All signs pointed to me liking this story – historical setting, feisty rich boy uke falling for mysterious dashing thief, Honami art. But even with tasty ingredients the final product turned out to be a bit disappointing, similar to every experience I’ve ever had with baking brownies. Now I just give up beforehand and eat the batter raw like God intended…
Yukine Honami is a usually an artist only and not a writer (she might have been like an artist-for-hire or something), so the books she has drawn range from kinda shit to really good depending on the story she has to work with. Her soft wispy style definitely complements some kinds of stories more than others – mainly slow-burn romance with more understated characters and/or longer stories where the panels can breathe – but this was not such a story. I felt like the historical fantasy setting required more detail in the backgrounds and clothing than her art style provides to make it come to life, and the aristocrat uke’s strong and stubborn personality didn’t really translate very well in how he was drawn. Honami has a preferred “style” of drawing ukes that makes them all look nearly identical if you put them together and she rarely gets to draw one with a strong personality, so it was a bit of a wasted opportunity.
The story was a little muddy too and wobbled in parts but then caught its balance again – not sure if it was like this originally or was an adaptation issue. The paneling also felt a little tight in some parts, and her loose style so tightly boxed in felt sort of unbalanced. There was an ok amount of sex I guess but it was heavily tinged with dubcon which some people may not like. What’s that? I should just stop typing dribble and post some of the sex scenes? Well then, looks like we’d be friends irl..
It also has a nice ending though so there’s that. I just wished it was a little more consistent and detailed.
The second story was the dud of the three, it’s a high school comedy one about a boy being forced to join the student council run by two senpai brothers who constantly tease and hit on him. I didnt find it that funny at all really or even that coherent. Although Honami didn’t write it it has shades of Cant Win With You, another story she illustrated. The writer Kanamaru said in the back that she had her husband read it and he liked it which is really sweet. Girls, gotta getchu a guy who will read your BL stories…
The last story “Kiss Scandal” I actually thought was the best which is surprising – it’s set in the USA and the story of a gay Congressman in Maine named Collin Rudd who is secretly dating his hot male secretary Paul. Whenever manga stories are set in modern day USA theres usually some kind of telltale unrealistic ‘a foreigner wrote this’ details that take me out of the story that I’m just extra attuned to because I’m American (we aren’t the intended audience for manga anyway so it doesn’t matter), but this story was convincing enough that a person born here could have written it, which was a really nice bonus. Nice job guys!
Collin feels pressure to get married since it looks better for a politician, and he cares a lot about his public persona for his voters – but he’s also shown to be a genuinely good person through involvement in charity and he and Paul are a really loving couple. When a photographer catches him kissing Paul, a press storm ensues and he feels awful for hiding the fact that he was gay from his voters and plans his exit from Congress – but instead people rally around him in support. I guess when this was written in 2002 being an openly gay Congressman might be a big deal but nowdays no one would give two shits (especially in Maine, lol). Well, a photo of a gay kiss from any public figure would still probably be a shock in this day in age if no one knew they were gay, but the 24hr news cycle would divert people’s attention to the next Z-list celebrity drama sooner or later.
Overall this was a book I wanted to like more, but if you like Honami’s art you probably wouldn’t have it. She’s definitely illustrated better stories like Rin! and Constellations in My Palm – longer romantic dramas that her art jives better with.
TL;DR: Three stories: one long sort-of-okayish one, one short bad one, and one short great one, so I guess that makes it sort-of-okayish overall? The main long story is a European-ambiance historical one and I usually adore those, but this one struggled a bit and Honami’s wispy and lowkey art wasn’t the best fit for the story or characters. The good one came out of nowhere, it’s about a US Congressman in a secret relationship with his secretary that felt surprisingly convincing given it was written by a JP writer for JP readers. Since it’s short though it can’t really carry the whole thing and Honami has worked on better books for sure.