I thought ‘Close the Last Door’ was the last Yugi Yamada in my collection yet to be read, but this one snuck under the radar. This makes what, at least six or seven individual titles she had localized in English? Those ain’t rookie numbers. I do think her work we have is a bit of a mixed bag (worth mentioning that we don’t have any of her newer stuff, which is more polished), but I thought Spring Fever was one of the better ones in that group. This comes with the ‘Yamada caveat’ though – she’s got a weird art style that doesn’t vibe with everyone, me included – but I can look past that for great stories.
I’ve enjoyed Yamada’s short story compilations (Picnic, Glass Sky) more than her long ones (Laugh Under the Sun, Don’t Blame Me) because her stories and characters are where she shines and she’s good at distilling them into bite sized chunks without sacrificing the things that make them great stories, so short story compilations feel like her ‘highlight reels.’ Spring Fever is split in half between two complete stories, so it’s a bit of a happy medium between a one-shot compilation and a full-length book…and honestly, for a Yamada sort of story where typically not a lot actually happens, half a book was like the perfect length. It’s not too long where you feel like her plain-looking art and long slice of life bits are getting tiresome, and it’s not too short where there isn’t enough build to make you care about the characters.
The first story is a romance with a wild age gap, an 18 year old seme (Yusuke) and and a 38 year old uke (Takami), a widower with a young boy named Yu. I actually loved that about it, if for no other reason that it’s a pretty rare sort of pairing. Honestly though, most of Yamada’s characters look quite ambiguously aged, so it’s not like the age difference is super apparent.
…well except for when Takami mentions he changed Yusuke’s diaper a couple of times, because he had been friends with his family in the past, and then Yusuke reacts by kissing him. Different strokes for different folks…
The back calls it a “classic oyaji-uke (passive older guy) story” but honestly, seme-uke dynamics don’t really come into play much here and Takami doesn’t come off as passive. If the book of the book hadn’t said it, it could have been anyone’s guess who was the top, although the 18 year old topping the 38 year old makes the more interesting situation. Sadly they only have like one actual sex scene that lasts about two pages where Takami sucks off Yusuke and then they fuck, but weirdly I think this story would have worked fine as a shounen-ai.
Yamada always writes great stories and characters (particularly older characters, who are regularly featured in her work) and this was no exception. I especially loved Takami, I just think older characters with baggage are more interesting. His wife left him after she found out he was gay and then died, leaving him with his 4-year-old son he admits he has no idea how to raise. His psycho ex-boyfriend shows up to throw a wrench into things too, but Yusuke’s affection for the older man is unwavering despite the roadblocks. The cute little kid added some lighthearted moments to balance out the drama too. I tend to enjoy josei-flavored BL and Yamada is great at writing those sorts of tales. Her characters feel like real people, but their romances usually feel like fantasy, creating this interesting borderline of believability.
The second story features characters from one of the stories in Glass Sky, and also what I felt was the best story in that book. It literally won’t matter at all if you haven’t read that one, it’s a totally different and self-contained story, I only happened to recognize them because I read Glass Sky sort of recently. College-aged Ayu runs into his old junior high friend Naoki, and reminisces over Naoki in the past and the odd friendship they shared that became complicated. And by complicated I mean, Ayu walks in on him getting raped by his asshole classmate named Yada and then Naoki jerks Ayu off against his will while calling him a pervert. You know, the normal kinds of things that complicate friendships.
The story I referred to in Glass Sky is about Naoki and Yada’s relationship, and how Yada is basically a bully and a rapist. In this story, we see how Naoki was being raised by a busy single mom and feels like a burden, and doesn’t want to bring his problems to her – so he’s a bit screwed up in the head and has some issues. Not that his non-con encounter with Ayu is necessarily justified, but you feel sympathy for him as a sexually abused child acting out what he knows.
None of that ever really gets resolved, but Naoki seems to be in a much better place when Ayu encounters him again as an adult – although, it’s easy to imagine that he has a lot of baggage from his past that pours over into his relationships and sex life. It’s clear that Ayu’s past encounter with Naoki awakened something in Ayu that he never knew how to handle, and when their paths collide again so do their bodies, naturally.
I really liked both stories, it’s definitely worth checking out if you’re part of the crowd who prefers more mature and josei-flavored stuff, particularly if you’re a fan of Fumi Yoshinaga (Yamada is no Yoshinaga, but her stories often have the same sort of feel). I just wish that like….Yugi Yamada would have drawn a little better. It’s not as noticeable in this book as it is in others though, at least this one has shading and some backgrounds, but I just dislike how she draws faces and the way she handles line weight – it’s like she draws facial features with a charcoal stick. I mean her art style is definitely unique, but it’s just….unappealing to me, and no matter how much Yamada I read it never grows on me. I just look past it now, knowing that she reliably delivers great stories despite this.
TL;DR: These are two great BL dramas on the josei end of the spectrum, that come with the “Yamada caveat” of her, uh, particular sort of art style. The first features a pretty wild age gap – an 18 year old seme pursuing a 38-year old widower with a kid – but the gap is closed a bit by the fact that her characters often look ambiguously aged. The second is about a guy and an openly gay childhood friend with some abuse baggage he runs into after several years, and their emotionally complicated physical encounter in the past leading to unresolved feelings in the present. Yamada’s characters feel genuine enough that you can buy into their offbeat love stories, and proves again that she is consistently great at weaving mellow, refined plots and earnest characters. If only her art wasn’t so unappealing to me.