renaissance poisson

this was a very welcome relief from a string of truly execrable crap i've been reading lately.


larger than usual because it's probably my favourite mm cover of the year so far. catt ford did it (catt can write AND do good covers; impressive).

blurb: Conrad Muller's heart is the center of a web of friendships, fights, and love lost and found in a close-knit group of gay men in Orange County, California. Six months ago, Conrad died, and his organs were donated for transplant. A month later, Conrad's lover, Christian, receives a letter from the recipient of Conrad's donated heart.

Christian can't stop thinking about the letter, and he's not the only one affected by loss. Conrad's best friend Eban is also brokenhearted, and he's struggling with his lover Damien, who has always resented living in Conrad's shadow. Though Conrad is gone, his friends and his lover will have to cope with their grief to move on and find new love.

that blurb is a bit dry when compared with the actual book, *little snrk*. ( read more; i tried to make it non-spoilery )

so as not to worry people who tend to worry if i remain silent for some period of time, i'm gonna try to copy my miniature manga griping here; since i already write them anyway to remind myself. they're not written for a general audience, and often will only talk about some detail that annoyed me in a manga, so i don't know whether they'll actually be useful to anyone. especially since they're mostly be about BL manga.

summaries are generally taken from scanlators, publishers, or mangaupdates; only rarely written or edited by myself.

without further ado:( small cover images included; no sexual situations )

warning: boys love|yaoi|gay|man x man manga. do not read review if that sort of thing offends. art samples might include sexual situations; if so, there will be an extra warning.

title [J]: title [E]: year: volumes: publisher: scanlator: licensed by:

できのいいキス悪いキス Kiss All the Boys 1997 3 (complete) takeshobo bliss (2 ch; dropped) deux press

i'd saved this one for a long time because kano is one of my favourite BL authors, and her stories are never just pointlessly smutty; they always have plot and great characterisation. i didn't want to inhale everything by her all at once -- a (bad?) tendency i have when i find a good author.

atarashi tetsuo is a single, 32 year old mangaka of (hetero) erotica. 15 years ago he fathered a son (haruka), but he hardly knows him and doesn't really care. suddenly his ex gets a job opportunity in france and dumps haruka on him. adjusting to his new life with his estranged son who is openly gay isn't easy for him. not only does he have to come to terms with his son's sexuality, he also has his own sexual probems, namely impotence, which is affecting his work (i guess without sufficient fantasising he can't write good porn, *snrk*).

to make the plot more complex, we also have 3 other people: enomoto michiro, who is tetsuo's editor -- and also the brother of his ex, and on good terms with haruka who views him as a father figure. and haruka has an unrequited crush on a classmate, tamaki. and momoyama kiichi, whom tetsuo meets in a porn cinema where he has an ... interesting experience.

one reason i read certain genre fiction at specific times is that it is in certain ways predictable -- romance has a happy ending, yaoi is smutty, etc. and while i don't at all mind unpredictability in fiction in general, and even like it when an author screws with my expectations, in genre fiction i don't like unpredictability when it messes with the main rules. i read genre fiction in certain moods because i want that predictability, that delivery of the happy ending against all odds, and/or of hot sex.

kano screws with those expectations, and it's totally unexpected because i've read almost all of her work, and while it varies in degrees of thoughtfulness, it never before didn't deliver on what i want from my BL smut. but here it does. ( beware, i am seriously gonna spoil this manga )

the problem is of course that BL is a ghetto genre; authors are locked into it the moment their manga is about romance/love/sex between men because nobody else but genre publishers will touch it. BL authors who experiment are still published by the same people who publish the regular BL stuff, and it's not possible to tell when something follows genre rules and when it falls outside of them, unless an author is already well-known for doing it. i would have liked this manga a lot more if i had known that kano was gonna screw with me, but coming at it straight from all her other work this felt like a slap with a dead fish.

somebody who doesn't have the same expectations might like this a lot better; the reviews it got are mostly positive. somebody who likes less smut and/or less graphic smut and usually avoids kano might want to try it (though there is still some, but it's not as graphic either). this isn't a bad manga; it's just not for me.

