I get a rush from the original Hikaru no Go opening credits, when we're given a tight close-up on Touya-papa's very stern face, then a dissolve to the equally intense but much younger Akira. Yes, that's what he's going to grow into. Lucky boy. Luckier Hikaru.
posted at 12:46 PM

 
Two jamall cancellations:
    Shiawase no Category by NISHIMURA Syuko
    Waka! by KIRISHIMA Tamaki
Both Core Magazine titles, both apparently readily available through bk1.

I must have been going through a fallow yaoi period in August when Biblos first announced the drama cd for Yubisaki no Koi. This could be a spur to greater popularity for Bohra Naono, or it may be a reflection of her current popularity ("this is the longest continuous story she's ever written; let's capture it while we have the chance"). I have no plans to buy it, though I am looking forward to the third Love Mode cd and I'm contemplating ordering the Ai no Kusabi DVD from AmoTokyo. By making a special arrangement with a distributor, June/Magazine Magazine recognizes the popularity of yaoi abroad (yes!), even if they can't handle it.

posted at 11:47 AM

 
My favorite yaoi video is Fujimi Symphony Orchestra. Grown-ups, not schoolboys (bye, Lesson XX and Fish in the Trap). I like the characters (bye, Zetsuai and Bronze). Nobody dies, loses their limbs, or gets castrated (bye, Ai no Kusabi). More romance than sex (bye, Level C). But there is sex (bye, Fake and Kusatta Kyoushi no Houteshiki). And there's no corn (bye, Boku no Sekuhara).
posted at 2:24 PM

 
Kaga's appeal for Kodaka? He's a farcical middle school Sougetsu. How could she resist?

I can feel doujinshi's influence on my interpretation of the source text with the tug on my heart when Tsutsui wins his first match in the 3-on-3 tournament. He turns to Kaga to share his astonishment and joy, only to find Kaga totally engrossed in Hikaru's game. Tsutsui's accomplishment is lost in the drama. He earned that moment of validation. Since he and Kaga are now lovers in my universe (thank you kindly, Kodaka), the slight reads more like a betrayal. It hurts even more that Tsutsui accepts it without thought.

posted at 7:07 PM

 
In episode 9 of the Hikaru no Go anime (volume 3 of the manga), Akira is bullied by his senpai in the Go club at school. The only reason he joined was to be able to play against Hikaru in a forthcoming tournament (this is lurve), and the older students resent his genuine talent as well as his integrity (or lack of good manners, depending on one's viewpoint). It's bad form to beat your senpai, even if you are better than they are.

Anyway, one of the bitter boys corners Akira in the club library or storeroom or someplace half-book/half-mess and forces him to play "blind" (with his back to the board). When Akira actually defeats him, two more bullies break in to find their classmate chastened, head hanging despondently over the board. These two then force Akira to play them both simultaneously...still with his back to the game.

The whole thing reads as incredibly sexual to me. I've seen ijime in shoujo anime and manga -- Hana yori Dango springs to mind -- so it's not as if the activity is somehow coded "yaoi" for me, but... Damn. Is it hot in there or is it just me? Threats, dominance, defiance, Akira's trembling with frustration and humiliation and anger...

Speaking of ijime, I'm sure there are many yaoi titles that incorporate bullying as part of the road to rape and true love, but only one stands out in my mind: "Koufuku no Dorei" in Kimi no Kuchibiru Boku no Toiki by Sohta Kazamatsuri. This one's memorable for the seme being bullied by the uke, over some unrequited love thing from grade school, if I'm reading this correctly. The uke's dominance masks his need, the seme endures and then triumphs over humiliation by first resenting and then forgiving his tormentor. A good mind screw can be so much hotter than the flesh. (Argh! to the penis-spotters cluttering the mailing list right now. Here a penis, there a penis, everywhere a freakin' penis, Old MacDonald had some yaoi, e-i-e-i-aaaaahhhhhhh)

