“Waru” means bad in Japanese, and I wouldn’t be so unfunny as to pluck the low-hanging fruit of they named it really well huehuehue. Nah, I can make better jokes than that, of course. Also this one actually isn’t that bad. Let me just take a couple sips of wine and I’ll come up with something better in 20 minutes. Hmm. Any minute now….actually you know what, I’m just gonna leave this really great panel here, which will hopefully entice you to read the rest:
Well, hopefully now you know the kind of noble, high-quality literature we’re dealing with here.
The first couple chapters of this book were a neat setup, and nabbed your interest right away. The extremely Japanese-named main character, Joe, is a delinquent criminal with a shitty dad who discovered he is dying of a brain tumor and kidnaps a rich man’s son, a cute little blonde kid named Yuushi Mikaido. Waiting on a ransom, he handcuffs Yuushi to him while he sleeps and you know exactly where this is going….Yuushi is actually secretly gay (maybe to take the edge off the dubcon) and he and Joe get it on dot com. Joe’s kidnapping motive is uncertain – he just trying to piss off his dad with one last crazy act or is it his brain tumor causing him to do it? Maybe a bit of both?
However, as far as this interesting setup goes, the mangaka decided to inflate that balloon and then immediately pop it with a pin very early on. She then attempts to blow up the same balloon again with a hole in it, so it never really inflates to the same level as before. Instead of the taking the setup at the beginning and running with it, the situation gets resolved quickly, some bullshit is used to explain away the motives and consequences, including the fact that Joe’s dad lied to him about him having a brain tumor, thinking it would help him get his act together – ummm wtf?
After Yuushi inexplicably clears Joe’s name and the latter doesn’t get as much as a slap on the hand, Yuushi hires his kidnapper as a bodyguard and they continue being lovers. This switching of the power dynamic is sort of interesting, but the rest of the story just doesn’t have the tension of the opening situation. Still, I have to give a nod to the fact that the mangaka tried to do something unexpected with what I thought would be a very standard sort of Stockholm Syndrome story.
More stuff happens here plot-wise than most yaoi, with Joe and Yuushi getting sandwiched in the hijinks of their dysfunctional families and Yuushi’s former-lover-turned-corrupt-politician Kurokawa coming in to cause trouble, culminating in a dramatic ending. Hashida throws in the odd unexpected comedy moment but also some weird gags that are supposed to be funny but are more cringey than anything, like Joe’s dad filming them to make gay porn, and Yuushi’s slut mom trying to have sex with Joe. Uhh…ha ha?
The ending does another dynamic switch – Kurokawa kidnaps Joe this time, and Yuushi saves him. So I guess you could say it has a happy ending and that is not meant to be a double entendre but it is because ending sex, whoopee!
Overall, I would have preferred the first situation of kidnapper Joe and captive Yuushi being played out longer to give their relationship more time to cook before making the plot switch, but the rest of it was a fun ride despite the hit-or-miss humor. It would have made a pretty great OVA honestly. The art isnt too bad for the early 00s and the mangaka has an obvious love for drawing Yuushi, whose big dinnerplate-sized uke eyes pop out from every page. If you like yaoi with plot and bad-boy characters, this one might be worth checking out.
TL;DR: An ok manga that has a tense setup but quickly deflates that energy and goes in a sort of action-comedy direction with gags that are hit or miss. The M rating feels pretty secondary; this is mostly plot with a side of not-very-explicit sex but the art is serviceable for the early 00s and it’s a fun read. The story would have been a good candidate for an OVA.