Kyuujitsu no Warumono-san / Mr. Villain’s Day Off by Morikawa Yuu

If you’ve ever asked yourself “I wonder what Dr. Doom [fill-in other favorite villain] does on his day off? Does he go shopping in his full armor and cape or what? What’s he like when he relaxes?” then Kyuujitsu no Warumono-san / Mr. Villain’s Day Off is for you.

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If you’re looking for something fun and light, with a tiny bit of a heart, this manga is nearly perfect. There are a couple of weird subplots that I skim when I hit them (namely a very out of place story of a friendship between an oak tree spirit and a cherry tree spirit, but also some of the origin stories of the Good Guys–oh, and, of course, the weird Santa stuff), but, otherwise, I’m fully sold on this concept.

I tend to like really like fictional villains, however.

Over Easter weekend, I was on a panel at MiniCON that was meant to plumb the depth of this question, “Why do we like to ship dark with light?” but it got derailed by a fellow panelist insistent on shaming us for enjoying immoral and “cruel” characters. I’ve since spent a lot of time pondering the questions we were never allowed to fully consider. One of the conclusions I’ve come to is that it is inherently sexy to consider, “What is this person like when they’re at home, relaxed?” It unveils them, right? Being shown this intimate moment makes the person automatically more vulnerable, exposed, and authentic.

Thus, with villains, the stakes are higher. Vulnerable is something they are never meant to be.

The villain is also someone who is often larger-than-life. Thus, the instant we start to imagine them as “real” people who need to do their laundry or decide which ice cream to buy at a 7/11, they just become ridiculous. It’s just funny to think about. Cute. This is the same reason why Way of the House Husband doesn’t have to work that hard to be funny. The situation is already hilarious. Gangsters doing battle with the dishes (or, famously, a roomba), is just… it’s absurd and ridiculous and fun.

As soon as you take the villain off the battlefield, strip him of the costume of his office, he becomes… something else. More human, certainly, but possibly even, this guy:

I also love that he’s gracing the convenience store with his presence. That’s some prime villainy, right there.

One of the things I ended up liking about this manga is that we aren’t expected to believe that The General is anyone all that terribly different when he’s “on,” as opposed to when he is “off.” In fact, we get a very early scene in one first chapters in which we see the The General entirely from the point of view of a new recruit. The General is terrible to behold (and if you watch the anime in Japanese, the voice actor is great at sounding completely evil and threatening when just saying “hello,”) but he sees this overworked subordinate and says, “Listen, this war won’t be won overnight. Leave some of this work for tomorrow. Go home, relax.” And… this scene does a couple of things. First, as I noted, it establishes that The General is really just a guy who values time off, not only for himself, but for everyone, including his lowliest subordinate. Second, when we later see The General being kind to strangers and animals, it feels believable. Like, maybe The General is a good guy, deep down, being Evil is just his job.

But he is good at his job.

And I really appreciate that. Half way through what’s out on the scanlations so far, I found myself craving more and more of the “on” persona. This guy–

The one with the tail and the claws.

I was glad to see more of The General “at work,” because I think this story works best where there’s a bit of a balance. There are times both in the manga and the anime where, if I’m not reminded that this guy is the Big Bad, it could stray into boring.

Except that I’m also a fan of manga where the entire plot is, “and we go camping.” I think it helps that The General is not from Earth. You can see the ears, but we also see that the headquarters is on some dark shadow moon and the characters often speak of a far away, Mother Star. As an aside: This may be a direct reference to The Power Rangers, but I never watched because I am a fake fan. The Rangers clearly ARE the Power Rangers, they all go by color names and the one adult female character is, in fact, the Pink Ranger. My point is, slice-of-life stuff often works better for me when the characters are doing something uniquely Japanese-feeling, such as finding wonder in nature.

Like, there’s an entire chapter where The General just goes to the beach.

I can’t believe I got this far without noting that The General is also weirdly obsessed with pandas. This is actually a huge part of the humor.

Anyway, I love the art, particularly whenever we get a glimpse of The General’s darker persona beneath the hair.

As the anime is how I found this manga, I would recommend, weird Santa Claus stuff included

Blue Period (Vol. 1) by Yamaguchi Tsubasa

If I were a better organized person, I’d have read Blue Period immediately after having reviewed Blank Canvas: My So-Called Artist’s Journey. They are both about a personal journey into fine art and the struggles of getting into highly competitive art school. Blank Canvas, being of course, an autobiographical memoir, and Blue Period being fictional.