posted at 9:48 PM

 
rescued read
I wonder how I managed to ignore Shin Mizukami's Zenmon no Tora - Koumon no Ookami so completely since receiving it in March. This manga is fabulous! Jotetsu is a military commander in ancient China (how ancient is ancient?) sent by a corrupt politician to roust some mountain bandits. The politician thinks Jotetsu will be defeated and his son will then be able to assume Jotetsu's command. Instead, Jotetsu is "defeated" by falling for the supple, sassy bandit leader, Roh. This is a Magnificent Uke story: Roh, seeking revenge for the military raid that killed his parents and drove Roh and his childhood playmate Rekko into the mountains years before, plots to kill Jotetsu by seducing him and stabbing him in bed. Of course, he can't go through with it. Instead, he punishes Jotetsu by giving his finger a nasty nip. In the second story, Jotetsu takes Roh and the gang back to the city, where Roh and Rekko capture the fancy of all the women and many of the men...including Jotetsu's rival, Karyuu. This secondary relationship is taunting me, since its status seems to remain ambiguous at the story's end. Rekko is clearly attracted and Karyuu is still interested, but I'm not sure Rekko would be willing to tolerate (or, dare I suggest, admit he likes) Karyuu's abusive approach. I want Karyuu to be a magnificent bastard with a heart of gold, but I think he's probably just a really buff businessman with a bondage fetish. Roh appears a little jealous of Jo's concern for Rekko, which is a nice bonus. All this action and intrigue is accompanied by hilarious moments, including the chaos the bandits create at every turn. This book is a great recommendation for those who complain about wet-kleenex or passive uke.

Roh and Rekko's "beauty" is one of those conditions more evident from the responses of others (and the dialogue, including mistaking Roh for a woman at their first encounter) than it is from the character designs themselves. The mountain bandits are certainly scrawnier than the bandit-hunters, but they look just as deadly.

It's fairly obvious that Jotetsu is the "Tiger" of the front gate and Roh is the "Wolf" at the rear gate, but it makes me wonder if those gates aren't seme/uke sexual innuendos. Too much of a stretch?

I don't know that I'll be getting Mizukami's previous tankoubon, Otoutoutachi no Tsuiseki Jijou...the uke looks a little too young to be interesting.

posted at 1:15 PM

 
The October order, placed at jamall instead of fujisan. It's large enough to indicate the death knell to Tokyo in November. I'm beginning to think that anything short of a vision of Tokyo Tower grabbing the Rainbow Bridge by the hand and skipping into Mandarake to buy Odoru doujinshi is going to be the death knell to the trip. (You know, there's a point at which indecision makes the decision for you.)

1. Makete tamaru ka! shirobara no kisu by KIZUKI Jin
   the novel. What was I thinking?
2. G Defend 16 by MORIMOTO Shuw
3. Kiss yori Toiki yori 2 by KAGUYAMA Kazuho
4. Shiawase no Category by NISHIMURA Syuko
5. Trouble Maker by AGAWA Kouko
6. Waka! by KIRISHIMA Tamaki
7. Senshi wa Izuko de Nemurunoka by SAKURA Rie
8. Seiyaku by NOMURA Keiichi
9. Himitsu na Body 21 vol.2 by CHI-RAN
10. Love Hustler 2 by HIIRO Reiichi
11. Seifukusha by KABUTOMARU Chouko
12. Arabian de Naito!? by NANASE Kai
13. Makka ni Nagareru Bokura no Chishio by TORAMARU
14. Holy Blood 3 by ISHIDA Ikue
15. Tantei Aoneko 2 by MOTONI Modoru
16. Koi mo 2 dome daze HORII Jingorou
17. Tarantula by MINAMI Megumu
18. Okini Mesumama by AJIMINE Sakufu
19. Sora ni taiyou ga aru kagiri by AIHARA Miki
20. Hot Gimmick 1-3 by AIHARA Miki
    I've fallen behind in my shoujo shopping since I've been carless.

posted at 5:45 PM

 
The Autumn issue of Shousetsu Beast includes a "Harry Potter Love Essay" by AJIMINE Sakufu. Judging from the cover of the title she published with Biblos last year, she would be a student fan rather than a Sirius/Lupin or James Potter/Snapes fan, but I still wish I could see what she has to say about the Harry Potter phenomenon from a Japanese perspective.
posted at 11:11 PM

 
The unfillable hole meets the recognized error
Watching Hikaru no Go the way I watch all television -- while writing at my computer -- I missed the crucial moment between Hikaru's sitting down to play against Touya-oyaji and his running away from the table and out of the building. I filled in the scene with the assumption that Fujiwara no Sai had freaked out. He always had electric reactions when he saw Touya. Maybe something had bubbled over. "A? Why did Sai freak out?" A: "I don't remember the scene, and my manga is at home."

Then I picked up the first eight volumes of the manga (if there's ever any question about fanworks generating income for the series' creator...) and find that encounter in volume 1. Hikaru picks up the stone between index and forefinger (previously, he had been using index and thumb) and sets it down on the board with great confidence. A panicked expression crosses his face and he leaps up from the table and runs out of the room to a nearby park, where he rants at Sai. Aha! "A, I misinterpreted the scene before. It was Hikaru who freaked out because Sai used his body." A: "Actually, *Hikaru* misinterpreted that. Hikaru *thought* Sai had taken over his body to play. What had really happened was Hikaru's hidden talent just popped out."