(as always, you can ask me for a copy to check it out if you are on my subscription list.)

i watched this a while ago, but wanted to wait with reviewing it until i had finished the manga. i chose it because it's another incredibly well-liked shoujo, it's tagged as a "gender bender", and the live action has two of my favourite actors in the lead role.

the manga (affectionately abbreviated as 'hanakimi'), written by nakajo hisaya, started in 1996, and i had to remind myself of that at times because, while the art doesn't show its age, the pace does -- it gets very slow at times, and there is a bit too much extraneous filler stuff that i'd prefer cut. but since i have not read much shoujo, i have no complaint about the storyline being overdone. at the time it certainly was not, and it does in fact retain some facets that i have not seen a lot. for example, there is an actual gay man in this manga, who even gets to have his own small arc, including an onscreen kiss. i find this very cool in a genre that usually only teases with pseudo-gayness as fan service, if that.

anyway, the story is that ashiya mizuki (horikita maki) had been idolising high jumper sano izumi (oguri shun) after seeing him in a competition, and when he seemed to drop out of the sport after an accident, she decides to transfer to his school to encourage him to return to high jumping. the twist is that his school is an all-boys school, but that doesn't deter her; she cuts her hair and disguises herself as a boy. when she arrives at school, she happens to be in luck and gets assigned as his roommate. yes, i know -- how much more feeble a setup could you design if you tried? :)

summary opinion: enjoyed the manga, hated the live action. ( read why, mild possible spoilers )

so, read the manga if you like shoujo, crossdressing girls as boys, don't mind the slow pace (23 volumes; licensed by viz). the art is decent throughout -- strangely enough it becomes really good at some point in the middle, and then towards the end gets worse again. there is no anime, which strikes me as odd. don't watch the live action.

ps: ok, i am officially an arashi fanboi now, *sigh*. so sad, but i can't help it that so many of their songs are so catchy that i find myself singing along all the time. ah, the joy of men who sing in the high tenor range. but guys, what is it with your totally non-sensical lyrics? i don't really care because i can still totally ignore japanese lyrics, but it's startling how often i can't even decipher the plentiful engrish.

why was i watching a comedy in which horny yet frustrated teenage boys are obsessed with sex? it's got a stellar cast; 7 (!) actors i know and like. and i was in luck; this turned out rather better than i had feared (i did not like american pie, which is probably the closest well-known western equivalent).

the story revolves around four friends who are apparently the last virgins in their high school, and get quite a bit of fun poked at them for it, such as being nicknamed the DB4's (doutei boys = virgin boys). they're desperate to gain some actual experience (like, say, a kiss). they live in a close-knit neighbourhood in which their parents are shop keepers. the neighbourhood is very concerned with keeping its children "pure" -- away from any and all potential sexual activities. (good luck with that!)

at the beginning of the summer holidays, oowada chie (suzuki anne) [1] comes to visit; a girl who used to be the much admired neighbourhood "princess" 11 years ago, but then moved away. chie has changed; she's a bit chubby and frumpy, wears thick glasses, and is generally awkward. she's also hiding something from everyone. at first the guys don't really know how to interact with her. chie has a crush on our lead protagonist asai shouhei "shou-chan" (ninomiya kazunari) [2], who, blissfully ignorant of that fact, has himself an unrequited crush on a pretty teacher. shouhei is a bit young for his age, small, naive, and insecure.

then we have shouhei's friends: iwasaki kengo "ken-ken" (yamashita tomohisa), a sensitive dork who has a strange fascination with trains; enami kouji "kou-kun" (oguri shun), who is the loud-mouthed athletic type who gets foot-in-mouth disease when a girl comes near; and lastly udagawa hayato "udayan" (narimiya hiroki) who is the group’s clown.


(left to right: yamashita tomohisa, ninomiya kazunari, narimiya hiroki, suzuki anne, oguri shun)

the show is very silly, thanks to the boys doing some really ridiculous stuff in their quests to have their first experiences, and the adults all having quite special foibles. but as it progresses i started to care about those guys -- regardless of their immaturity this is clearly (once again) a story about friendship, between the four of them, and between them and chie. and despite the humour, which is sometimes a bit loud for my taste, in this show it didn't turn me off, but i got used to it. that's mostly due to good acting by the 5 lead characters, but a part of it is also that the show doesn't have any seriously dramatic bits until near the end, and so the humour didn't kick me out of the mood. the guys suffer typical teenage angst and frustration, which i can remember myself, but with enough distance to laugh at it now, so the mood stays light. kinda nice how age has taken the sting out of those painful experiences -- i really never want to be 17 again.

i'm not gonna write a lot about it because all the fun is in the well-timed interactions. the friendship between the boys and chie felt real to me; especially ninomiya does a superb job portraying shou-chan. yamapi is sickeningly adorable here -- not that he isn't always adorable anyway, but ken-ken brings it out to the max. oguri hadn't quite gotten into his stride yet -- or maybe i just didn't warm up entirely to his character, who's a type i've not cared for in real life. narimiya is just plain nuts; i want to hang out with him.

