Yaoi manga reviews and fujoshi ramblings
Continuing to read through Deux Press collection and today we have a title from Yuuya, who did a pretty wild title called Endless Rain from DMP. FreshMen wasn’t bad but it was much more restrained in terms of content, and someone hoping for a title like Rain might be disappointed. However, there’s still pretty men, decent art, and a ton of sex, so plenty to feast your eyes on in here.
Continue reading “FRESHMEN (Yuuya)”
If you love nothing more than the idea of hot salarymen smoking cigarettes plus smoking each other’s poles, Deux Press has a manga for you. Maybe the only manga for you, at least in English. Cigarette Kisses may *seem* like bad BL trash, but let me subvert your expectations: it’s good BL trash. Totally different thing! It’s not really that trashy though, it’s actually a serious drama, with gay sex. Let’s go with that.
Continue reading “CIGARETTE KISSES (Nase Yamato)”
I picked this one off my shelf because it was raining. I guess there’s no better time to read it?
I was fooled by the cover and title of this one. I thought there would be sweetness and romance, but instead there was…rape and murder. Close enough?
Continue reading “ENDLESS RAIN (Yuuya)”
This story stars a 25-year old former boxer named Sohei who was originally inspired to become one after he read Ashita no Joe as a teenager. As far as boxing manga goes I haven’t read Joe (which recently got licensed in English) but I am currently reading Hajime no Ippo which is I am enjoying, although I don’t really know anything about boxing despite this. This manga was so boring it made me want to read that instead though…or anything else…insurance paperwork or algebra would have been more entertaining.
Continue reading “LAUGH UNDER THE SUN (Yugi Yamada)”
After the death of their parents, Kohei became an overprotective brother to his younger sister Chieko. But when she got married against his will and brought her husband Shingo to live with them, Kohei had trouble letting his sister go and mostly avoided the newlyweds. Then tragedy struck – Chieko was suddenly killed in a traffic accident and now Kohei is stuck sharing both his personal tragedy and his living space with Shingo, the brother-in-law he hates.
This is a really, really good BL story idea, no? With such a great concept, what could possibly go wrong?
Continue reading “SWEET REGARD (Juji Fusa)”
Yugi Yamada’s work echoes Fumi Yoshinaga’s – quiet and serious slice of life dramas and art that has a comfy vintage feel to it no matter when it was drawn – but her work never reached the same level as the great Yoshinaga, whose stories were usually more thought-provoking, unique, emotional, and mature. Still, Yamada was a prolific mangaka who was semi-popular in the late 90s and early 00s, has a lot of work in English, and carved out a niche of her own drawing realistic BL dramas. Don’t Blame Me definitely comes off as rough in places, but it’s mostly ok for being done in 2000 and I’ve read a lot worse.
Continue reading “DON’T BLAME ME (Yugi Yamada)”
You would think by the title that this would be your average vampire yaoi, but you’d be wrong. It’s your…below-average 10-volume isekai trap yaoi featuring vampiric half-dragons (how many of those have you read?) that I originally dropped around volume 3 because it was so bad that I couldnt see myself getting through the whole thing. But after exiting the mudpit I decided to take a deep breath, rinse myself off, and promptly and regretfully get back in. Why in the name of red hot scaly dragon dick did I pick it back up? I’m still asking myself that question and I’m not sure actually…maybe I’m just a masochist, or I thought it would get better (spoiler: it does not get better). But really, it’s probably because it’s one of the things I’ve had in my collection for ages; it was one of my first manhwa. Those bright red spines have stared out at me for years…I had to do it justice by at least finishing it. A totally unnecessary sacrifice? Absolutely. Was it worth it? Not at all.
Continue reading “SWEET BLOOD (Seyoung Kim)”
Guys, get ready for a surprise – two obscure old June titles from the mid 00s that DON’T suck. I don’t say that lightly either, ya’ll know I’m a cynic. If you like serious stories and don’t mind some minimalistic art, these two books with linked stories are easy to find cheap copies of and nice little reads. There’s also slutty sex, in case you needed a little push.
Continue reading “MANIC LOVE + FAKE FUR (Satomi Yamagata)”
As soon as I finished this book I yelled to my fiancee in the other room ‘babe, you wouldn’t believe the premise of this yaoi I just read,’ and when I told him, I heard a a hearty chortle in reply. It’s so ridiculous I just can’t believe it was a serious story and not a comedy: three high schoolers are all dating the same girl, and when they lose her they all start fucking each other instead. (Just to reiterate, this is NOT a comedy). And when I imagined where I’d come across the first honest-to-God threesome in a physical title, I certainly didn’t think it would be in an old June book drawn by the same artist who did ‘Rin!’ Well, here we are.
Continue reading “THIRSTY FOR LOVE (Honami/Takaguchi)”
Every time I unearth a weird, perverse title lurking in my collection within a sweet and innocent-looking cover like this, it’s a little bit bittersweet because that’s one less one waiting to be discovered – and even though I regularly do add new titles to my collection, they’re usually recently-published ones, and modern BL that gets a physical release usually nowdays isn’t quite as – er – ‘special’ as this one.
As Many As There are Stars is an obscure and somewhat recent June release that isn’t pricey-rare, but I never see it in anyone’s collection. This book is very…actually I don’t even know what to call this. It’s just…weird. The art is weird. The tone is weird. The sex scenes are weird. The dialogue is weird. There’s a scene where one guy who has a ‘body fluid fetish’ gets off by licking between his partner’s dirty toes while sexually fantasizing about the salt/fat/grease content of the latter’s body, followed by very serious themes regarding suicidal ideation and parental abandonment, followed by cousin incest.
Oh yeah, and it’s rated 16+.
Continue reading “AS MANY AS THERE ARE STARS (Miecohouse Matsumoto)”