*cough* Sure, I would have seen that. If I had read the wavy ghost dialogue: "Hikaru, chigaimasu!" Maybe. Picture-reading requires checks and balances.

posted at 11:38 PM

 
I was tempted by the seventeen volumes of Saiyuki anime for $80. Really tempted. All fifty episodes! No rent-and-return! In the end, I didn't pass because of the price or because it was unsubbed, but because I don't have room for seventeen clamshell-cased VHS tapes on my shelves. My inner four-year-old (who spends most of her time out, anyway) still gets to whine, 'cause she wanted it and couldn't have it. Not fair!
posted at 11:46 PM

 
Hikaru no Go
I rented the first four volumes of Hikaru no Go from my (not particularly) local Japanese video store, and I now totally understand Kodaka's unfortunate obsession with Kaga. He's a real middle-school hottie. Pity Kodaka writes him in a way I find utterly repulsive. I understand the urge to transform Mitani into a seductive, manipulative uke, but Tsutsui is presented a bit younger in the anime than I expected (yes, they're all the same age, but I had given him some of Kogure's maturity when he's really just a very earnest child).

Because Hikaru and Akira are not growing up fast enough to satisfy me (just kiss already!), I've decided to fixate on Akira's dad x Sai. (Who would let a little thing like a lack of corporeality stand in the way of True Love?) Watching the anime has settled one question: Akira will be the seme. Yowza.

Tennis no Oujisama
Oh. My. God. Could Prince of Tennis be any more blatant with the yaoi? After my Hikaru no Go marathon, I could barely force my eyes to stay on the tv monitor for a second anime, and the first couple of episodes didn't make a big impression on me. Then they brought out the Seigaku tennis club and I started to pay attention (because I am a complete Kodaka whore, and if she says the boys are yaoi-worthy, I'm going to watch). In the last episode on volume 1, the intimidating (high school?) team member Kaidoh plays against the titular "Prince of Tennis," middle-schooler Ryoma. When Kaidoh flubs a shot, his eyes go all reptilian at the prospect of actually losing a game to this upstart kid. Cut to the Echizen household, where the king of tennis is reading a rather wholesome girly magazine while teasing the family kitty...with a toy snake (one of those wooden, hinged deals). Cut to a closeup of Ryoma-kun's face with its enormous kittenish eyes and *zing* went the yaoi in my heart. What do I want to see more, Kaidoh x Ryoma or Ryoma being handed his ego on platter?

Incidentally, Tezuka has a frightfully deep voice to be ukefied by Kodaka. Then again, I get all swoony over Momoshiro, whom she hasn't touched at all, so...

Finder no Hyouteki
So far, Finder no Hyouteki has been the big yaoi winner from the September manga order. (The unfortunate Japlish translation on the front cover is "You're My Love Prize in Viewfinder.") I had been trying to order a copy since the book was published in March, and it always came back as out of stock. Now the title is in its FOURTH printing in just six months. Way to go, Ayano Yamane. Yamane's art and character distribution remind me a bit of Shiuko Kano. A mix of the young and cute or young and impetuous or young and athletic with thirty-something sophisticates and outright oyaji. Of course, this means that I am sometimes more interested in the secondary characters than the protagonists, but *shrug* that's nothing new.

The title refers to three episodic stories about a young freelance photographer and an older yakuza-type businessman who decides to teach him a lesson for snooping. The second of these tales gets extra points for not killing off the gorgeous Chinese gangster. (I'll have to keep this volume in mind when I'm looking for a manga to illustrate the "rape as handshake" yaoi mentality.) The title stories vie for the position of my favorite with "Koi suru Shokubutsu," a short story about two high school students who suspect their fathers are having a homosexual affair. The boys are good looking, but I want more with the dads, darnit!

posted at 3:56 PM

 
Both my September Fujisan order and my Kodaka doujinshi order arrived today. It's going to take something extraordinary to drag me out of the house this weekend.

All the Kodaka dj include a note requesting that the books not be re-sold in net auctions. This isn't a problem for me, since they'll be peeled out of my cold, dead hands in 40 years, but I do wonder about the reason for the warning. Is the artist offended by inflated prices? Afraid of auctions undercutting her own fixed own price? It's worth noting that the the message is in Japanese, unlike the notes in English on Japanese web pages warning ignorant gaijin not to steal the graphics. Since the Japanese enjoy the illusion that only Japanese read Japanese, I assume that this note is directed at the native audience. Hooray!