theme song: 言葉より大切なもの (kotoba yori taisetsu na mono) by arashi (ninomiya sings with arashi). i like this one; very upbeat and has a tongue-twister section which i am still practicing to sing fast enough after 11 episodes. *ack*. i wasn't previously very fond of arashi, but lately they've been growing on me.

there is one jarring note to the show, and it comes towards the end when we finally find out exactly what chie has been hiding. all of a sudden everything turns deadly serious, and the hijinks that follow a bit later don't work for me anymore. IMO that situation is also not satisfactorily resolved, so there's a bit of a regretful aftertaste. and i don't like how the shou-chan/chie/ken-ken triangle is worked out -- the end seemed a bit rushed, thrown together hastily.

but overall this didn't feel like a waste, and not just because of the pretty boys -- actually they're just a bit too young for me to drool over here anyway. it's kinda fun to see these actors all in their late teens; at that age 7 years makes a big difference. i now must go and find everything ninomiya has been in since.

if you can handle that style of humour, i'd recommend the show; it left me with a generally warm feeling of affection for the characters.

[1] if suzuki anne's name sounds familiar, that's probably because she was in snow falling on cedars.
[2] possibly also familiar, if you have seen letters from iwo jima.

this is an insanely popular franchise; there is a 37 volume manga (licensed by viz), an anime (subbed for the north american market), a taiwanese tv drama, a korean tv drama, a japanese film, and who knows what else. people go into ecstatic raptures over it. the manga won the 1996 shougakukan manga award, and is the best-selling shoujo manga in japan. so it made it onto my list of jdramas to watch (but i was prepared for disappointment; ecstatic general raptures seem to usually predict serious disappointment for me, and even award winners do not always come through). i have not read the manga, nor seen the anime or watched the chinese version.

the storyline is fairly cliched (though the manga started in 1992; maybe it was fresh then): makino tsukushi (inoue mao), a girl from a poor working-class family, attends an elite high school, where the other pupils all come from high-society families. at the very top are the "F4", a group of 4 boys from powerful families. naturally, they're all good-looking, and the entire school is ga-ga over them. unfortunately they also rule with an iron fist, and get away with bullying anyone who doesn't fit in. makino hates the lot, but is determined to keep her head down and just work towards graduation. but one day the only girl who befriended her accidentally runs into doumyouji tsukasa (matsumoto jun) (the leader of the F4) and spills food on him. despite apologizing profusely, that results in a "red notice" -- the F4's public call to seriously harass her. we're not just talking nasty words here, but physical abuse as well.

that's when makino's resolve to be quiet and unobtrusive cracks, and she tells doumyouji just what she thinks of him, and then punches him hard enough so he goes down.

the next day there is a red notice in her locker, and the entire school starts to make her life miserable. there seems to be only one person who's not joining in: hanazawa rui (oguri shun), another member of the F4, who likes makino's spunk and starts to stick up for her.

ok, so it's cliched, but at first glance the female lead seemed to be a strong person who wasn't shy in conveying her disdain for bullying, and i always like some butt-kicking by a strong female lead.

alas the drama is unmitigated crap.
( read why; spoilers )

i like the music; it fits well with the emotions of the story. opening song is "WISH" by arashi (matsumoto jun's group); pleasant jungle. ending song is "planetarium" by ohtsuka ai; i like it too and let it play out every time.

the production values are unusually high; too bad they're wasted on such a uninspired show.

there is a second season, and a movie. i am debating whether to start the manga to see whether it's any better, but 37 volumes is a lot, and i didn't like the art when i looked at it. normally i wouldn't even bother, but if something is this popular i keep thinking maybe i missed something.

the title is a play on 乙女 (otome; young lady) and "men" (in english), and it refers to boys who like girlish things. i've seen another term for this, which seems to carry more of a connotation of such men also not being very sexual or aggressive/assertive when it comes to love: 草食男子 (soushoku danshi, literally "herbivorous guy"; i guess because herbivores are less aggressive?).

masamune asuka is quite the manly guy, excelling in karate and kendo. but he has a secret: what he really likes is cooking, sewing, knitting, and everything sparkly and cute. when he was a young teenager, his father left home because he had always wanted to be a woman. this affected asuka's mother very badly, and, because she saw that her son liked girly things, she forced him to be completely masculine.

