Yaoi manga reviews and fujoshi ramblings
The most interesting thing about this manga is that one character’s love interest is a garbage man and you learn interesting tidbits about how dangerous of a job it is. I’m not sure what that says about the actual romances that that’s what I found most interesting, but hey, always wrap chopsticks in paper when you throw them away or else they could break and turn into little mini daggers and kill someone.
Continue reading “A PLACE IN THE SUN (Lala Takemiya)”
You may have noticed I’ve been reviewing a lot of Yamada titles lately, in fact I think I’ve pretty much reviewed all her stuff we have in English at this point except for Close the Last Door. The second volume of that is sort of valuable so I’m saving it for last, because that means it might actually be good. Not that the rest of her stuff I’ve read is awful, it’s turned out to be a pretty mixed bag – generally she has good characters and thoughtful stories, but not super appealing art (It is worth mentioning again though that her more recent work is decidedly better-looking, although we don’t have any in English).
Continue reading “GLASS SKY (Yugi Yamada)”
Yugi Yamada usually has decent stories, but they tend to be very slow slice-of-lifes. This, however, was a book of one-shots, so it forced her to speed things up. I think her story ideas and characters are her strong suit, so having more of that helped overcome the things she doesn’t do well, namely…drawing. It’s no secret I’m not a big fan of Yamada’s art, but this mainly applies to her earlier work like this – her art definitely gets more polished later on while still bearing her stylistic signature, although we don’t really have her most recent stuff in English.
Continue reading “PICNIC (Yugi Yamada)”
Is your new year’s resolution to read more bad yaoi hanging around in your collection that you can get rid of, or is that just me? Honestly, making a half-hearted attempt at getting in shape like normal people would probably be easier than that. I have read yaoi at the gym before though, so perhaps I can combine the two – I used to bring a volume with a discreet cover to read while I was on the elliptical or bike. Nothing like burning through gay porn while burning calories! The Yaoi Bike 801, now with a detachable dildo on the seat, for only the classiest ladies obviously.
Continue reading “THE FIRST STAGE OF LOVE (Kazuhiko Mishima)”
The back of the books calls this ‘one of the hottest, silliest yaoi manga ever written!’ Well me set the record straight right now, this has about as much truth to it as Epstein having killed himself. Not that most people actually take the marketing lines on book covers with anything but a grain of salt, but I’m seriously doubtful that whoever wrote that actually read this because it should, without a doubt, have a little official-looking seal somewhere on the cover that says ‘Certified Crap.’ I mean, that would probably only appeal to people like me who think it’s fun to play on the garbage pile, but least it wouldn’t be false advertising.
Continue reading “PART-TIME PETS (Reno Amagi)”
I’m in the middle of burning through everything I have by this mangaka because after Party and Hot Steamy Glasses were both very bleh, I expected this to also be bleh, and I really need the shelf space for other stuff. And it was very…well, bleh. This manga almost epitomizes mid 00s mediocre yaoi. Art was bleh. Stories were bleh. Sex was bleh. Everything was just…bleh? Bleh. Try not to be too impressed by my creative use of adjectives here…
Continue reading “LOVE TRAINING (Tatsumi Kaiya)”
Sometimes reading these random older yaoi titles feels like a whats-behind-the-door game in terms of what you may get. Sometime you get eyeball licking. Sometimes Osama bin Laden appears. Sometimes a guy’s asshole gets used as a flowerpot. And let’s definitely not forget that sometimes you get a story where a guy pleasures himself with a corncob and suddenly it turns into a man that he has a magic orgy with in the clouds along with a goat boy who sticks a harp up his ass, followed by tentacle monster kemonomimi rape.
I guess every now and then you get like, a normal school romance or something. Or, if you’re reading Duetto, you get…biological son x father noncon. Yup. I mentioned all that other stuff to soften the blow.
Continue reading “DUETTO (Aoi Kujyou)”
My manga friend told me today this was the worst yaoi she’d ever read, and gave it 1/10 – so naturally, and very excitedly, I had to pull it from my shelf and read it immediately. I mean damn, that’s harsh, I’ve never even rated anything that low (not even Kingdom of Selfish Love, which is unfit even for toilet paper). Although I keep in mind that ratings are totally subjective opinions, I should also remember that most people don’t deliberately do the equivalent of yaoi dumpster diving, looking for the smelliest piles in the darkest corners and I’ve seen some shit. I’m going to have that faraway stare of a war veteran one of these days.
‘Grandma, why are you missing a leg?’
‘Oh sonny, back in the war, they dropped Studio Kosen titles on us, so many that we were slaughtered like cattle under a black rain of death, followed by Poison Cherry Drive for good measure which ate away our limbs and our will to live…’
‘Wow, how did you escape?’
‘I saw a glowing beam in the sky. It was the Incredible Kintaro himself, swinging his giant penis around the sky like Wonder Woman’s lasso, striking down the enemy with his thousand-pound titanium balls while yelling ‘Tofu Ball Choke!’ and shooting lasers out of his urethra.’
‘Grandma, you’re full of shit.’
‘Hey, respect your elders you little fuckhead.’
If there was a such a thing as cheap, no-frills takeout in yaoi form, this would be it. Made from a standard recipe with no surprises, and maybe a little bland at spice level 2-3 , but it meets your expectations and satisfies your appetite. Plus you didn’t have to cook. No leftovers though, they didn’t give you any more sex extra rice than was required 🥡 sad panda…🐼
These two books contain five stories put together, and I guess ‘variety’ is one way to describe them. ‘Full of rape’ is another way I guess. We’ve got…demon threesome rape, captor x captive rape, and hillbilly rapists in Idaho *which isn’t even also* the blood-brother rape pairing. I can’t think of any clever way to combine ‘rape’ and ‘anthology’ for a better name they could have called these, but if there is one out there somewhere floating in the English language – ah yes that’s what they should have called it, that exactly.
I crabbed about this in Kingdom of Selfish Love too, but if you’re going to draw OEL yaoi, why even bother if you’re either censoring or not showing any dick? Like actually though? I mean, there’s some uncomfortable sex scenes and pairings in here I guess that’s almost a positive for these particular titles, but in general, no censorship laws is the one thing OEL yaoi has going for it and not using it is just letting their free ice cream melt.
Continue reading “YAOI ANTHOLOGY (Yaoi Press)”