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I’m not sure I’d appreciate the magnitude of, our hero, Yatora’s undertaking if I had not previously read Blank Canvas. Yatora is presented as a natural when it comes to art. Technically, he may have a lot to learn, but he’s portrayed as someone with a good ‘eye,’ who intrinsically understands how to imbue art with emotion.

Even though he doesn’t take anything in his life seriously, Yatora decides, after seeing a student’s painting that moves him, to maybe give art a go. He tries to capture the faint blue feeling of Shibuya in the early dawn…

And immediately, if clumsily, is able to capture it.

This inspires Yatora to go all in. This guy who was very likely headed to some typical salaryman future is suddenly obsessed with trying to get into art school.

And… I’m rooting for him.

I think we all like the fantasy of genius being this easy. At least Yatora has been characterized as someone who is just very good at putting in the time to accomplish the skill. We discover in the first few panels that despite looking like a delinquent and hanging out late nights with his sporty gang of guy friends, Yatora is a good student. People think he’s smart, but he tells us it’s not that, he just learned good study habits and keeps to them. So, I mean, at least it’s set-up in Yatora’s character that he’s not necessarily some kind of savant, who is just going to randomly decide to draw one day and become the best of the best. We even get a couple of scenes where we get a hint that maybe Yatora used to draw, but had given up on it at some point.

Although maybe this is just one of those things he bought for school, as Yatora is basically untrained. We, though his lessons, learn about perspective, shading, etc., etc. There is, of course, an art teacher who is odd as a duck, but who also instrumental in encouraging Yatora. I like her? She reminds me of my friend Laurel.

I have some friends who tried watching the anime, but gave up on it. The manga has a certain amount of urgency, in part driven by Yatora’s desire, passion and curiosity, but also by the upcoming deadline for the art school applications. I could see myself continuing to read this one, honestly.

The art in it is visually arresting, even in black and white, but it does feel like the kind of story that would improve in color. You can see Yamaguchi trying to be artsy in certain panels. Like, he is trying to give you the impression of light and color, while stuck in the black & white medium of manga pages.

Honestly, it mostly works. If you are interested in a story about art, this might be for you.

If you like Yamaguchi-sensei’s art style, but would rather read a very sad, bittersweet boys’ love romance, you can check out Kokuhaku no Jikan about a boy who has an accident and loses the ability to remember anything except the day before, in which he was promised a love confession. It’s very sad, but quite lovely. Yamaguchi-sensei also drew the manga version of She and Her Cat.

Ai wa Chitto mo Rakuja Nai / Love Isn’t The Slightest Bit Easy by Kiriyuu Kiyoi

Even though, when I found Ai wa Chitto mo Rakuja Nai / Love Isn’t The Slightest Bit Easy, I was actually looking for something far smuttier, it turns out I’m a sucker for stories that feature writers.

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As discussed in many previous reviews, I also tend to enjoy stories where gayness is just presumed. I understand it’s a wonderful fantasy to imagine that every guy out there is just one good kiss (or f*ck) from becoming queer, but you get to skip a lot of faux introspection if the assumption is ‘not only gay, but one look and I knew you were the top…’

So, there are two stories in this volume. The first follows a writer, Kamiyama, who has a very interesting writing process. He needs sex to get inspired. He’s been in a slump for five years because his last boyfriend left him to get married to a woman. After hiring our Jack of all Trades (handyman) / former delinquent, Koga, Kamiyama decides that maybe Koga might be just the ticket to get the old juices flowing again (AS IT WERE.)

Kamiyama tries very hard to be rude and off-putting so that Koga will treat this relationship as Just Sex.

To be fair to Kamiyama, Koga immediately puts his foot in it when he asks the author the DREADED QUESTION: How’s that next book coming?

To which he gets this look (which many of us know well because we have used it on people_:

The face that simultaneously “How DARE you?” and “I WILL murder you.” But which really means, “OMG, I’m a total fraud, I will never write again, I hate my life, who thinks writing is a job to aspire to… WHY GOD WHY?” I’m pretty certain my wife can attest to having been pinned by this exact glare many, many times.

