Addition to oyaji romance list: Ichiban Nagai Yoru wo Yoroshiku

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.

Addition to oyaji romance list: Amatsu Sora Naru

Another Oyajism title makes its way into the Oyaji Romance Manga: Amatsu Sora Naru. I thought reading this title would be a chore because there’s a lot of specialized terminology I’m not familiar with, ranging from the characters’ Kansai-ben to specific terms associated with tea ceremony and traditional Japanese clothing. However, I managed and even enjoyed because it flowed naturally and I was able to fill in (and look up) the blanks. The best part of the manga is the lovely clothing–true to the story’s theme, the main characters are seen in both traditional and Western outfits.

Amatsu Sora Naru by Mori Hinoto
type: josei, romance
length: 1 volume (complete)

Chidori is the heir to a household that has practiced Japanese tea ceremony for generations, but she has no personal interest in these traditions or carrying on the family business. She’s more enamored with modern and foreign trends and attends an American university. However, she’s called back to Japan and has to endure her strict mother and uncomfortable, constricting kimono.

Chidori meets a local kimono merchant and cleaner, Saiuchi Tsumugi. Although Tsumugi always maintains a polite smile, his words are sharp and he’s not shy about sharing criticism. Although a bit harsh and hard to read, he never completely rebuffs Chidori. She is intrigued by Tsumugi, always finding herself drawn back to his shop. But before she can get to know him better, she has to deal with her mother’s plans for an arranged marriage. With Tsumugi’s (not particularly gentle) encouragement, Chidori has to assert herself and decide her own future.

The oyaji: Saiuchi Tsumugi

42 years old. His store sells and cleans kimono. He’s not a dry cleaner–his shop practices the arai hari cleaning method in which the kimono is taken apart, the panels are washed separately, and then resewn together. Although he’s quite skilled in traditional practices and often seen wearing kimono, he has interest and experience in foreign affairs and culture. Chidori’s mother offhandedly warned her not to become interested in Tsumugi, which was a bit of a mystery.

Addition to oyaji romance list: Shuuden na Futari

I never seem to sit down to update my blog lists, so I’m attempting a new approach: add just one at a time instead of trying to add everything at once. That way, something actually gets done! I have several titles that I want to add to the Oyaji Romance Manga Selections, so here’s the most recent addition while it’s still fresh in my head. Shuuden na Futari is published in the Oyajism digital magazine. Honestly, I’m having issues with their PC reader program, such as incomplete downloads of their monthly magazine and one issue never opened at all.  Reinstalling, repairing, redownloading, etc. doesn’t change anything. So you might want to wait for the print manga of this title. It will be worth the wait at least.

Shuuden na Futari (Shuuden na Kankei) by Tatada Yoshio(?)
type: josei
length: 0 volumes (ongoing)

From the oyaji-centric digital magazine Oyajism, Shuuden na Futari is a delight. Hibari works long hours and inevitably rides the last train home. It’s not all bad–she also runs into the train station worker, Yokose. Yokose is kind and polite, looking out for Hibari as she often sleeps defenselessly (and with a bit of drool) on her way home. Their brief encounters are a bright spot in her hectic days. It’s a slow romance as two strangers progress from being polite, to friendly, to that point where they have to figure out if there’s something else. The characters are simple, yet refreshing.

The oyaji: Yokose

Yokose is about 20 years older than Hibari. He’s a diligent worker, but a bit scatter brained. Yokose may be clumsy, but he’s self-aware enough to always have a spare pair of glasses and an extra uniform. Due to his frequent accidents, he’s abnormally fast at changing his clothes. Sometimes when he’s trying to pack customers into trains during rush hour, he gets pushed onto the train himself. Both Yokose’s actions and faults are endearing. He has a great smile.

Torch Song Ecology by Ikuemi Ryo

Torch Song Ecology

Ikuemi Ryo has been drawing manga for a few decades now and there’s lots of titles to choose from if you want to sample her work. Torch Song Ecology is one of her newer series. The art is gorgeous and the tone of the work is interesting: it’s a mix of slice of life and supernatural. You have a man adrift in his own life who begins to hear a song in his head. The source is a young girl’s ghost that no one else can see or hear.. unless they are approaching their own death.

