vignette00's manga / #high school(74)

Two-story volume. The first is about a high school student who is blackmailed by a salaryman(?) over stealing pencil lead. If that sounds petty, that's because the characters are bare sketches, and the plot merely hints at development. The fundamental question of "do the characters fall in love?" is answered, but there's a family subplot for the student and a backstory for the salaryman that falls to the wayside. It's not terrible, just too hesitant to be anything substantial, and then it just sort of ends. Story two is about two actors starring in a drama about two high school boys in love. As expected, reality and the drama begin to mix, and the mangaka does a surprisingly effective job superimposing the two on each other. The ending scene on the beach is probably the best moment in the whole volume, and even though the same issues from the first story carry through (no real understanding of either character, sketchy hesitant plot development) it works here because she doesn't try for weight themes, just a nice mood of two young men exploring the bounds of first love, professionalism, and communication. Maybe skip "Akudama" and jump straight into "Nonfiction," would be my recommendation.

"Prince Charming" is not going to be to everyone's taste, but if it's to your taste, like it is to mine, then whooo boy are you in for a treat. Start with a main character (Asahina) who loves sex and is indifferent about teaching but then is about to lose his job bc of his sex hobbies, add in a feisty student (Yuasa) who has a boy's curiosity for Asahina and a man's possessive interest in being with Asahina, throw in Akemi Takaido's trademark humor and characterization with Yuasa's meddling friends Nagai and Kagami, and then add a vigorous and delightful dose of two almost love triangles that collapses into a love square, and you have Prince Charming. What's wonderful about this series is that the plot climaxes never quite come where you think they will. Yes, all the characters in this series are less than sexually monogamous, and yes, Asahina and Yuasa's primary motivations are to have their cakes and eat them too, but refreshingly, sex in this manga is neither the focus nor the answer. Instead, it's more focused on the tangle of relationships: Yuasa's constantly evolving friendship with Nagai, Asahina and Kagami trading teacher and student roles as they navigate sexual attraction and looking after Yuasa, Asahina and Yuasa trying to work out exactly how much commitment and investment they need from each other to feel satisfied. Takaido's characters are filled with contradictory desires, but instead of picking between them, they often try to take all of them at the same time, and instead of rescuing them from their messes, Takaido lets them wallow. Asahina should know better than to sleep with Yuasa -- he doesn't. Yuasa should know his friends and articulate his desires better -- he doesn't. Kagami should just let things well enough alone when it doesn't involve him -- he doesn't. And Nagai should either be hands-off and cool or passionate, not both -- but of course he is both. Which makes for a story that feels like it's full of false starts and promiscuous, distasteful characters, but I find them incredibly realistic and, more importantly, charming. Because the other thing about the people in Prince Charming is that they're never cruel or vengeful. In the middle of an ever tangling love square in volume 2, Kagami and Yuasa put themselves in harm's way for friendship more than for love, and there's a sense in volume 3 that the collapsing of Kagami's leg in the love triangle is more because he can't stand to keep betraying Yuasa's friendship than because he doesn't love Asahina. Kagami's last line in the main story is pretty telling ("I have so many kind people to take care of me!") because the atmosphere of Prince Charming is a happy, caring one. Asahina isn't the best teacher, but he wants the best for all three of his students. No one wants to be the bad guy, even when they're sleeping around. It sounds crazy and against everything bl manga usually stands for. But it works, and miracles of miracles, all four characters make it through to the end of three volumes as, reluctant or otherwise, friends. Probably the only thing that doesn't work for me here is the way Nagai's storyline is bundled up, with a graduated senpai and a blackmailer. The epilogue tries to shed light on the relationship, but only serves to confuse the themes without actually connecting them to the main story. Still, he's a strong enough player in the first two volumes, and is the wry, cool-headed character that the quartet needs, so I can't complain too much. A note that the scanlation job here, after the first volume, consists of someone taking pictures of the book. It's hard to read, faint text, and double pages.