The story is really only two chapters long because Koga convinces Kamiyama that 1) he will never accept money for sex, so stop trying to pay him off, and 2) after snuggles are nice. Probably my favorite scene is that after sex, when Kamiyama usually runs off to write, Koga convinces him that he COULD at least hang out in the bed to write.

Which, as a writer, I can say is the height of romance when you’re under deadline, under contract.

The second story in the volume follows Kamiyama’s “manager.” This is one area of Japanese publishing that baffles me, as there is, to my knowledge, nothing like this in the American publishing industry. Authors will sometimes hire assistants, but publishing companies do not have anyone who makes house calls to make sure an author is writing. I mean, I was only ever a mid-lister? But, I am friends with people who are on Neil Gaiman’s level and NONE of them have anything like this. Assistants they hired themselves, yes. Publishing “managers”? No. But, this seems to be very similar to how editors appear to work in manga, so I would absolutely believe that Japanese publishing is similar.

Regardless, the second story follows this guy, the manager, who is a very fox-faced self-proclaimed bottom, who also is really trying to not fall in love, particularly not with the guy he tends to hook up with a lot. I skimmed the second story? I was vaguely interested in whether or not the regular hook-up was going to turn out to be married, but I was not at all surprised when he wasn’t.

The thing I noticed the most between the two stories is that both are graphic enough that I could tell that Koga wore a condom and the love interest/casual hook-up of the second story did not.

So, yeah, there are no invisible penises in this story. so please read responsibly. I think the trade-off is the art? As you can see from the above panels, it’s OK. Sometimes the bodies get too elongated in the way that yaoi sometimes can, but, you know, it’s serviceable (and far better than I could ever do, of course.)

This one feels hit or miss to me. If it sounds like your thing, go for it. If not, I don’t think you’re missing an undiscovered gem. I think that the people who will enjoy this the most are fellow writers.

Hoshizora wo Mitsumeta Sono Ato de / After Staring at the Starry Sky by Kida Bisco

… And now back to our safe, little bishies.

I don’t even know what I was looking for when I stumbled across Hoshizora wo Mitsumeta Sono Ato de / After Staring at the Starry Sky. Probably smut, but, you know, sometimes you gotta settle for romance.

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If you are someone who actually needs to use a wheelchair, I would not necessarily recommend reading this one. I suspect it would drive you crazy on a lot of levels, but also a big part of the romance seems to involve the astrophotographer, Tougo Amase, randomly picking up and carrying around, princess style, our protagonist, Subaru Miyazawa, without first getting consent or even with much warning.

I mean, I am able-bodied so I can’t really comment here about how inappropriate this seems, but I don’t even give a hug to someone before asking if it’s okay to touch them. I can not imagine just picking someone up and moving them around like furnature.

Technically, this is not the basis of the romance.

Subaru has been crushed out on Togo via his art for so long that his best lady friend, Akari, immediately hooks the two of them up as soon as there is an opportunity. And, then like the good wingman she is, Akari instantly finds other places to be. I think Akari was my favorite character, honestly? She’s also the one who brings the guys back together after they separate after the inevitable misunderstanding.

Look at that face. She knows what she’s doing!

At any rate, the feelings grow between the two guys after they start traveling together, particularly to Iriomote-Ishigaki National Dark Sky Park. There’s only a moderate amount of discussion about how difficult it might be to move around in this park in a wheelchair and it seems to be solved with Togo pushing. This is a fantasy, clearly, because we are also supposed to imagine that somehow these two young men slept chastely together in a tent.

It is not until the extra chapter at the end of the book that we discover that Subaru is only numb from the knees down… which begs a lot of questions all of a sudden, but also answers a bunch of others. I spent a lot of time, of course, comparing this to Perfect World, which I’d read some time ago, which also has a love interest in a wheelchair. Perfect World seems to be more willing to deal with some of the things people might rather not think about which might come up in a relationship with someone disabled in some way. But, then I thought… well, I mean, maybe someone out there just wants a nice, fantasy romance without the realism? Maybe I should shut up and let them have it?

There is no sex in this story. Just two pretty guys hanging out, liking each other. The art is nice enough. There’s one really lovely moment when Togo, who normally won’t take pictures of people, is moved to take one of Subaru. This moment returns to reunite the boys when they’re being stupid and apart.