Dokyou Shichauzo! and Sansukumi by Kinuta Murako

Dokyou Shichauzo! and Sansukumi

A Shinto priest, Buddhist monk, and Catholic priest walk into a bar manga…

“Moe” is often associated with cute anime and manga like K’On! and Lucky Star that are marketed toward the male demographic.  But moe is alive and well in female-orientated manga, if you just know where to look!  Dokyou Shichauzo! and Sansukumi are essentially about three cute young men doing cute, innocent things and helping each other because they are good friends and good people in general.  If you described a manga like that to me, expecting me to actually read it, you’d be more likely to get a book tossed back in your face.  Perhaps that’s why I’m impressed by Sansukumi–it overcomes my jaded, low appreciation for all the supposedly cute, fuzzy things in manga.  It has impressed others as well, ranking on the Kono Manga ga Sugoi list for both 2011 and 2012.  So who are these adorable boys in religious garb and what are they up to?

Oyaji Romance Manga Selections

I consider myself an advocate of the delicious oyaji.  At least advocate sounds better than raving fangirl madly attempting to brainwash others. *ahem* As a follow-up to my oyaji BL manga primer, here’s a selection of great romance manga featuring older men.  Romance for adults.  Not necessarily the naughty kind, but the grown-up kind.

You’ll notice this list is much smaller, especially since I went ahead and independently covered a number of the titles.  Unfortunately, romancing older men isn’t a terribly common theme, at least not as the main focus of a manga. I don’t use the label “romance” lightly.  A genuine, powerful draw between two characters must be the main focus to make this list.  So here’s a selection of my favorite titles featuring an oyaji in a romantic story within some selected shoujo, josei, seinen, and BL manga.

Dowth may be like 1000 years old, but he’s still got it.

Love, Hate, Love. by Yamashita Tomoko

Love, Hate, Love.

“I can’t recover from hating something I once loved again.“

Love, Hate, Love. is a josei romance manga by the very talented and versatile Yamashita Tomoko.  That should be all that’s necessary to convince others to read it.  But in case it’s not, I have a little something more.  Truthfully, I wanted to make another detailed oyaji themed post, but I keep getting side-tracked by these great titles I want to include and end up covering them instead.  So it’s been a bit unbalanced with lots of josei manga lately.  But don’t worry (or breathe a sigh of relief), I’ll cover something raunchy to off-set it at some point~

Natsuyuki Rendezvous by Kawachi Haruka

Natsuyuki Rendezvous

Where the lost linger.

Natsuyuki Rendezvous is one of my favorite manga.  It’s hard to describe why it is–there’s complicated and raw, yet subtle emotion in this title.  And it draws that out of me as well.  Manga doesn’t often gracefully deal with the idea of loss. Or finding love once again in a realistic way that is just as painful and scary as it is hopeful.  Your take on the manga will be colored by your own experiences–it’s a great story for adults with more than a few scars.

Hazuki is a 22 year old young man who experienced love at first sight.  He occasionally visits the woman’s flower shop to buy small potted plants and steal some glimpses.  When the shop posts an opening for a part-time position, Hazuki jumps at the opportunity and he now works close to the woman, Rokka. While running some work-related errands, Rokka innocently invites Hazuki to her apartment above the shop.  Initially a bit miffed at her nonchalance at inviting a man upstairs (mostly wondering if he even registers as one), Hazuki gets a big surprise.

& (and) by Okazaki Mari

&

“The moment we held hands for the first time, I understood–
I’m sorry, but I don’t love you.”

There are two manga that I absolutely adore, but are inexplicably absent from my blog:  Natsuyuki Rendezvous and &.  What do they have in common?  The strength of these manga is that the artwork itself conveys the story and emotion.  In & in particular, the most important exchanges between characters involve no words.  And it’s done so well that you get it and feel it.  Beautiful, but perhaps hard to explain using this medium.  So I’m settling for an image heavy glance at what & has to offer instead.

Otoko no Isshou by Nishi Keiko

Otoko no Isshou

“At this age, I believed I wouldn’t fall in love again.”

While I love oyaji, this preference is not necessarily shared by many, considering the endless sea of bishies and hunky young men in anime and manga.  However, one manga ignited “oyaji fever” in a large number of readers:  Otoko no Isshou.  It sold very well and was even nominated for the 3rd Manga Taisho Award.  So what about this manga drew out the dormant karesen in everyone?

Otoko no Isshou is a romance manga that focuses on the atypical relationship that grows between a quiet, but capable office worker in her mid-30’s and a 51 year old philosophy professor.