Hana to Ryuu 12 begins where the last volume left off, at the Sagano household in Osaka. Kai is torturing Masa by expressing a preference for Ryuji. I didn't think about it in volume 11, since I was so excited about seeing young Masa and younger Kai, but this affection must remind Ryuji of his relationship with his stepbrother in those halcyon days. I'll have to pull out all the dictionaries and A-sensei (for help with the Kansai-ben) to translate the conversation between Masa and Araki-san. The book ends with Araki-san telephoning Hibiki, who is casually raping Iba. This series is all about family ties, of course.

I find nothing redeemable in the Kaga or Mitani characters in Kodaka's Hikaru no Go books. Tsutsui's sincerity would own my heart if he were prettier, but I really really want Kodaka to do Hikaru and Akira. Which one is her seme type? Would it be a rambunctious, Enjouji-like (in attitude, not appearance) Hikaru topping the intense Akira? I love an intense uke. Or would it be the more tightly-wound Akira topping a cute, protesting Hikaru? Will these two just grow up already?!!

What I like about her Prince of Tennis doujinshi are the inter-couple interactions between Kodaka's favored pairings. Fuji (spooky face, except when he's kissing Tezuka, my favorite) offers romantic advice to Kikumaru. The steadier Tezuka and Oishi study together and live in exasperation and fear of the trouble the other pair will bring them. Kikumaru is too too cute for me. I think I would rather see Oishi x Tezuka, but *shrug* there ya go. What do you do with two characters who are too withdrawn to pair up with anyone on their own? I'll check out the anime some day, just to see how Kodaka's version maps to the original characters.

The September manga order included

1. Aniki Joutou by Shiuko Kano
2. Finder no Hyouteki by Ayano Yamane
3. Happy Honey Life by Jun Kajimoto
4. Kedamono no Onedan by Hitotsubu Izumi
5. Kizetsu Restore by Yoichiro Kohga
6. Kohri no Mamono no Monogatari 22 by Shiho Sugiura
7. Tokyo Yabanjin by Sonoko Sakuragawa
8. Yuri to Yura by Shushushu Sakurai

...and a couple of volumes of shoujo manga. So far, I've only had a chance to skim Kohri 22. Sugiura has forgotten the importance of snuggles and smoochies. Well, okay, there's a cute Wild and Rapunzel moment, but I don't need Ishuca to demonstrate his strength by NOT flinging himself into dark-haired Blood's arms at the first opportunity. Least he could have done was ask to braid that long hair.

Now, before I place the October order, I have to decide whether or not I'm headed to Japan for Thanksgiving. Indecision is my least attractive attribute.

posted at 7:27 PM

 
decisions, decisions
Reasons NOT to go to Tokyo in November:

1. The money should go toward a new car. Or a new computer.
2. School.
3. Work.
4. Break Dad's heart, why don't I?
5. Alone and unjapanesed?

Reasons to go to Tokyo in November:

1. Odoru doujinshi!
2. It's calendar season.
3. Drama cds! Video games!
4. Low airfare.
5. c'mon! It's Tokyo!

posted at 5:37 PM

 
rescued reads
Instead of working on my XML assignment, I spent the day giving second chances to some books that hadn't made an impact on me when they first arrived. Picture-reading begins with a book (or magazine chapter) making enough of an impression to motivate the illiterate reader to stick with it. What makes that impression varies by reader, I suppose. Pretty character designs, graphic sex scenes, the fact that she just spent $x.xx on this book, so she's going to figure it out, darnit. For me, it's story. It doesn't have to be the story -- the story I would get if I were translating -- just a story. What makes A x B in this book different from M x N from that book? I usually skim a new book until the pictures begin to assemble themselves into characterization and plot.