Would I recommend it? I don’t know. It’s fine? It is licensed in English so you can always try pressuring your library into buying it, if you don’t (or can’t) spend the money yourself.

Akuma no Kare / My Devil Boyfriend by Anything (naop)

So, yeah, Akuma no Kare is a one shot and is exactly as dirty as the cover implies. It’s also not yaoi, but bara.

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Tsutomu is a regular salaryman who, somehow, buys a grimoire and attempts to summon a demon. Initially, his plan seems to be to exact revenge on the people at his job, but the demon that appears in the magic circle is so hot that Tsutomu is like, “Nah, what I want is sex!”

Which for levels of bara hotness, I don’t necessarily think this is a bad choice on Tsutomu’s part! I mean… hello, MUSCLES!

At any rate, after the signing of the contract, the devil, Kurahato, discovers that maybe he’s the one that shoulda read the fine print because it turns out Tsutomu is a top.

Wacky sex ensues.

The end.

Maybe? It’s not clear. Baka-Updates believes it’s fully scanned and Akuma no Kare is listed as a one-shot, which it may be, but often one chapter stories are parts of anthologies and this seems to have its own cover, complete with R-Rating. Full volumes are usually 5 (or 5.5) chapters, so I have my suspicions that perhaps the scanlators got part way in, discovered that there wasn’t going to be any romance and that these were beefy, bara men and quit at chapter one. Although, who knows? Anything seems to maybe be an artist’s circle of which naop/naop-loop is part of so its possible that the rest of the manga is filled with work by the rest of the group. (It’s unclear, however. His Tumblr, however, seems to just have work by himself however, and is using the Anything name??)

Other than untangling this mystery, there’s not a huge amount that I have to say about this little demon romp. The art is very bara, but if know what you’re getting, I found it cute and smutty and funny– so, if that’s something you can also appreciate, go for it!

If not, do me a favor? Don’t read it and leave comments on how gross it is.

I noticed that the comments at Manganelo all were on par with “Ugh! My eyes! I can’t unsee it. I need Bleach!” and “What was that?” Especially since the comments (possibly from the same people) is all “F*CK HIM HARDER” (and even more explicitly gross) when its the exact same level of smut, but two bishie boys. Likewise, someone on Baka-Updates seems to have taken the time to give a one-star rating to not only this particular bara, but literally everything else nanop-sensei has ever had published, including titles that have no fan translation/scanlation. Which, maybe they’ve read in the original Japanese, but which seems more likely an attempt to make sure no one scanlates anything else of his.

THIS is why I can’t have nice things.

You know what I don’t always like? Straight romances. Yet, somehow, you don’t see me spending my waking hours going around to every single shoujo title and giving them a one star rating out of spite.

I have better things to do with my time. Like read bara.

Plus, let’s get real, this bara hate? It’s homophobic.

Unlike yaoi and Boys’ Love, Bara is a genre that is not written by women or for women. Bara is written by gay men for gay men. It’s not just hairless, skinny, androgynous, weeping, bishi twinks having sex with each other and living in some woman’s fantasy of heteronormative, deeply gender-coded “gay” life. Instead, the men have bulging chests, hair, and the stories tend to be fairly “wham, bam, thank you, man,” and not romantic at all. There’s one by nanop-sensei called, and I kid you not, Glory Hole. I am suspecting I can guess without reading it what happens in that manga…. and how hot it might be.

But, apparently, all of a sudden because the men look like men, commentors feel like they need to point out that it’s smutty and gross.

Like yoai isn’t smut?? I can point you to a few titles if you think it’s all just flowers, holding hands, and blushing. And, also, that is not to say that Akuma no Kare doesn’t have it’s cute moments…..

Making a demon blush is pretty darned cute.

I mean, none of this is news. Breaking, breaking: the homophobes are ruining it for the rest of us! is not exactly a brand new occurrence. It’s just… it’s 2024, y’all. Can we let bara exist?

It would be amazing, honestly, if we could support it? And not just the ones who we’ve decided are acceptable like Tagame Gengoroh. What would it be like to live in a world where men are allowed to have big bodies, body hair, and belly fat and still be hot as fu*k? Bara might give us a clue. And it would be nice for those of us who like that to be able to read it. If this isn’t for you, that’s okay. But, don’t get in other people’s way is all I’m saying.