This is one of those beautifully quiet and elliptical love stories that Akemi Takaido exceeds at. The main character Ryuuzaki, a star runner, finds himself grappling with his feelings about his childhood friend, who has recently found himself a new boyfriend. Coincidentally, he also crosses path with Toya, the star swimmer of the school, an idol among the girls, and possibly someone who knew Ryuuzaki a long time ago. There's a romance, but it's in the style of Wong Kar Wai's "In the Mood For Love" -- all looks and brief touches and pained conversations. Like all the best romances, it's not obvious, but convincing, why Ryuuzaki and Toya might be drawn to each other, and they meet first on an emotional and intellectual level before moving onto clandestine flirting. The first four chapters -- the only part that's been scanlated -- wraps up Ryuuzaki's arc with his childhood friend and hints at the beginning of Toya and Ryuuzaki's own scandal. I'm a sucker, as always, for Takaido's pacing and goofy humor, and how she surrounds all her main characters with tons of their own friends so that the romance is rarely the only thing on the table. Her art is cool and sultry at the same time, and there's a star quality to her characters that is consistently intriguing

Aijin wa Korosareru is, I think, less about love than it is about rejection and abandonment and the pure instinctual fear people have of not being wanted. That's what makes this story so strong. Hikari is deeply, deeply traumatized by his father's departure and his mother's insanity/emotional issues, and it makes him desperate for acceptance and love, so much so that when Kizaki reaches out even that little bit, Hikari grabs on. Which makes Haizawa and Hikari's relationship all that more painful, because Haizawa is one of those amazing characters that I think can only be found in sad, heartrending yaoi manga. Haizawa is sarcastic, and caustic, and manipulative, and mysterious from the beginning, and he probably has abandonment issues the length of his arm, but he thinks he's survived. He thinks he's over them, living his life, being a new man, and Hikari frightens him because Hikari hasn't. Hikari is a pure boy with pure emotions and he is at once drawn and repulsed by Haizawa, but Haizawa is scared and now I'm just psycho-analyzing this manga too much. Umetaro makes deeply flawed characters who are alive and emotional and filled with dimension, especially with Haizawa and Kizaki. I love how at first you think Kizaki is just going to be a minor character but then Umetarou draws Kizaki closer and closer to the heart of the story. Umetarou always gives Haizawa this subtly adult and mocking smile, which will become important later of course, and Haizawa is a man with so many faces and so many sides but the story makes them all believable. And this is a story about change, about growing up, about dealing with abandonment, about wanting just one person in the world to be happy that you were born, and I love it because even though there are not serious plot twists, what you think is going to happen doesn't. There is room for so many cliches, but the story doesn't go there. It takes middle ground, and takes you with it.

Seems like Ogawa Chise read Motoni Modoru's "Rika the Breeder" and was inspired to make her own version -- right down to the system of Kings, Queens, and Jacks. 'Course, since only Motoni Modoru can be Motoni Modoru, "Caste Heaven" is far less twisted and sick and has sex scenes that are probably designed for you to feel sexy about them, instead of disgusted and morbidly intrigued. Ogawa Chise has a thing for badly codependent relationships, with a "weaker" character hiding the fact that he's manipulating his "stronger" companion into remaining with him for better or worse -- and it's always worse. Ogawa makes an argument in the latest chapters that this kind of manipulation is, in some ways, just a way to "protect" a love that would otherwise be crushed, but just like the caste game itself, Ogawa's fondness for unhealthy possessive relationships is like the air itself to this story, and every twist is designed to make a pure feeling dirty.

A student finds out that his classmate is having sex with a teacher who is going to get married (to a woman, mind) in October. The oneshot is mostly two (very good) sex scenes -- one between the classmate and the teacher that the main character accidentally witnesses, and then the other between the main chara and his classmate during the confrontation. Despite that, there's a tangible sadness to the ending, which manages to convey a slow fade of intense emotions in maybe two pages. I kept waiting for the title ("you said, laughing") to drop, and I think it does, on the rooftop, in a way that hints at deeper feelings. Intriguing, and all the more so for being a short oneshot.