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RED (Sanae Rokuya)

I think I speak for everyone when I say that the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks of feudal Japan is homoerotic tension. No? Ok, samurai first, but homoerotic tension is definitely second. Still no? Ugh, fine, samurai then Scientologist robot dinosaurs, jeez, making me say the obvious one. But thankfully we have unsung heroes like Rokuya here who take a period of history and add a dash of spice from their magic man love pouch to make a whole different recipe. Who can say for certain it didn’t originally taste this way, anyway? Ain’t historical fantasy great?

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KISS ALL THE BOYS (Shiuko Kano)

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.

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LOVE BUS STOP (Ritsu Natsumizu)

I once came across this title when I first started collecting. Back in the day when naught but a few Makoto Tateno titles and random volumes of Junjou Romantica graced a single shelf above my bed, I flipped through it a used bookstore and didn’t see anything that grabbed me. I passed on it then, but this was before I developed a thing for handsome salarymen fantasizing about freeing each other from their expensive suits and ties and semblances of self-control to fucking each other in the learn-by-example way that working for The Man has taught them. With this new insight ripened and in season, I came across this title again, a year later – and now here we are. Harvest we shall.

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WHEN THE HEAVENS SMILE (Aki Senoo)

If you feel that the saying ‘variety is the spice of life’ also applies to shounen-ai school stories, here’s something that covers a few food groups on that particular plate. We’ve got strawberries, ghosts, horny librarians, alcoholism, poorly whistled renditions of ‘Scarborough Fair,’ depression brought on by cell phone novels, and of course – a proper staple of this kind of diet – a school roof blow job. Where else would you get the protein? (!)

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DOUBLE TROUBLE (Takashi Kanzaki)

I don’t think I’ve read an English-licensed yaoi yet title with a true threesome in it, unless this glass of Cabernet is just affecting my memory at the moment. There are certainly a lot of titles that tease at it but never deliver, often just for fanservice and never intending to. But I can’t recall another book – besides this one – that basically writes a threesome into the plot as the resolution, mentions it multiple times as something all three characters want and plan to do, and then when it’s about to actually happen, the curtain closes and there’s no final act. It’s not that the ending is bad, it’s that there isn’t an ending at all. I couldn’t believe this story was complete, such was the abruptness of this. It’s so absurd, that I feel the need to warn people beforehand. The gleeful, malicious cackle of Lady Blue Balls echoes strongly with this one.

Thankfully, there’s a lot I liked in this sexy school comedy that somewhat made up for it, in the sense that you were promised a slice of cake but given a few stale Oreos instead but you just really want something sweet so whatever.

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NAUGHTY BUT NICE + SPICY BUT SWEET (Naduki Koujima)

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.

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DOUBLE CAST (Mamahara/Mizuhashi)

Rival actor co-stars getting it on is up there on my list of favorite yaoi plots, shortly behind high schoolers getting it on, hi FBI nothing to see here, guys in period costume getting it on, business/work rivals getting it on, and powerful fantasy kings or demons getting it on. You can’t say I don’t have diverse tastes, I guess.

As far as the rival-actors-turned-costars theme, Double Cast doesn’t quite do this as well as Hero Heel or Embracing Love, but it’s still a solid entry in this category. The story is a good mix of salacious and sincere, such that it satisfied my inner trashy gossip mag fantasies without reading like one.

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PET ON DUTY (Nase Yamato)

So quick reader poll, when going down on a guy for the first time, what’s the first thing you should do?

A) Lick their balls
B) Eat their ass
C) Bite their frenulum
D) Give them a Lion King (Flip them over, fuck them from behind, and pull out and come on your hand – when they turn around to see what you’re doing, dip your thumb in your semen and rub it across their forehead while whispering, ‘Simba.’)

Guess which one our uke Mizuki here chooses? Not D, unfortunately, but that’s my favorite thing I’ve ever read on Urban Dictionary.

He actually picks C. Guess it doesn’t seem all that weird now compared to the last choice…

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CONSTELLATIONS IN MY PALM (Honami/Sakuragi)

I seem to be on a Honami kick right now. I apparently just happen to be reading the books she drew in an order where I like each successive one more than the last. No doubt this pattern can only last for so long but I was curious to see if I’d find my new favorite book of hers at the end of the trail. It might be too early to say, but this one is going to be hard to top – Constellations in My Palm is not only my favorite book Honami has worked on (the 5th of hers I’ve read), it has one of the most touching, beautiful, and tear-jerking stories of any yaoi I’ve read in a long while. Really, it’s that good.

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