Shuuten Unknown
After spending almost ten years following the adventures of Rakan and Chigusa in Silver Diamond, I was lost when it came to an end. I followed the manga from the beginning and it was hard imagining the hobby without it. And then I saw the first images of Sugiura Shiho’s new manga, Shuuten Unknown (Last Stop Unknown). I learned to let go and embrace the excitement of seeing your favorite mangaka present a brand new setting and characters. We’re in for another fantastic ride.
Canis -Dear Mr. Rain-
The Edge Comix lineup adds yet another striking cover with the release of Canis -Dear Mr. Rain-. Similar to Tokyo Shinjuu, this manga is the first tankoubon release of a new artist, Zakk. The manga is about two very different people, their pasts, and how their futures will intertwine.
I originally meant to update my fantasy/supernatural BL manga list on a more regular basis. Oops. Well, you have to start somewhere. I thought of covering Mauri to Ryuu more extensively, but decided against it. However, it’s still worth a short recommendation, so here’s a few additional fantasy BL manga that I particularly enjoyed.
Mauri to Ryuu by Moto Haruhira
This collection of short stories features wandering gods who enrich the land. During their travels, they observe humans and sometimes fall in love. If that affection is returned, the gods take the human form of the one who loves them. The tone is simple and warm. At least until mpreg is clumsily shoe-horned into the last 2-3 panels or at most few pages of several stories. Or that the act of sex is there solely for baby-making purposes since the gods have more animalistic instincts or something. That was chilling. Ignoring that, overall, I enjoyed the work. My favorite story was about a small bird whose song calls forth the spring season. He meets a taciturn hunter who saves him from his captors. The hunter continues to protect him while he sings and leaves a trail of flowers and spring in their wake.
Tenkousei Jinno Murasaki by Tanaka Suzuki
With a single punch of his left hand, Jinnai Midori can purify all evil and malciousness from people. Even the nastiest delinquent becomes a honest person after one hit. However, it doesn’t seem to work on the new transfer student, Jinno Murasaki. There’s something really off about the guy: he’s kinda creepy, really strong, seems dangerous, and is oddly obsessed with Midori.
The manga is all about the two and the supernatural trouble that finds them. Jinno follows Midori around like a protective puppy, including the part where he tears up anyone who threatens Midori into bloody shreds. Jinno is the vaguely threatening, strong, self-appointed boyfriend Midori never asked for but gets stalked by anyway. The manga has a horror feel to it, with dark, violent encounters with supernatural beings that possess people. Shit really hits the fan in the surreal last volume of the manga: everything goes batshit insane, many characters die (slowly and while being tormented), Jinno goes full yandere.. so yeah, typical Tanaka Suzuki fun. I really liked the end. I would have never guessed the last volume would have gone in that direction based on the beginning.
Konya mo Nemurenai by Yamamoto Kotetsuko
In a desperate moment, college student Rikiya calls for help and accidentally summons a demon. Since Rikiya has no immediate wish for the demon to grant, Endo decides to stick around in the human world and many comical shenanigans follow. Endo is an impish, arrogant short guy, yet he can be supportive and insightful at times. The romantic aspect is not abrupt and allowed time to develop. This work is a good example of Yamamoto Kotetsuko’s ability to make cute and charismatic characters.
Shinseigokumon by Kuku Hayate
This is a collection of short stories with two of them having fantasy/supernatural themes. The title oneshot is about the guardians at the gate which separates the worlds of the living and the dead. There’s a black bull guardian and a white horse guardian who watch over opposite sides of the gate. While they work together, they can never be in contact with each other for long since the worlds must remain separated. It’s a short story with great character designs you’d expect from Kuku Hayate.
There’s more nice character designs in another oneshot, Foehn phenomena. It’s about a mountain spirit and a wind spirit. The wind guy is pretty pissed at the mountain guy for being all big and blocking his winds. Being a mountain, he tends to lay around and not move, after all. Soon enough, they get all friendly. Oh and those hot, dry Foehn winds? It comes from the two having sex up in the mountains, making the people who live below suffer the heat, ha.
Onigari no Mori de by Miyamoto Kano
Misono Kazuki wants to write a supernatural novel, but lacks the experience and imagination to make it very compelling. So he visits an old shrine to gather some ideas and ends up getting far more than that! Kazuki discovers a parallel world where a natural disaster poisoned large areas of the world, creating a very different world from our modern Japan. After that incident, their two worlds became connected through certain holes. These gates happen to be guarded by really hot guys. The two sides form a tentative alliance to stabilize the gates and their worlds. As expected from Miyamoto Kano, the art is beautiful and detailed with strong character designs and lots of attention given to the backgrounds to develop the surrounding environments and atmosphere of the manga.
Posted in Manga
Tagged BL, Kuku Hayate, manga, Miyamoto Kano, Moto Haruhira, Tanaka Suzuki, Yamamoto Kotetsuko
Orenchi no Furo Jijou
Orenchi no Furo Jijou (The Circumstances of My Home’s Bathroom) is a worthy addition to the line-up of moe shoujo/josei manga that I’ve covered on this site. Instead of adorable monks or mischievous high school boys, this time we have a young man who collects monster boys in his bathroom.
