Zesty is apparently a free shounen-ai web comic made by Studio Kosen/Kosaru, the Spanish studio whose work is often featured in US-based Yaoi Press Publishing. I say “apparently” because the introduction mentions it, I haven’t read the webcomic. If they said it was subversive literature encoded with secrets symbols to bring down the regime of Kim Jong Un, I would just as easily believe that.
The one and only thing you need to know about this book is that this is an actual page in it:
Well, that’s it, review over. See you next time!
Kidding, but that’s the important part. Anything I’m going to write now will be decidedly anticlimactic, so might as well get my senseless ramblings over with (sorry, that was too good for a spoiler warning, plus it happened early on).
Zesty is a shounen-ai web comic now in book form that I somehow ended up with, it’s not something that I’d normally buy but each volume was like 50 cents and there’s not a lot of manga I’d turn down for a buck, even if it’s – well, this. My expectations of anything by this group and all associated are all over the board by the way, because the art varies significantly in quality – though I usually like their storytelling. However, every book of theirs I’ve read seems like it’s so desperate to be taken seriously as “real” manga (the artists are Spanish), which is what sets this one apart – they didn’t seem to care one bit here. Perhaps because it started life as a free and low-key thing instead of a serious work whose “authenticity” as “actual manga” they are insecure about, here there were no expectations; they were just having fun making it – which showed. Their work is more enjoyable to me that way.
The story was easy to follow for the first volume and at the end I found myself actually wanting to read Volume 2, which was an outcome I hadn’t expected. It’s endlessly silly and funnier than I thought it would be, maybe even because they weren’t trying so hard – everything about it flowed naturally, if also randomly and nonsensically. In a serious story with a serious plot, this would suck. For Zesty, it certainly worked.
Volume 2 wasn’t as good, the silliness that made the first one charming got overly complicated and confusing and too much stuff was going on, AND it ended on a super annoying cliffhanger. What the fuck is the secret thing in the goddamn rainforest?!? Plus, save for like three kisses that wouldn’t phase your grandma (even if only because Zesty literally looks like a girl, I mean look at the cover again…and you never see his junk so technically the possibility can’t be discounted), there wasn’t much in it that could be considered shounen-ai either.
But really, Cheer Boys is probably more shounen-ai than this manga. Hell, Gundam might even be more shounen-ai than this manga. As manga in general though, it wasn’t awful. It wasn’t great, but I’ve read worse. It didn’t take itself too seriously and was funny and silly with likable characters. It’s also a free web-comic, so I can’t judge it too harshly.
TL;DR: Osama bin Laden is in it, literally what more do you want to know?