I need to start by mentioning that there is a hand job on page 2 of this book. Now THIS is my kind of yaoi! If only all books were like this. Think how much better Harry Potter would improve if Harry and Malfoy just whipped their “wands” out and got it over with in the first book. “That doesn’t make any sense, those characters weren’t gay,” you may be thinking. Well, a lot of fanfiction would disagree. See, you just have to read between the lines! Try it the next time you watch a Marvel movie, you’ll get all kinds of plot points…
So uh, this is basically gay softcore PWP ninja porn for girls. And call me a sucker but I might as well have a bullseye on my back in terms of the people who make up the target market for this sort of stuff, so naturally I loved it and was inclined to ignore some of its flaws (“some” being the keyword). What can I say, I am an easy customer when it comes to hot bishies porking each other in ninja garb despite what might be something like a 25+ year age gap in the first story with dubious consent. ✋ Ay-yai-yai…
There are three stories in this book, and all of them are light on plot and heavy on penis. In the first one, we have the couple on the cover – master ninja Yuuzuki and his young student Subaru, to whom he gives his first real mission. However, it requires some ‘special training’ beforehand. You can probably guess where this is going…
This story had a rather uncomfortable age gap – Yuuyuki is easily 40+ and and Subaru is confirmed high-school age. Yuuyuki comes off as a total perv with a high school uniform fetish to boot instead of a caring partner, to make things worse. Despite the ick factor, it was my favorite story in the book because it had the best sex and didn’t try to pretend to have a real plot. I feel gross typing that but I tried to blissfully ignore the age thing.
In the second story we have two more ninjas in the same clan, Asagi and Hiiragi. Right after they get done talking about how important it is not to get distracted during their jobs, they proceed to literally have sex in the middle of a river during a mission. It’s a wonder any of these guys are still alive when they seem far more interested in boning each other than anything. Not sure gay sex counts as ninjutsu but I’d love to be proven wrong.
This same pairing is featured in another English-released work of one-shots by this author, Cause of My Teacher. This book has a lot in common with that one – the art style, character types, and pairings are nearly identical. I liked Shinobu Kokoro better as it seemed more put together but I have most of the same comments about the art, which I felt looked kinda rough and sketchy in many places. This seems like a stylistic thing but some of the anatomy and proportions look like they could use some tightening regardless. She also tends to draw faces with this noticeable hatching that I found distracting. But I think she draws well overall – it’s better than a lot of BL art from this period, and she can definitely create good-looking characters – especially cute ukes.
The last story is the odd one out but has the same pairing dynamics – basically a kid named Futaba gets lost and injured in the mountains and his life is saved by a beautiful snow spirit named Miyuki, who rapes him in his sleep…in order to turn him into a snow spirit too, in order to save his life (that’s certainly a new excuse). They then proceed to have a…long distance relationship? If I had to call the plot anything it would be ‘unnecessary’ and it was definitely the silliest excuse for sex of the three. I like long-haired semes but that was about the most unique aspect of it, and it ended the book on a dry note.
Even though it was super ridiculous, I still enjoyed it because it has nice-looking characters and was unapologetically smutty. My standards are low, I know…but really, the sex is plentiful and the book mostly doesn’t pretend like you’re reading it for the story so it wastes little time delivering the goods. There is the issue however of nearly all the sex being almost-noncon, with mentioned-but-not-shown definite noncon in the last story. She tries to soften the almost-noncon into dubcon in some situations by making the hesitant uke suddenly fall madly in love with the seme out of the blue right before they fuck, but it’s a rather thin veneer. If you’re hoping for any sort of relationship development here, your princess is in another castle.
Temari Mastumoto is most well-known for Kyo Kara Maoh!, and she actually is currently working on a spinoff which is kind of surprising considering it’s such an old series. In full disclosure I have not read Kyo Kara Maoh! yet even though I own it, although my sister described it as ‘yaoi for children’ which definitely piques my interest. She has one more title on the BLU imprint I haven’t read, Just My Luck, which will be coming up eventually.
TL;DR: This is essentially gay softcore ninja porn for girls. At least it does not really pretend to be serious about the plot(s), which includes two shinobi who suddenly realize their feelings for each other bumping uglies out in the middle of a river during a mission. There was also a super awkward age gap (a teenager with a guy who could be older than his dad, super yikes) that made the first story uncomfortable. The mangaka tried to put a bit of relationship development in to make some could-be-noncon look like dubcon but it didn’t do much to conceal it. I tried to look past this because there was some stuff about it that was hot and it had a lot of sex with good-looking characters, but there is a definite “ick” factor in a few parts. If ninja BL is your thing, this is one of the few we have in English.