• Over Reach Boy by Ai Hasukawa
  Six stories, five couples, little or no impression beyond the sweetness of the first pairing's (Kaoru and Sin) meeting when Kaoru was a street jewelry vendor and Sin was just a boy. Their character designs carry over to the book's third chapter, which is unfortunate, since that story is about a new couple, Tetsuya and Reiji. I was momentarily intrigued by the idea that Kaoru might have walked into a club to see the devoted Sin making out with a girl, but no such luck. That scene remains a bit interesting, though, since Reiji is so pretty that Tetsuya originally thinks he's seeing a lesbian couple.
• Kiss no Mukou by Aoi Kujyo
  If nothing else, my complete indifference to this book is proof that sex scenes aren't enough to grab a picture-reader's interest. Not that this book is a graphic sex-fest, by any stretch of the imagination, but it moves beyond Over Reach Boy's chaste smooching to discreet bed scenes in four of its six stories. I think the turnoff here is the shoujoesque art style. I was only able to stay with the art through the first three chapters, in which love changes the friendship shared by three adolescent boys: Shirou loves Kirio who loves Eita who loves a girl. It's a sweet story, spoiled in part by Eita's inexplicable appeal for Kirio, but rescued by the fast forward into Shirou and Kirio's future.
• Daddy! Arisawa Family by Sakuya Kurekoshi
  Family comedy about a too-young, too-cool father whose teenaged son is in love with a male classmate. The secondary characters in this story are a lot of fun. I had just enough of the middle-aged delinquents who haven't changed since their wild younger days with the senior Arisawa (Riku), but I would have loved to see more of Naoya's three older brothers. Unfortunately, the picture-reading fell apart after Takashina's apartment burned down and he moved in with Riku and Tomoki. Too hard to tell teh difference between the three dark-haired men, even if two were substantially older than the third.
• Sonna no Ai ja nai by Kazuna Uchida
  This weekend's big winner. The first time I picked this book up, I must not have been in the mood for high school delinquents or Uchida's character designs or I may have been put off by the vague hint of slashy realism implied by the title ("they're not in love, they're just fuckbuddies"). Now, I like the reverse ijime, Hano's switch from the bottom in Atsushi's photos to the seme in his encounters with Atsushi, and the bawdy, vulgar humor of the two episodes in this volume. I'm more ambivalent about the third, unrelated, story entitled "Garnet," in which the spoiled but sexually abused scion of a wealthy family repeatedly lives out the paradigm of his father's murder until...spoiler, spoiler, spoiler. I don't have much patience with tragic hysteria, and the devoted family retainer boasts my least favorite Uchida character design, but the hired assassin has some appeal. Still, the tragic tales go down better with translation.

posted at 1:14 AM

 
visual bias (aka "I can't make my eyes stick to the page long enough to read their stories")

MONCHI Kaori: a member of the rat-faced adolescent boy school of character design. A half-circle for the top of the head, fused with an inverted triangle for the jaw. Add saucer eyes for the uke or sloe-eyed slits for the seme, and voila. If you like this kind of thing, Monchi would be heaven. If you don't... I hate it, but I'm always fighting against the urge to purchase Kokuhaku no Kotoba no Nai Kuni because the cover hides these traits.

KAYAMA Yumi: her adult males look like her adolescent males to me. I met her adolescents first, so even though I want to enjoy recent volumes with adult characters, I see teenagers playing dress-up.

FUKIYAMA Rico: her males of any age -- does she do adult males? -- look like sugar cookies.

Don't judge a book by its cover
Nice! Drap Comics offers both cover and interior scans of all the tankoubon they've published so far.

notes from left field
Just when I thought shota was fading away, Shobunkan starts a new anthology series entitled "Shota-Comi."

posted at 1:00 PM

 
ah, serendipity
What was it...a week ago somebody on AMLA said she was interested in "manly" character designs because otherwise she would be reading m/f stuff? Another listmember recommended Shushushu Sakurai. Today, I picked Sakurai's Otoko no Aishikata off my TBR pile and found -- after 4 or 5 yaoi stories of varying quality -- an m/f story the author originally published ca. 1997. A m/f story packaged in a tankoubon published under a BL imprint (Pixy Comics Aqua). Yet another sign that western prejudices have no place in this genre.

ah, newbies
Spoken with some degree of affection, I promise. Personally, I think when someone delightedly points out the "great discovery" of a new resource for ordering manga that turns out to be an old resource, it indicates a lack of centralized information in the fandom. Of course, the "great discovery" is linked from the great clearinghouse of anime and manga fandom, the Anipike, so I guess some people think the rest of us need to be hit over the heads with bricks. Oh, never mind. That wasn't going anywhere particularly affectionate at all.

What's great about Jpqueen for the Japanese-illiterate fan?

the instructions are in English

each listing includes a cover image...and an ISBN, if the book is a commercial release (order new! order new!)

hyperlink madness! No need to perform bothersome searches - hyperlinks by title and author and genre

What's not-so-great about Jpqueen for any fan?

random prices, some fairly high for used books. If you're going to pay $5.90 to jpqueen for a used copy of Tantei Aoneko 2, why not pay $6.33 to jamall for a brand-new copy? (Of course, I also feel that way about ordering manga from Aestheticism's Cybershoppe. Put in a little extra effort, people, and order new!)

awkward navigation (try getting from the shopping cart to where you were when you placed your order...better use your back button and not theirs) and bad site design in general (it's just not pretty or elegant).

posted at 5:37 PM

 
Coming up with a monthly manga order involves opening multiple browser windows, copying and pasting, and transliterating. The whole process would be so much easier if I just placed my orders through amazon.co.jp or bk1.co.jp. I could pretend I don't because neither carries Tousuisha titles, and this month I have to order G Defend 16, but the truth is that I think a Japanese business is justified in assuming it can and will conduct its customer service in Japanese, unless the site specifically states otherwise. If a problem came up, how would I handle it?