Kieta Hatsukoi / My Love Mix-Up (Vol. 1) by Hinekure Wataru / Aruko

If you’re in the mood for a very light, cute romance with an actual love triangle (instead of a love-Y), Kieta Hatsukoi / My Love Mix-Up might be for you.

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I’ve only read the first volume so far, and what’s nice about Kieta Hatsukoi / My Love Mix-Up is that it’s nearly a complete story in one volume (and it is TRULY complete in 9 volumes). You do, at least, get to the end of the “joke” of the set-up by the end of the first volume.

I can see, however, how fans might clamor for more. I really want to see what happens with these characters.

The meet cute (mess) goes like this: Aoki has a crush on the girl who sits across from in in class, Hashimoto. One day, during a test, he need to borrow an eraser and Hashimoto–whom he adores in part because she is always so kind to everyone–loans Aoki her eraser. HOWEVER! Written on the eraser is I ❤ Ida. Ida is the dark-haired, serious boy who sits in front of Aoki and, while freaking out about realizing that his crush is crushing out on someone else, Aoki drops the eraser. Who should pick it up, but Ida!

Now Ida has seen the heart!! Oh noz!

Aoki would like to just explain that the eraser belongs to Hashimoto, but she’s so easily embarrassed that he doesn’t want to do that to her! It might make his crush hate him. So, instead Aoki lets Ida believe that, yes, in fact, it’s his eraser… and that he’s got a secret crush.

This could easily turn into one of those romcoms where the readers spends the entire yelling, “OMG, this whole thing could be solved if you’d just TALK to each other!!” But, Aoki immediately tells Ida that they need to meet on the roof afterschool. His plan is to explain the whole mix-up and, because he’s a good guy, connect his crush up with the guy of her dreams and stand back and try to root for her.

Of course, Hashimoto grabs Aoki before he can head up to the roof where Ida is waiting and makes him pinky swear that he won’t tell a soul about what he saw on that eraser. So, now he’s headed up to the roof not exactly sure what he’d going to say to Ida.

Ida, expecting a love confession, is prepared to turn Aoki down gently. Aoki is all, “You weren’t meant to see that, just forget it!” and so it’s sort of solved? Except, Aoki seems depressed about it (though it’s really other things) and so Ida, being genuinely a good guy, offers to get to know Aoki before fully turning down the offer to go out.

The rest of the volume is Aoki becoming a confidant to the one he likes, Hashimoto, as she looks to Ida, while Ida starts entertaining the idea of maybe Aoki?

The final chapter of the volume hits us with a surprise twist, which I won’t spoil her, because it’s delightful.

I enjoyed this and, from what I can tell without Googling too deeply, things may work out for our heroes (and possibly the heroine as well…)

Apparently, this was popular enough that there was a live-action TV series made.… so you could watch this, if you prefer.

RePlay by Tsukahara Saki

Finally, some yaoi.

If your fantasy is sweaty high school baseball players, RePlay is for you.

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I can’t say that this one was for me, exactly? I honestly only picked it up because I got so giddy with my new library card from St. Paul Public Library that I accidentally put it on hold, not realizing it would come as an e-book.

I’d like to imagine that the concept for this manga came to Tsukuhara-sensei like this, “Oh, my god, did you know that there’s a baseball term called a battery, in which a pitcher choses a favorite catcher and they stick together in every game! Also, oh my god, Pitcher and Catcher!! Think about it! The pitcher will be the actual top, and the catcher can be actual the bottom!! This basically writes itself!”

Amusingly, while RePlay is ostensibly a baseball manga, there is almost no game play in it. A couple of times you think maybe we’ll see some baseball, but, naturally, that’s the day that the game is rained out. I kind of admire this? Because, honestly, if I were going to write about baseball, this how I’d have to do it.

Look, the mangaka remembered to add a baseball somewhere in the picture!

If only this were plot-what-plot, I might be able to forgive this, but no. The set-up is that Ritsu and Yuta are in their fourth year and so have to drop out of baseball to concentrate on college entrance exams. (A reoccurring theme in many, many sports manga.) Yuta doesn’t want to give up baseball… or is the real reason he can’t seem to let go of the game because he will have to stop being Ritsu’s “married partner” (as they call their battery)??

