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Well friends, this may very well be the last edition of Yaoi Menace. I think I found the book that will put me off the genre forever.

Yaoi: Anthology of Boys’ Love Volume 1 from Yaoi Press is a collection of three short stories brought to life by international teams of writers and artists. Also, it sucks. Hard. No, that’s not a good thing.

The first story, The Price of Freedom, is written by Misa Izanaki and drawn by Yishan Studios. It begins when a family of what appear to be less-than-Yeti but more-then-human creatures rescues a young woman and her baby, who are lost in the forest. The child, Aren, is a half-incubus (wings, tail, horns etc.) and grows up with the Yeti family’s son, Kumari. Then one day Aren’s mother announces that they are going back to her family.

We meet Aren again years later, when he is the star attraction of a circus sideshow, where he plays demon to an ‘angel’ (a man who inexplicably has feathered wings, as opposed to Aren’s bat wings). The ‘angel’ happens to be the lover of the sideshow’s owner, and after work they get their kicks raping and humiliating Aren.

One day, the sideshow acquires a new attraction, a giant wild man. Of course it’s Kumari, who’s been seeking Aren for years. Aren chooses to help Kumai escape by trading his wings to the sideshow’s resident mad scientist (all sideshows have one, you know, and they all want nothing more than a pair of incubus wings) for a headband which will shrink Kumari and make him appear more human. Kumari won’t hear of it, of course. They escape together with surprising ease and take a room at an inn (that they somehow pay for) and the consensual, comforting sex begins.

The title is never really explained, unless the ‘price of freedom’ is Kumari having to wear a stupid-looking headband for the rest of his life.

This is the sort of plot that is popular in slash fanfiction, and it is just as shallow when it involves original characters. Nothing is explained as to how Aren and his mother ended up in the forest, who his father is, or why his mother suddenly decided to go back to her relatives. Information on how Aren’s mother died and he was captured by the sideshow is sketchy at best. The characters are completely one-sided: Kumari is noble, Aren is gentle, the bad guys are sadistic etc. The rape scenes are disturbing, but the consensual sex is boring. And the art…well, to be honest, it sucks. A distinct lack of shading leaves everything looking flat and cartoony, and the body proportions are off. Of the three stories in the anthology, The Price of Freedom is the worst in every way.

The art in the second story, Gang Love, is better, but the story itself is nearly nonexistent. Taku is a member of a street gang that doesn’t actually seem to be involved in any criminal activity; they just hang around the mall and talk loudly. One day he catches sight of another guy in a music store and thinks the guy might be his long-lost childhood friend, Masa. Apparently, Taku and Masa were in reform school together and may or may not have had a homosexual encounter there. The guy gets away before Taku can talk to him, but he impulsively buys the CD the guy was looking at. The next time they run into each other, Taku hands over the CD and discovers the guy is Masa. They spend time catching up, but there’s a problem- Masa may or may not be a member of a rival gang. However, no one stops them from leaving the mall and going to Masa’s house to watch porno. During the movie, the boys engage in a mutual masturbation session that develops into sex. But their gangs won’t allow them to be together, or something. Somehow they end up in a love hotel and decide to run away. The end.

Gang Love is a mess. The clichéd story provides zero conflict, and much of it just doesn’t make sense. The art is mediocre American graphic novel fare; there’s nothing interesting or unique about the characters at all. Neither the writer, Sean Michael Williams, or the artists, Studio Kosaru, are going on my Myspace friends list.

The final story, Deliverance, is the best, which really isn’t saying much. It is marginally deeper than the first two, and the art, while not very manga-like, is almost decent.

The story opens in a backwoods cabin. Two rednecks are asleep in their chairs, moonshine jugs on the floor beside them. Two young men lie naked on the floor. One is chained with a dog collar; the other wakes to realize that his hillbilly captors have somehow forgotten to chain him. Before you can say “Squeal like a pig, boy!”, the kid takes off, blatantly ignoring the two loaded shotguns propped by the door and leaving his companion. The boy, whose name is Aden, pulls a distressed damsel deal by spraining his ankle in the woods. Luckily he is found by Liam, an ex-cop with a predictably tragic past. He puts Aden up and finds him some clothes, and, at Aden’s request, decides not to call the cops. He’s surprised and uncomfortable when Aden tries to show his gratitude in a sexual manner, but you can guess how long his resistance holds. In the meantime, Aden’s former masters are pissed and come looking for him. At the same time Aden and Liam are putting together a plan to free Aden’s co-sex-slave. Everything eventually collides in an anti-climatic ending.

Deliverance (I’m guessing the title is a deliberate reference by writer D.V. L. Spencer) is alternately boring and icky. The circumstances of Aden’s capture and life as a sex-slave are lurid and overdone, while his healing relationship with Liam has been done a millions times before, in books, anime, movies, manga- and especially fanfiction. One if its attractive elements is a female side character who is more than a nagging sister or dumped fiancée, the roles women are usually relegated to in yaoi stories. She is a cop with a believably cool, tough attitude and a soft spot for the disgraced Liam. Amelia Woo’s art is the least manga-style of the three stories, but the most detailed.

In the end, I’m glad I didn’t spend the $12.95 list price on Yaoi: Boys Love Anthology. But I did spend forty minutes of my life on this crap. If only I could sue Yaoi Press for time!

Details

Publisher: Yaoi Press
Author: Multiple
Pages: 152
Format: Manga
MSRP: $12.95
Date of Publication: 4/11/07
Buy:

http://www.amazon.com/Yaoi-1-Anthology-Boys-Love/dp/1933664150/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214621668&sr=8-1

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