Tokyo Shinjuu
I saw the bright, stylized covers of Tokyo Shinjuu and its intriguing title (心中 can mean a double/lovers’ suicide) and knew I had to obtain these. I’m glad I did and I was definitely not alone–all the online stores quickly went through their initial stock and were sold out for weeks. Originally released as doujinshi, there are now four tankoubon under the Edge Comix imprint. This entry will be a quick peek into the series, hopefully highlighting what makes it so appealing in the vast sea of BL manga.
Docchi mo Docchi (Same Difference) is back for a second volume, titled Docchi mo Docchi!! Don’t blink, you’ll miss the difference in the title. It’s a continuation from the first volume that focuses on their building relationship. I love the bright, cute cover. It will be released on 3/9. Getting new Hiiragi Nozomu manga is always a treat, so I already ordered a copy last week along with the new Tokyo Shinjuu book before that has a chance to sell out!
Fantasy
Fantasy by Okachimachi Hato (aka Matsumoto Miecohouse) is a fantasy manga in two ways: some characters have supernatural powers and the main couple is a 14 year old girl pursuing a 59 year old man. Holy crap, 45 year age gap! To make things even more interesting, Fantasy was published in Manga Erotics F, so it’s not shy about pushing boundaries. Let’s find out how far it will take us while attempting to not break WordPress’s terms of use (too much).
I can’t stop staring at this cover. So I’m going to make you stare at it.
The Man of Tango – the final is being re-released on 1/15. This is no mere reprint. There’s lots of new material, including a newly drawn 23 page final chapter and 34 pages of material not collected in the previous mellow mellow comics version. This is truly the final, definitive copy of The Man of Tango and not to be missed!
I’m chipping away at my backlog of additions to the Oyaji BL Primer with three new titles: Mada Ai ga Tarinai (the working man), Shinjuku Lucky Hole (the bad boy), and Negaigoto wa Hidamari de (now that’s an old man!).
Mada Ai ga Tarinai by Nishida Higashi
Inoue Masayuki is a middle-aged, divorced HR manager with a surprising problem–there’s an anonymous complaint accusing the talented, younger manager Kitahara Akihiko of sexual harassment. Inoue approaches Kitahara to investigate and just when his suspicions start to clear, a nude photo of Kitahara is sent to his cell phone. A cat-and-mouse game evolves between the two–Inoue can’t dismiss, yet won’t be easily fooled or manipulated by Kitahara. And Kitahara sent the nude pic himself–to lure Inoue into bed.
It’s fun watching Inoue’s conflicting attraction grow into determination to show Kitahara that he has more appeal than just money and good sex. Even the scheming Kitahara can be oblivious and caught off-guard.
Shinjuku Lucky Hole by Kumota Haruk0
Hiyama Kumi is a former porn star who manages an adult film company with his partner, Sakuma. They met in a non-traditional manner. In order to repay his father’s debt to the yakuza, Kumi was sent to live and be “trained” by Sakuma so the young Kumi could appear in gay films. Eventually, Kumi starts to develop feelings for Sakuma and schemes to release him from the yakuza world.
Kumi is indebted to Sakuma, who lets others know that Kumi is his. Sakuma is intimidating and possessive in his own way. Kumi may sleep with people for a living, but crossing over that professional line into personal feelings is a good way to bring out his scary, threatening yakuza side. They have an interesting dynamic, both in their past and present. The present storyline features them as two hot oyaji, of course.
Negaigoto wa Hidamari de by Katsuragi
Nakakouji Tomohiko and Shiomi Haruhito have been friends all their lives. Now in their 50’s, Tomohiko blurts out that he wants Shiomi to marry him. Thinking his secret crush on Tomohiko is blown, Shiomi panics. However, Tomohiko just needed some help to deflect a marriage proposal. Now that the secret is out, will it ruin or transform their long companionship? It’s a bit comical and very sweet story about “silver love.”
The digital magazine Oyajism has provided another title for the Oyaji Romance Manga Selections. While not every title fits, it’s a fantastic resource. Ichiban Nagai Yoru wo Yoroshiku is one of their more popular titles.
Ichiban Nagai Yoru wo Yoroshiku by Takyu Yoko
type: josei
length: 1 volume (ongoing)
Nagaoka Sachiko is a 27 year old woman whose live-in boyfriend abruptly left her. A coworker drags her out to a club to meet some fresh men. She bumps into an older man who turns out to be the fairly popular DJ, Carlos. They talk and get to know each other a bit. However, Sachiko doesn’t realize she’s already met this man.
By day, the DJ is her incredibly awkward and bizarrely dressed boss, Karube. The female workers treat Karube with considerable disgust (that is mostly undeserved!), including Sachiko. So it’s quite a shock when Sachiko learns they are the same man. He never hid that fact and there was never a good time to break it to her that the seemingly very different men were actually the same person. This little bit of drama is over fairly quickly and it moves onto her learning more about his not-so-different sides, forming a relationship, and dealing with past relationships. Sachiko is typically self-reliant and level-headed, so she has to learn to let go a bit and trust in this seemingly not very confident, bumbling man.
The oyaji: Karube Saburou
Karube is 47 years old and recently divorced. His confidence decimated, he over-compensates, which can lead to more problems and misunderstandings. He’s a fair and helpful boss, even if the women avoid direct eye contact because of his horrific dress and unassertive manner.
Karube loves music and moonlights as a DJ. While he wears nice clothes at the club and is popular with the ladies, if you look closely, his bad taste creeps in and the prints can be a bit off.
the manga habit 