Obviously, it’s the latter, but it takes Yuta a long time to get there.

In fact, they don’t manage to get it on until the last chapter, when they are fully graduated and move into an apartment together. In a romantic gesture I do not recommend, the two intentionally go to the same college just to stay together, even though Yuta could barely pass the entrance exams to qualify. I would love to see a sequel to this, actually, where Yuta has dropped out, because what is he even studying? He would have been better off taking the coach’s recommendation to go to a college with a baseball scholarship. I’m actually deeply upset that the big “romantic” gesture Yuta does for Ritsu is turn down an actual chance to do what he loved. (Although Yuta talks himself into believing he only plays the game to be with Ritsu.)

Yeah, I wish you would, but you ended up going to the same place in the end. Even though Ritsu is the only one who is interested in an programs there.

This relationship is SO full of red flags.

Because Ritsu is also always doing things in secret “for” Yuta, like learning to drive a car–which he only seems to do because he’s jealous of how much time Yuta spends admiring the coach’s car–and buying them an apartment without even asking Yuta if he actually wants to live together.

But, I guess the sex is good?

It’s not terribly explicit, and the art is otherwise in the “wispy” category. So, while I ended up reading the whole thing, I can’t really recommend. I did go looking to see if there was anything else by Tsukahara-sensei that might also be fun and I skimmed through Escape Drop, which is a love story between a bodyguard and the mixed-race scion of some Italian business cartel. It has a similar structure in that jealousy plays a huge part of the romance, but I sort of enjoyed this one a bit more, if only for this amazing line…

Because we all know that Italian men just don’t even have an international reputation as Lotharios…. (but, not like I necessarily disagree? It’s just funny.)

At this point, I’ve talked about these longer than it took me to read them. Feel free to check them out if they interest you, however, the sex is very naked upper torsos with carefully placed legs, etc., so as to hide the salient bits. It’s not PG, but it’s not really R, either.

Hades-sama no Mujihi na Konin / Lord Hades’s Ruthless Marriage by Yuho Ueji

I’m not normally the type for straight-romance, but the schtick of Hades-sama no Mujihi na Konin / Lord Hades’s Ruthless Marriage is that Hades is really NOT interested in marriage. Unfortunately, that rat b*astard Cupid stuck him right int he forehead with an arrow (as you can see on the cover of the first volume.)

This whole thing is unbelievably stupid, but I have to admit that I enjoyed it anyway.

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Look at this terrifying creature (with a literal pansy on his a$$). A person can suddenly understand everything that’s wrong with Greek and Roman mythology, if you imagine this little f*cker zipping around intentionally causing mischief.

This is basically the plot.

It is a comedic re-imagining of the literally classic story of Hades/Pluto and Kore/Persephone in which neither Hades nor Kore are particularly looking for love, but some little twink sticks his nose in. In this version, Kore is hiding out in Hades in order to escape her meddling mother, Demeter. Hades, having been shot in the head by Cupid, blindfolds himself in order to escape falling in love with the next person he sees. Thinking he’s alone, he removes the blindfold and Kore literally falls into his lap.

Cue: shojo roses and flowers in bloom!

Only, neither of them fall instantly or madly in love immediately, but Hades had requested that anyone who removes the arrow can be granted one wish. Possibly also to be a brat, Kore asks that he take seriously the search for a wife.

This completely bums out our gloomy hero, but a god is good to his word, so the hijinks ensue as Hades’ entertains absolutely all other callers, instead of the one we all know he’s destined for.

I mean, there are three volumes and I will probably stop here, but it’s actually kind of funny, particularly if you are a Greek/Roman mythology fan. I’m always interested to see how different gods get portrayed, and currently I find Poseidon to be the hottest.

Do I recommend? I dunno. I mean, silly is sometimes just what the doctor ordered, so maybe? I waffled about my feelings about the art. Sometimes, it felt too busy for me, but every once and a while I was struck by a hot/nice shot like the one above.

I kind of feel like Cupid’s butt steals every scene it’s in? But, is that worth picking it up? Up to you.

Hikaru ga Shinda Natsu / The Summer Hikaru Died by Mokumoku Rei

Hikaru ga Shinda Natsu / The Summer Hikaru Died is a poignant, deeply sublimated, barely acknowledged (but definitely queer) love story between a boy and… the monster that returned in the body of his dead friend. A new genre, perhaps? Horror Romance or Romance Horror?