of course denying a large part of oneself doesn't ever work well, but asuka doesn't actually want to be a woman; he just wants to do things that normally are in a girl's domain. one day a new transfer student joins his class; miyakozuka ryou. ryou has grown up without a mother, and with a tough father, and she's pretty much taken on the role of his son; he taught her karate and kendo, and training with him is one of her favourite things. she doesn't know how to cook or sew, and she likes action and horror movies. asuka and ryou are quite taken with each other, and quickly admit their secrets and start helping each other.

i started reading this because i think japan, and especially shoujo, needs manga in which people break through gender barriers, and it sure can't hurt westerners either. this is a true gender bender; not as in magic body swapping, or pretending to be a boy/girl, but as in stretching the meaning of gender beyond its standard perceptions. ( read more detail; no spoilers )

it's not any big revelation for anyone who's been pondering gender seriously already, but it's quite progressive in the shoujo manga universe, and indirectly acknowledges that gender isn't binary, and that liking pursuits commonly attributed to the "opposite" gender doesn't turn one into a transvestite or transsexual or make one homosexual, and i am happy that it's quite successful in japan. so yeah, recommended.

let me preface this with stating that i generally don't like shoujo (marketed to girls), and i especially don't like shoujo romance, because it's filled with cliches. ditsy damsel in permanent distress is surrounded by a harem of guys who all want to date her, she gets rescued (often from fainting) by super-good-looking, super-capable, super-everything boy -- who can't express his emotions; there's a rival (often underhanded), and there'll be a lot of stupid misunderstandings which could easily be solved if the characters only TALKED to each other.

and you know what? kimi ni todoke sort of offers the cliches all up too. and yet i love it.
( read on to find out why )

you know what it reminds me most of? nobuta wo produce. which has a stronger stress on friendship and very little on romance, and is overall much more... true and touching.  but the overall feel of it is somewhat similar. it's a feel-good story; just don't expect it to BE a second nobuta wo produce.

the anime has just started its second season, and the manga is at 13 volumes and ongoing, so i am looking forward to more of this; so far the anime has been very true to the manga.  oh, and the manga is licensed by viz.  there is also a live action film, but i haven't seen it yet; the cast looks good though.

genre: homoerotica, gay romance, m/m

i won't buy the book in paperback solely because i am reducing the square footage my books cover, since we're still gonna move onto the boat some day, i hope. but here's another good example of why the current model of ebook licensing publishers force on us is crap: if i could buy this ebook for other people, i would buy several copies, because this is an example of what m/m can be at its best. does anyone need more reasons why otherwise law-abiding people pirate? will publishers ever learn this? not holding my breath.

summary blurb: Ever since Chris Bennett graduated high school a year ago, he's been trying to figure out what's next. His lifeguarding job has kept him busy, and in southern California, poolside isn't a bad place to be. But he's spent most of his time thinking about Seth, the former classmate who became something more for a few brief moments last summer. Now Seth is back, but he seems to be running toward Chris and running away from him at the same time. Meanwhile, Chris is increasingly drawn to Alex, his gorgeous new neighbor who puts up a sexy, confident front but may be harboring a few romantic demons of his own.

covers with 3 men on them always make me hope for a good polyamory read, of which there are sadly all too few. alas, it was not to be -- but i didn't mind at all (except that i kept wondering how the writer would get there, because once my mind drops in a rut, it really keeps, uh, rutting, *sigh*). anyway. no polyamory, no threesomes. but solid, believable, fully realized characters, a lovely romance which takes its time to develop and never becomes too gushy (these are actual guys, not bishonen uke in disguise), a plot line that doesn't trod the same fallow ground as so many, and loads of hot sex.

i didn't like all the characters equally, mind. while i initially grokked why he acted the way he did, i ended up not too fond of seth, and i am not sure i'd buy a book in which he is the protagonist (then again, i might, since i was this impressed by the writing). i'd buy a book with marty, alex's long-time friend though!

also, tiniest of quibbles: does anyone else have trouble telling characters apart when their names have the same number of characters? it seems even the author got confused a little, because the actors are accidentally reversed in a couple of places. it seems odd to me that this would confuse me because "chris", "alex", and "seth" are all quite different from each other, but i did have to re-read chris/alex scenes at times to remind myself of who was who. anyway, no biggie.

all too often in m/m i am faced with the choice of either hot sex or great story. not here; the book delivers both. very satisfying read, no complaints.

i'm now gonna buy everything rachel west has written. unfortunately that's so far only one other book, but i am sure hoping there will be more.

you can read the first... 94 pages (wow, that's some excerpt) at google books.