6 handy windows to have open during the whole process:

1. Comic Shinkan Lineup
   to identify the monthly new releases
2. bk1
   to look up ISBN numbers
3. Jeffrey's Japanese-English Dictionary Server
   to transliterate titles and artists' names
4. Slash-kun's Japanese yaoi publications news/information
   to see a list of monthly yaoi releases, already transliterated. Then why do I bother with #1 and #3 above?
   • because I'm also interested in monthly shoujo releases
   • because I need the ISBNs, and it's easier to copy and paste the kanji into bk1's search field.
   • because I often recognize favorite titles/artists better in kanji than in romaji
   • because slash-kun has occasionally transliterated a title or name inaccurately (HUGE ego-boost for me, incidentally)
5. Manga Bonbons
   to see the covers of the artists' earlier tankoubon (the Japanese online bookstores tend to be weak on providing cover images for books published more than a year or two ago)
6. Fujisan
   to place the order

Of course, Comic Shinkan Lineup doesn't list Tousuisha titles, either. (I could use the monthly lineup from animate news, but I prefer to skim down a page of titles and authors.) So the last step is always Tousuisha's web site to see if there's a Sugiura or Morimoto title being released that month. If there is, then it's off to Jamall to grab the ISBN.
posted at 3:07 PM

 
Waiting for Kodaka...
My supplier notified me two days ago that my K2 Company doujinshi order had been "duly shipped" on October 7 (gotta love the international date line). I'm impressed, since I submitted the order on September 27. I'm also impatient, since I actually dropped by my private mail box this afternoon to see if it had arrived. Unfortunately, I opted for SAL shipping, which does not come with a handy-dandy tracking number.

To distract myself, I should probably compose my October manga (+novel) order, but Fujisan hasn't mailed my September books yet. (I can't believe it's a shoujo manga slowing everything down.) Besides, the longer I wait, the more ISBNs I'll be able to find at bk1.

This is frustrating
Naruto is now animated, so I go to check out the web site in anticipation of the series suddenly catching fire with western yaoistas the way the manga has with the Japanese. (What builds a fandom in the west? Animation, translations, fanfic.) At this moment, there is one Naruto page listed on the Anipike. Let's check back in 12 months.

Anyway, for a couple of years now, I have assumed that I knew what Naruto was. Or, to put this in the correct sequence: a couple of years ago, I saw a collection of doujinshi by different artists featuring these average-looking guys in basic black and facekerchiefs. I somehow got the idea that these were Naruto dj and understood instantly why this series would not get much hype among western fans. Now I visit the Naruto web site and see the characters are the generic spikey-haired proto-anime types. So who were those masked men?

posted at 6:55 PM

 
I regret not starting a reading journal 5+ years ago when I bought my first manga. Yes, the blog medium makes this easier, but would it have killed me to keep it in Word on my computer? My first manga purchase: random volumes of Zetsuai/Bronze (Bronze 5, if I remember correctly, the one where Hirose kidnaps and "defiles" Izumi) and random volumes of Hana Yori Dango. My first manga discovery (i.e. a purchase based on no previous knowledge of the story or art): Kanata Kara. My first BL manga (and anime, come to think of it): Kizuna.

One thing I've lost is the opportunity to capture my past errors as a picture-reader. Most mistakes have been overwritten in my memory with the revised reading. I can remember one of my earliest errors: Zetsuai 1989 3 concludes with a short story competely unrelated to the Zetsuai plot. At a time before I knew how to identify names, I tried to fit this piece into the Zetsuai narrative. And my most recent misreading: the character of "Billy" introduced in G Defend 11. Until I saw the b&w "cast" picture at the back of volume 14, where Billy is wearing quite the sexy evening gown, I had no idea "he" was a "she." Billy was built on an elegant biseinen model, not at all like Iwase's cute little sister, but Morimoto doesn't leave her gender ambiguous to the Japanese reader: when her character is revealed to the members of the garrison, a big deal is made of the fact that this woman might be mistaken for a man. The clue for me, had I been reading the text even at my level of Japanese, would have been the use of the word "kanojo" in reference to Billy. But I was skimming the pictures, not particularly interested in Billy's backstory.

In the back of my head is the idea that keeping a reading journal would also have mapped any trends in my BL preferences over the past 5 years. Although my tastes have always been pretty eclectic. I didn't go through a "willowy, silver-haired angst" period before passing on to "dark-haired, muscular eroticism." I'm not a collector, I'm an accumulator.

posted at 1:34 AM

 
One (or Two) Hit Wonders
These artists made me a fan with a book or two, and I'm still waiting for them to take me back there.