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Yoshiki has a problem. His best friend (and unrequited love) Hikaru went missing in the mountains. In desperation, Yoshiki went looking for him and found a body, but before he could tell anyone, he collapsed with a fever. When Yoshiki woke up, who should have miraculously returned but Hikaru?

Yoshiki knows that what came back isn’t Hikaru.

But he can’t decide if that matters. The thing that is wearing his friend’s body has many of Hikaru’s memories and Hikaru was such a precious friend that it’s important to know that in Japanese, the title of this manga can be read two ways. It can be as published with Hikaru’s name, or it can be read: The Summer the Light Died.

There’s no question that Yoshiki is gay. Mokumoku-sensei teases around the edges saying it explicitly, out loud, but all the signs say “yes.” In their first scene together, Hikaru teases Yoshiki that he’s so awkward and serious about the question he’s about to ask that it seems like the build-up to a love confession. At another point, Yoshiki says he’ll never have a girlfriend. When he has a feeling of being suffocated by their small, rural town, several of the pressures seem to be in expectation of marriage. Moreover like many of us who grew up in a small town, Yoshiki is looking for others like him–in the scene above, knows that the fight that one of the village’s families is having isn’t about the fact that their heir is sick, but that he’s gay.

The Hikaru of the past–whom we see a lot in flashback–is completely clueless–or at least plays that way, because the Hikaru who is inhabited by something else, however, seems to be aware that Yoshiki was important to the Real HIkaru.

I feel safe calling it gay.

Especially since everything else Mokumoku-sensei has drawn is yaoi. Nandemo Shite kureru Doukyuusei / A Classmate Who Will Do Anything For You is straight-up smut, whereas Period is a bit more subtle in the romance department. You only get the “gay” in the final panel. (Note: Period is a well-written, if disturbing one-shot about the kind of love that has you helping bury the body… literally.)

Plus, as someone who also spent my high school years closeted this reads very real. Yoshiki will say something like “he’s not sick, he’s gay,” but when Hikaru asks if that’s some GLBT thing, possibly opening up an opportunity for Yoshiki to say more about it, Yoshiki will just shrug it off and go gloomy. <–High school me feels seen. When you’re deeply closeted sometimes you just try out saying the thing, but then back the hell off. These two do that dance constantly throughout.

The Summer Hikaru Died was published as seinen according to Wikipedia, though Baka-Updates has it as both seinen and Boys’ Love. I will say that I tend to trust Baka-Updates, as they seemed to be more aware of the kinds of things the original publisher tend to publish. But, this sort of thing is very seinen, especially with all the horror elements and the deep, deep sadness of the whole thing.

I found this whole thing INTENSELY compelling. I’m always interested in supernatural stories that ask the question “What does it mean to be human? To have a Soul?” Especially, when the mangaka doesn’t pull any punches and let’s Hikaru be scary, strange, and… murderous. There are a lot of scary monsters throughout, don’t go in expecting something strange and wonderful. It’s strange and wonderful, but also SCARY and horrible.

And I love it.

Plus, the art is fantastic.

I even love the art of Mokumoku-sensei’s smut!

So, if you think you can stand a heavy dose of tragedy and horror, I highly recommend this one. (If not, the smut is cute.)

At 30, I Realized I Had No Gender: Life Lessons From a 50-Year-Old After Two Decades of Self-Discovery by Arai Shou

Here on this site, I have complained MANY TIMES that I sometimes have to wonder if librarians read the manga before they decide where to shelve it. But, this is the first time I’ve had to ask myself… did the Official English language publisher read this book?

Like, at all?

SPOILERS

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They did potential fans of Arai-sensei a great disservice, in my opinion. Because, you might think, from the title, that what this story will be about is Arai-sensei’s self-discovery. What happened at 30 that caused Arai-sensei to declare they have no gender? What does it mean to Arai-sensei to be genderless? Are they coming out as non-binary or… something else?

Whelp, spoiler, literally NONE of that is in this book.

Zero.

Nada.

Zip.

This entire manga reads like if the intimate details of Arai-sensei’s life are well known to the reader.

They are, of course…

…IN JAPAN.

