Yaoi manga reviews and fujoshi ramblings
The back of this book actually says, ‘Cute Beast is sure to please the most jaded of yaoi fans.’
Ohhh boy, I can’t wait to put *that* statement to the test. Feels like a challenge! I’d put on some brass knuckles except that would make it hard to type…
Continue reading “CUTE BEAST (Amayo Tsuge)”
This story takes place in a reality in which there are humanoid robot ukes that look like cute little “teenagers.” I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling a brilliant idea coming on, which is: we can give them to pedophiles to keep them from hurting real kids! Just let them diddle androids all day! Unfortunately our real world technology hasn’t reached the level of this manga but I believe in the future, guys. A future of sex androids for pedophiles. Well, and the rest of us too, obviously. Because I want a Giyu Tomioka android who will fuck my brains out and I don’t care what strangers on the internet know it (mom? you haven’t found my blog yet, right?). Seriously, why is Elon Musk screwing around with social media and electric cars and rockets when he could be making sex androids? Talk about wasting your time…
Continue reading “LOVE MACHINE (Amayo Tsuge)”
In which the book’s one and only sex scene takes place with the ghosts of the uke’s ancestors all watching. Phantovoyeurism?
Continue reading “TAKE ME TO HEAVEN (Nase Yamato)”
Last month I was at some comic book store and found one of those ‘guide to anime / manga’ books, this one by Dark Horse. Whenever I see one of these, I always flip to the yaoi section to see if they have some hot photos for educational purposes. In a brief note about shotacon, they mentioned that Almost Crying is one of the only shota licenses we have in English, albeit a non-erotic one (Wikipedia mentions this too by the way, but seeing it in a more official medium had more weight). I have had Almost Crying on my shelf for a while but didn’t realize it was a title worthy of any special mention among June’s numerous mid 2000s shounen-ai licenses, so I was a bit surprised. I mean, lots of yaoi has characters that could pass for shota boys, especially the ukes, and while the cover of this book is certainly indicative of how the characters look it didn’t strike me as ‘oh wow this is positively groundbreaking for the US yaoi market’ I guess. I’m also not really into shota either and am perfectly content that it’s largely located in the ‘you have to know where to look’ category, but the non-sexual nature of this title definitely broadens its appeal. And appealing it is, in exactly the way it wants to be.
So, I read this book on a six-hour plane ride. I happened to be sitting next to an elderly couple and the woman wanted to make small talk with me, and asked what I was reading (the dreaded question). “Oh, this?” I nonchalantly flipped it shut so that the back was facing and realized it had ‘Angelic sex or demonic sex?’ emblazoned on the back in large and bright enough lettering that you’d half to be half-blind not to notice, so quickly turned it over to the front instead. I studied the cover to buy a few seconds to think of something, which I later realized made it look like I had no idea what I’d been reading for the last 20 minutes. I almost went with that, actually, maybe something like, “oh, I found it in the back of the seat pocket in front of me,” but that would have made her more curious. Damn, X, think think think….ok, so the cover makes it look like it might be a nice story about three brothers that got turned into a made-for-TV movie on be Hallmark channel in the 90s, I should say that.
“Oh, it’s a…romance novel.”
She looked at the cover again in this new context. She frowned. The flight is almost landing and she hasn’t said anything to me for the last five hours.
I guess that’s one way to end small talk with elderly strangers…
Continue reading “HEAVENLY BODY (Takashi Kanzaki)”
Well, it happened. I approached the cliff, looked down into the yawning abyss of no return, and took a running jump.
That’s right, I finally watched Boku no Pico. In my defense I was looking for Boku no Hero Academia, but I just…uh…clicked the wrong thing. They look a bit similar, you know? They both have…blonde protagonists. Easy to mix up. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.
Continue reading “BLurb: The Boku no Pico Controversey”
Even if you’re not a fan of Shiuko Kano’s work, it’s hard not to acknowledge her vast contributions to this wild and wonderful niche of ours – she debuted in the mid-90s and has been steadily churning out work ever since then, which surely merits some kind of lifetime achievement prize (a crystal penis statue?). Perhaps she will even join the likes of Ayano Yamane and Hinako Takanaga in the pantheon of BL goddesses one day for dedication to the art of porncraft, on a pedestal where dick-shaped vines gleefully snake up your winged sandals and a statue of a golden ass (!) stands at your side. If nothing else she’s staked her claim in the genre by sheer willpower and steady output of work, since she never really had a blockbuster series in English (Punch Up is stellar, but not on the level of, say, the Finder series). She is also fearless in what she commits to paper, for better or for worse, with a unique style that she has managed to tweak through the years to keep fresh. That’s the top cushion of the sandwich for what I’m about to say, which is that sometimes her stories are so trashy or ridiculous or her characters so unattractive with their weird short haircuts and prominent noses that I just can’t get into it (like Affair for example). BUT, here’s the bottom cushion – with a body of work as large as hers, there’s bound to be some duds mixed in, right? Thankfully, this isn’t one of them.
Continue reading “KISS ALL THE BOYS (Shiuko Kano)”
Shotacon and non-con are like cheese and chocolate. Some people think they shouldn’t be mixed at all, because it tastes gross and makes you feel gross. Some are warmer to it but definitely think there’s a real art to accomplishing it in a way that makes it tolerable much less enjoyable. The third group is spraying Cheez Wiz on Hershey bars as we speak while calling groups 1 and 2 politically-correct pussies in between chews.
The first group probably shouldn’t bother with this series, but it might as well be a Sunday School book to the third group, who think ‘Boku no Pico’ is shit because it’s mainstream shota. That leaves the second group, who will be largely divided because for many palates, the mess of cheese and chocolate mix in here is not always the tasty kind.
Continue reading “NAUGHTY BUT NICE + SPICY BUT SWEET (Naduki Koujima)”