• ASAGIRI Yuu, Knock Three Times and Second Love
  Knock Three Times was the first manga I felt absolutely confident summarizing completely on my own, because the sex is the story. It's a fun story, over-the-top and populated by characters I would find repellant in reality but somehow manage to be appealing on the page. I've never been fond of Asagiri's kittenish ukes, but I love her uber-semes.
• HIGASHIZATO Kirico, Shatei Hani
  A little different than the others on the list, in that Higashizato had a substantial body of work that I was mostly ignoring until Shatei Hani came along. It's kind of a yaoi screwball comedy...at least, that's what I tell myself. Otherwise, because of the high school setting, I might have to think it was a yaoi Porky's or American Pie. Eeeew. Anyway, it's the protagonists who won me over. Plot? What plot?
• KUROKAWA Azusa, Kaeranai Natsu
  I blame myself. I want more funny, sexy, romantic stories from Kurokawa, but she wants to focus on real relationships. I think I need the humorous and improbable elements to counter Kurokawa's shounenesque character designs. I can only handle X amount of reality.
• MINAMI Megumu, Hanaotoshi
  The penalty for producing something truly extraordinary is that nothing of lesser quality will satisfy, though Minami's White Rose was a close runner-up. While her character designs have never lost their visual appeal for me, their unrelenting similarity leeches the newness from her later publications. And, frankly, her storytelling seems to have degenerated into a kind of incoherent eroticism.
• SHIMA Asahi, Body Kiss Love
  Her stick-thin, over-emotional, under-intellectual ukes really grate on me in later publications, but the scenarios in this volume mangaed to push my buttons. Two of the stories -- "Body Kiss Love" and "Fall" -- have worthwhile sequels in Love Affair.
• YOSHIKI Aya, Gekka Bijin and Tsubaki no Rin
  I've always winced at the character designs, but the story concepts in these volumes swayed me: the classic straight-arrow student falling for the school's bad boy in Gekka Bijin and the anthropomorphic population of Tsubaki no Rin.

posted at 8:02 PM

 

• G Defend, 15-10

Too much of the day was spent looking for G Defend 14, which went AWOL just when I decided to read my way backwards through Esumi's story. Poor little mouse of a guy. Morimoto doesn't allow him a single heroic action. Doesn't he at least deserve a word of praise for trailing around in the dangerous wake of his boss, Miyazawa? Unfortunately, I think he and Gray have reached the end of their story arc with the chapter at the end of volume 15, and all we'll see of the two of them from now on (when Gray's not doing his job getting shot at, of course) are those cute little "couple" moments Morimoto supplies for all the paired characters in this series. Nice touches, those, but I want Esumi to push his boss out of the way of projectile weaponry just once. Esumi won his badge of honor from me when he confessed his love to Iwase, but I want the others to see he's not just an administrative cog.

Despite the lack of fireworks in this chapter, I was pleased to see Morimoto finally give the Gray x Esumi romance its own story arc. The parallels are a bit convenient: two lovers individually rejected by Iwase and Ishikawa come to love each other. It could even be argued that what makes the pair fall in love with each other is very much like what they saw in their unrequited love. Gray falls in something like love at first sight when he sees Esumi without his glasses. Without those, Esumi might be said to bear a slight physical resemblance to Ishikawa. And thsi kind of impulsive emotional behavior echoes Gray's enthusiastic pursuit of Ishikawa. Esumi falls in love with Gray for his life-saving heroics...and who doesn't love Iwase for his dramatic rescues?

I also spent some time today thinking about artists who do the "reversible" thing but don't show the couple reverse, keeping it all in the narrative. Soh Aoki does that in Fancy Love, apparently, and then there's Katou and Iwaki's honeymoon night in Haru wo Daiteita 6. Is the second inning omitted to avoid jarring the sensibilities of fans who are more comfortable with seme x uke distinctions? Is it handled this way because a sex scene carries one emotional message in the author's mind and there's no sense playing out the same emotional dynamic a second time, with the physical positions reversed but the feelings the same?

posted at 7:05 PM

 
I'm stuck in the rut of old favorites. Series like Haru wo Daiteita, Kizuna, Kohri no Mamono no Monogatari, and Love Mode. Artists like Bohra Naono and Shiuko Kano and Reiichi Hiiro and Kou Fujisaki and Miya Ikushima. I still love them, but it has been a long time since I've discovered someone or something NEW in manga to get excited about. In fact, I think the last time was Ikushima's Hitodenashi no Koi, and that was three years ago.