Arai Shou has written a ton of books about their personal gender discovery in Japanese. In fact, I might suspect, given the title, Seibetsu ga, Nai! ~ Ryouseiguyuu no Monogatari / No Gender! A Story of Androgyny of which there are 18 volumes might be the main place to read about Arai-sensei’s personal journey. Some of which, I presume includes how, after marrying a man, their body begins changing and they discover they are intersex, specifically that they have Turners Syndrome.

Moreover, reading this series, I suspect a reader might learn that despite having top surgery and taking male hormones, Arai-sensei has come to the conclusion (currently) that they are also non-binary.

What is distressing about the English-language translation of At 30, I Realized I Had No Gender: Life Lessons From a 50-Year-Old After Two Decades of Self-Discovery is that the publisher uses the “he” pronoun to describe Arai-sensei throughout the book, saying that that’s Arai-sensei’s preference–even though, throughout the book, the narrator looks out of the panels at the reader and tells us that they feel neither male nor female and that they struggle with this, as they present as masculine. I was like, okay, it seems rare that someone who uses he/him would still consider himself non-binary, but who am I to say? I can roll. Yet, the more I read the way Arai talked about themselves confused me to the point that I actually briefly thought that either the term intersex was being used interchangeably for non-binary in Japan… or I was loosing my mind and I no longer understood what intersex or non-binary ACTUALLY meant.

It was only after watching an entire documentary about Arai-sensei did this book–the only autobiographical manga of Arai-sensei’s to be either scanlated OR to get an official publication in English–even BEGIN to make sense.

So, why this book? Why is this the first we’ve met Arai-sensei??

What was TokyoPop thinking? Why not start with Seibetsu ga, Nai! / No Gender! ??? These kinds of gender and sexual autobiographical books are extremely popular right now–witness all of the reviews I’ve been doing lately along these lines. I’m not sure there isn’t a market for an 18 volume series about an intersex person discovering 1) that they are genetically intersex, 2) that they want to express more masculinity, but not ALL of it and, instead, intentionally live in-between as a non-binary person, and 3) hooking up with their cis male gay/pansexual assistant and trying to decide if that made them a gay man or what? And eventually deciding that it didn’t matter and that, in the famous words of Chuck Tingle, love is love.

That’s fascinating stuff! I’d read the f*ck out of that. And these covers are darling!

I can only imagine that what happened in the TokyoPop boardroom is that they started looking around at the books their rivals were buying (see: any of the zillion gender/sexual minority 101 autobiographies that seem to be sweeping the 2023-4 manga market) and just GRABBED one of Arai-sensei’s at f*cking random.

I kind of wish that I hadn’t returned my copy to the library already because now that I watched a full two hours of an explanation of Arai-sensei’s life, I’d like to see where they are now. I presume that’s the appeal to Japanese audiences of At 30, I Realized I Had No Gender: Life Lessons From a 50-Year-Old After Two Decades of Self-Discovery.

Sadly, it makes almost NO SENSE whatsoever to English-speaking audiences who have not had the pleasure to meet this mangaka and their darling partner Khou… not even through pirate sites! One of the few pieces of Arai-sensei’s work that you can read is their contribution to the anthology manga, Change H. The other thing by Arai-sensei that I’ve found that’s been scanlated is Yuzu no Koto. I have not yet read either, but I honestly may recommend reading these because at least they stand alone.

If you decide want to tackle At 30…, I recommend that you watch the documentary (in Japanese, with subtitles) that I linked to above. The documentary is fascinating. Arai-sensei is frank and forthcoming about their experiences and, unlike TokyoPop, uses “S” to signify Arai-sensei’s pronoun since, if you listen to the Japanese, it’s clear that they use NO pronouns at all (which is, of course, much more possible in Japanese than it is in English.)

So a mixed bag? Not sure I’d recommend the actual manga because it’s mostly about Arai-sensei freaking out about growing old while Khou still looks very young, random bits about their already established relationship with no other context (NO CONTEXT FOR YOU!!), and make-up and clothing tips for readers who have written in desiring to pass as one gender or another or as genderfluid.

It’s not a great introduction to the idea of being born intersex, the documentary does a much better job a that.

Because if this is your only introduction to Arai-sensei, they don’t come off great?

Like, this “hurt myself” line is a bit disturbing if you have no context.

Which you don’t.