I fell off the wagon. I just read volumes 13-16, and I will be mowing through 17, 18, etc. until I finish them all. Don’t get in my way; you might lose a finger.

After finishing volume 16, I decided I must write about The Wallflower. No, I really must. But I also felt strongly that I should wait until I’ve caught up. And it will take me a little while to read the next five, since I’m really quite busy working in soup kitchens and advocating for world peace and getting my health-care plan passed and such. Oh, wait. That’s not my life at all. What the hell am I spending all my time doing? My house is a mess, I haven’t cooked since 1997, and all my clothes are stained or rumpled. Sometimes both. (I do have some very cool shoes, though.) Well, it’s a mystery, although I suppose the damned job might factor into it. At any rate, it’ll take me a while to finish five more volumes of this manga, and Gluey Tart the column waits for no man or woman, not even Gluey Tart the person. Content! The Internet demands content!

I worried, at first, that it would be wrong to just write about it without reading all the volumes. But then I thought about the 16 I’ve read, and I decided – as I so often do – oh, fuck it. In fact, that’s sort of my personal motto. The truth is, it just doesn’t matter where I am in the series. Volume 16, volume 21 – it doesn’t matter. This is an episodic comedy, not a linear narrative. And there are not, shall we say, huge deviations in plot along the way. There is a certain sameness. We’re good. It’s fine.

Let’s talk about the plot, then, such as it is. The main character is Sunako, who is described as Goth. It would be tremendously geeky and pedantic of me to point out the reasons why she isn’t really Goth, so I’ll try to restrain myself. She’s something like Goth. She likes to stay in her dark room, which is decorated with skulls and anatomical figures and skeletons and stuff, and her favorite thing to do – besides cooking – is shut herself in her room – in the dark – and watch horror and slasher films – with the anatomical figures and skeletons. Which all have names. Sunako’s appearance is terrifying to others, and when she isn’t drawn as a sort of hyper-deformed dumpling, she looks like the girl from Ringu. She lives with four hot young men, whom she refers to as “creatures of light.” She is, obviously, magnificent.

The foundation joke is that Sunako’s aunt, a fabulously gorgeous and wealthy jet-setter, has promised the four beautiful boys free rent in her opulent mansion, where they live with Sunako, if they can turn Sunako into a lady. Which is, as they say, not bloody likely. Hi-jinks ensue, and after ten volumes or so, Hayakawa reveals herself to be an irrepressible cock tease. We are all but promised that Sunako will get together with Kyohei, and maybe it will actually happen by the end of the series, but I’m not holding my breath. Their weird little romance plays out sweetly, though, so I’m happy enough. More on that in a bit, though. (Their romance, not my happiness, which might, possibly, not be your primary concern or interest. Strange as that sounds.)

Throughout the series, the boys cook up stupid plans to lady-ify Sunako, and through the unbeatable forces of her indomitable will, kick-ass martial arts skills, and breath-taking craziness, everything goes wrong and one or more parties often needs to be rescued. Sunako does about as much rescuing of the boys as vice versa, so I’m fine with that. This is all complicated by the epic attractiveness of the boys, who are basically being chased through life by crazed, rabid fan girls from all over the country. They are very pretty prettyboys, drawn to look like Hayakawa’s favorite musicians. (Most of her filler notes are about the bands she loves fanatically, and these are really charming.) (The rest are about her cat.) The boys spend a lot of time posing provocatively, getting their clothes torn off, and/or suddenly indulging in inexplicable bouts of cosplay. Which is kind of awesome. If I were drawing volume after volume of beautiful boys over and over, I’d throw them into weird, sexy costumes for no reason, too. I mean, why wouldn’t you?

OK, back to that romance. It is a very low-key romance, but it pleases me immeasurably. Every once in a while something goes amazingly wrong and ends up with Sunako and Kyohei holding hands and staring into each others’ eyes. And then her nose spurts blood and she runs away and he stares at her in horror. Occasionally Kyohei’s actions betray him and it is momentarily apparent that he has feelings for Sunako, but mostly not so much. He’s a tough-guy (a tough-guy prettyboy), and mostly he’s blunt and disinterested and kind of selfish. Sort of like Sunako. They get along in unexpected ways.

Here’s an example, from volume 16. Sunako’s aunt sequesters Sunako and the four boys in a secluded cabin to protect them (the boys) from crazed girls on Valentine’s Day. The plan backfires that night, though, when they find themselves all alone in a deserted cabin, and there’s something in the woods. It’s one of the horror movie set-ups Hayakawa loves to play with. Well, the something in the woods is a terrifying horde of girls intent on giving chocolate to the boys – and tearing their clothes off. Sunako uses the frenzy to gather up all the chocolate for herself, and at the beginning of the next episode, she’s gained twenty pounds.

Something must be done because Sunako’s aunt has invited her to a party to meet a prince, so the boys enlist help to remove Sunako from the dark room with the candy boxes and get her to run off the extra weight. She gets really, really into it, and the boys think they’ve finally gotten her interested in her appearance. The truth, of course, is that after a few workouts she begins to see muscle development, and that makes her yearn to further develop her muscles – so she can look like the anatomical chart of the human musculature system and finally fit in better with her anatomical dolls and skeleton.

She becomes completely obsessed with this project. At one point, she’s gazing longingly at a lobster and thinking, “This lobster’s legs are so thin and hard… Crustaceans are so lucky…” Then, thinking about how poorly defined she looks in comparison, she gets upset and cracks two lobsters open with her bare hands. Koyhei finds this very impressive and starts helping her train more intensely. She explains to him (after crawling over him and running her hands longingly over his wiry chest and shoulders) that she wants to look just like him. At the end of the episode, Sunako shows up at the party with a body so buff it’s terrifying to behold, and she arm-wrestles with the prince, throwing him to the ground. (To get her to go to the party, Koyhei told Sunako the prince was an arm-wrestling champion who wanted to challenge her. What else would he say?) It all ends well – Sunako loses interest in fitness and goes back to eating chips while watching horror movies with her plastic friends, and it turns out that the prince had liked being wrestled to the floor. A lot.

And that is a pretty typical Wallflower plot. There are those who are driven mad by the glacial pace at which Sunako and Koyhei are getting together, but a conventional courtship isn’t right for these unconventional characters. Hayakawa obviously loves them, and the rest of her cast, and she celebrates their eccentricities and their individuality. It’s a sweet story that heals some of my high school trauma every time I read it. And even though I’ve invested more than $200 in the series so far, that’s still a lot cheaper than therapy.

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.