Surprisingly, this is my first Fumi Yoshinaga title. I never actively sought out Antique Bakery although I somehow still own it, and it’s among her most well-known works (you know you’ve written a hit when it gets made into a Korean live-action movie). Though not yaoi itself, she made a lengthy catalog of yaoi doujinshi to go with it that I am going to go out on a limb and guess is probably a bit different from Maki Murakami’s Gravitation dj, but one can dream.
Yoshinaga is a peculiar figure in the BL world, not in the least because one of her best and most well-known series is not even yaoi at all – I am talking about Ooku, a mature and sublime reverse-harem series set in alternate feudal Japan that has won or been nominated for a Hamilton-esque amount of awards. I am kind of curious how different it is from the rest of her mostly-yaoi body of work, but it’s quite long, so it may be a while before I get around to reading it.
Anyway – Solfege was one of her earlier books, although I believe was only licensed after the success of Antique Bakery. She has a very signature art style, the appreciation of which varies among fujoshi. It doesn’t exactly look dated, but it has a very “classic” manga feel that has more in common withq Osamu Tezuka’s style than many other modern mangakas (much less yaoi mangakas). I admit I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about it, and remember flipping through her books curiously when I’d come across them and feeling unsure if I’d like them. I did eventually realize that she can definitely draw and definitely tell a story, so with those two boxes checked, I felt I needed to read something of hers sooner rather than later.
‘Solfege’ is an actual word that apparently means learning the basics of music theory. I never did learn this one in all my years of music lessons so feel a bit cheated, but on the bright side I will now always associate it with gay sex – and for an OT-rated title, there is quite a bit of sex in here, which I think we can all agree is praiseworthy. Not that you really see anything, of course – not enough to even have to be censored, actually. Thankfully, reading yaoi has given me a great imagination in this realm.
The story starts off a bit confusing, but once it warms up it drives right along quite nicely. There are a few moments where you have to kind of assume Yaoi Logic is active and not ask questions. It revolves around the relationship of an aspiring student singer named Tanaka and his teacher, Kagayama. Tanaka is a bit of a delinquent and Kagayama takes him under his wing to coach him into a good music school. Even casual fujoshi will probably find no mystery in how this develops, but there are moments I definitely didn’t predict, like someone getting stabbed. Yoshinaga is a very gifted storyteller and I was genuinely surprised how much the story pulled on my heartstrings. It’s very sincere and surprisingly mature, and spans several years which allows the two main characters to change a lot. By the middle I was definitely hooked. You’ll also be thrilled to know she didn’t save all the sex scenes for the end. #NotAllHeroesWearCapes.
Perhaps my favorite thing about Yoshinaga’s work is that she uses minimal dialogue, relying on character’s facial expressions and gestures to communicate where most others would use words. She isn’t afraid to let panels ‘breathe’ and leave dialogue out if something can be felt or inferred instead of spoken or explained, and her minimalistic backgrounds magnify this effect. This gives her work a sort of quiet intensity, and sometimes you feel like you’re looking at a jumble of snapshots and letting your mind fill in the blanks.
Of course, the catch 22 with this is that the character’s expressions really have to be on point so the reader knows exactly how to interpret the scene. Her expressions are varied and convincing for the most part, but they don’t always match the emotion being expressed, which made me unsure how to read a few situations. There are a few anatomical/proportional anomalies as well, but nothing that will really stand out if you read a lot of yaoi. One other comment is that the pacing is a bit off in places, with some important events being glossed over in favor of more mundane moments – but not at all uncommon for slice-of-life. And Unlike other mangakas who do this, I get the sense that her pacing was deliberate and served the story as she wanted to tell it. Nothing was rushed or superfluous, and you’re only shown exactly what you’re meant to see.
TL;DR: if you’re unfamiliar with Yoshinaga’s yaoi work, this poignant slice of slice story is a great place to start. Its quiet energy and surprising maturity caught me off guard. Though the ‘classic’ feel of her art style may not be appealing to everyone, it grew on me – but with storytelling of this caliber, I don’t think I would have been too bothered if it hadn’t.