Today, I was looking at the monthly new publications list on Biblos's site and thinking that it might be time for me to get seriously serious about learning Japanese, so I can shift from BL manga to novels. Okay, I just want to read this novel by Jin Kizuki. It's Ranmaru and ... some sexy Kansai guy. (This is not my Masa x Ranmaru fantasy, really! Look at that beard. Masa would be appalled.) The cover artist is Shinano Oumi, incidentally, who is a hit-or-miss artist with me. Really hit-or-miss, as in I like only 1/3 of any tankoubon she's published. The last time I was this tempted by a noberu, it was Locus of Blue. I desperately wanted that series to be mangafied, not just for Mamiya Oki's artwork, but because the covers introduced me to characters whose story I wanted to follow. This book is a little different -- I don't doubt that I would happily read it as a manga, but I would love to take a crack at the prose. Oh, what the heck. I'm ordering it.

posted at 7:06 PM

 
No new titles today. I'm still pondering Sadahiro's work. Does the increased "occidentalism" in her manga represent the start of a trend in yaoi? Manga is as imitative as it is innovative. Will there be more reversibles (Nitta Youka, Kazuna Uchida)? More of that slashy faux-grittiness and anti-romanticism? Would I recognize it if there were? Japanese culture is so foreign to me that Japanese "realism" might still read as a fantasy landscape.

Just in case...there are other sources for stylized romance. Tonight, I killed time waiting for West Wing by watching a costume drama in Chinese on KTSF. I would have watched the new Japanese drama I received on Saturday, but I was concerned I would lose track of the time. Besides, the protagonist in this Chinese thing had Hotohori-hair. How could I resist? Although I'm addicted to the Japanese dramas and love the "Bollywood" clips this station airs, I've never been inclined to pause in my channel flipping to view the Chinese-language programming. Too bad, really, since I understand that a couple of months ago they broadcast the popular Taiwanese live-action version of Hana Yori Dango, Meteor Garden. After one hour of this show, I'm filled with questions: where was it filmed? Why does it look as though every role except the monkish teachers has been re-dubbed? It's subtitled in what looks to be Mandarin, so what language are the actors (or their dub voice actors) speaking? How can I know so little about the rest of Asia?

posted at 11:55 PM

 
I've been reading lots of Sadahiro Mika today, thanks to a post on AMLA praising the mangaka's western sensibility in recent titles like Buddy System.

• Rub in Love
• Agnus Dei
• Neji no Kaiten
• Love Songs
• Buddy System

My worst genre nightmare: the westernization of BL manga. If I wanted western sensibility in my m/m fiction, I would read slash. There's a trickle-down effect here, since I tell the slashers that, if I wanted the reality of gay life in my m/m fiction, I would read gay porn. Of course, Sadahiro has been doing reversibles and western settings for a while now. The difference with Buddy System is the overt attempt at a shift to a buddy-show type relationship between the protagonists of the story. Starsky and Hutch, not The Odd Couple. I didn't recognize how essential this was to slash fandom until I remarked on how slashy Odoru Daisousasen is. A viewer with a keener eye for genre conventions responded that she would have expected the designated pairing to be partners at work, in that case. Anyway, Sadahiro is a big fan of American police dramas and detective shows: she cites Miami Vice, Nash Bridges, and Homicide in her profile. And rumor has it that she loves Oz. Her next story will even be set in a prison.

The "buddy" relationship in Buddy System might be patterned on western slash (I'm not the best judge of that), but the character designs are still 99% yaoi. The focus is clearly on making an aesthetic impression. Even a guy pretending that he's turning tricks wouldn't wear that cape. But does this really differentiate yaoi from genre fiction created in the west? Mutant X, one of last season's new syndicated under-plotted sci-fi shows, had the most disconcerting habit of ending each episode -- sometimes, it felt more like every scene -- with an elaborately established cast pose. The cast didn't act so much as vogue their way through each episode. And the ads for the latest Clive Barker film remind me that horror has always been a genre based on aesthetics more than plot.

Despite Sadahiro's preference for reversibles (which she discusses in the Free Talks in Neji no Kaiten and Buddy System) and my preference for clearly defined seme x uke roles, she still managed to enslave me with Agnus Dei. Shima Asahi has me in the same trap: I read ONE really great story by an author, and I have to buy every new publication to see if she can take me back to that place. Sadahiro hasn't done it yet, though she came close with Love Songs. Like Agnus Dei, Love Songs is a collection of high-concept hardcore short stories. The difference is that AD stroked my kinks while LS's attempts at being edgy left me feeling like I had been exposed to a freak show. To each her own, but I'm not the type who would pay $5 to watch some guy pound nails up his nose, or to watch lovers wallow in their own self-destructive desires. Well not unless it's Bronze.

posted at 7:47 PM