renaissance poisson

4 chapters + omake. young master ruiko, as yet in high school, is being trained to succeed his grandfather as president of the company. appointed to be his tutor is naguko shouichi, a highly valued employee of his grandfather's. one day ruiko comes upon naguko kissing a man, and throws a major hissy fit because oh noes, homos are so disgusting. and yet, whenever naguko stands close to him, young master ruiko has those strange, warm feelings creeping all through his body. dun-dun-DUN! guess what happens?

this manga is terribly annoying for me because i hate noisy, bratty, spoiled, manipulative "queen" uke, and pairing one with a seme who seems basically spineless in the face of these behaviours -- because he finds it all incredibly "cute" -- makes it all worse. whyever would a 23-year old man fall in love with a 12-year old brat [1] who orders him around like he were an unappreciated servant? the smex would otherwise be quite hot, actually, and the sex scenes are long, which is nice for the wank factor that gives. but if i don't like the characters, those just don't heat up as they could otherwise do. only the last one really wins because the kid isn't quite as much as a brat in it. generally by the last chapter this manga picks up a little because the kid actually shows some abilities beyond pouting and yelling, but then it's over, and i am left feeling slightly irked.

the art does not rescue the story; it's better than the writing, but not good enough to make me go "read this for the art". interestingly enough it's quite good during the smexing, though. so sad. :) censorship: invisi-penis.

not gonna be keeping this, nor buying it. strike one for this mangaka.

[1] this isn't really shota; naguko doesn't do anything then, he just admits later to having been in love all these years. but even at the time of the main story with the kid being at least 15 and more likely even a bit older, he looks very shotaish.

published by ... umm ... ling li comics; no i bet that's the cheap chinese ripoff version (this seems scanlated from chinese raws, which means the names of the characters are suspect) ... tokuma shoten 2001. not licensed in english. scanlated by peccatore sanctuary. ( art sample, including one invisi-penis )