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In the author’s comments section at the end of volume one, mangaka Makoto Tateno claims she didn’t know if Steal Moon would fit in the boys’ love genre, since it is a science fiction manga. She should have no worries on that account. Steal Moon is as much a science fiction story as Brokeback Mountain is a Western; slapping a ten-gallon hat on Jake Gyllenhaal didn’t make that film a cowboy movie, and sticking a couple supercomputers in Steal Moon doesn’t make it science fiction.

Nozomi is a young punk who makes his living by fighting people in narrow alleyways (I’m not totally sure how he makes money by doing this…does he take bets? Or maybe he just steals his opponents’ wallets after he knocks them unconscious.). He’s undefeated in the street-fighting world, so when a new challenger approaches with a rather sinister proposal, Nozomi doesn’t think twice about accepting. So when tall, dark and handsome Coyote beats the crap out of him, Nozomi finds himself having to do whatever Coyote says.

Usually in a yaoi this would lead to some rape scenes, but Coyote actually has something different in mind. He sells Nozomi to a company called Digital Angels. DA has an interesting business plan: they ‘buy’ people from other people, lock them in little rooms, and focus a webcam on them 24/7. Every time some perv on the Internet clicks on their particular webcam, the prisoners earns 200 yen; when they pay back their purchase price (usually in the millions) they are free to go. So they’re less slaves than, say, indentured servants.

Nozomi is understandably pissed, and refuses to do anything for the camera but eat and sleep. DA’s owner, the creepy pretty boy Hermes, sends two of his best employees to convince Nozomi otherwise. Soma and Gyokuto can’t be more than ten or eleven years old, but they already know how to rack up the hits by kissing and masterbating for the camera (and is this element of the story doesn’t seriously bother you, then there is something wrong with your brain).

Nozomi still refuses to cooperate, so his ‘owner’ arranges a ‘forced event’ (translation: you gonna get raped). He’s rescued at the very last minute by Coyote, who tells him a bizarre story. The entire Earth is being spied upon, just as the DA employees are constantly being watched. All of humanity is under surveillance…by a supercomputer of possibly alien origin…which is located on the moon.

Coyote specifically targeted Nozomi, to bring him to DA, which is a perverse front for Selene, a group whose mission it is to stop the surveillance. The group includes Hermes, Soma and Gyokuto, Nozomi, and Coyote. Somehow (and this remains unexplained), Hermes knows that Nozomi and the kids are connected (somehow) to three computers on Earth that feed data to the moon computer. And somehow, when the moment is right, they can shut down the three computers and put the moon computer out of business.

Coyote takes Nozomi to a neighboring city, where ‘his’ computer is located. They manage to walk right into the middle of a gang war, which necessitates that Nozomi be rescued by Coyote a few more times (wait, wasn’t this guy an invincible street fighter?). They catch the interest of gang boss Lahti, who’s intrigued by Coyote and gets his boyfriend to dig up some dirt on him. Despite Coyote’s insistence, Nozomi doesn’t feel any connection to this supercomputer. Some shady stuff is going on, but that doesn’t stop Nozomi from having sex with Coyote in the backseat of a car.

When the day comes to shut down the peeping tom computer, Nozomi gets smacked in the face with a stunning betrayal. He and the kids have been used all along, for a very different purpose.

The concept behind Steal Moon is edgy and relevant. In our modern world, we are constantly being watched. Video surveillance for security purposes is common. Advances in technology have made it easy to tear open anyone’s privacy. If you’re so inclined, you can even get your fifteen minutes by sharing your life on the Internet. Humanity is becoming a species of voyeurs. It’s enough to make anyone paranoid. However, Steal Moon doesn’t dig deep enough into the psychology of voyeurs and exhibitionists; what could have been a really compelling plot falls flat. Part of that is due to the shortness of the volume; even then, precious page space is taken up by the introduction of Lahti, who seems to exist solely for the purpose of jamming more gay sex into the plot (He and his boyfriend are apparently the main characters of Blue Sheep Reverie, an earlier Tateno work that has not yet been released in the U.S.; in that case they were probably added as nostalgia for Tateno’s fans. That doesn’t change the fact that they are unnecessary.). This is only a first volume, as evidenced by the cliffhanger ending, so perhaps some of these loose ends will be cleared up in later volumes.

Tateno’s characters are flat, to the point of being clichés: Coyote is the Mysterious Stranger, Nozomi is the stubborn, I-don’t-want-it-wait-maybe-I-do uke. Soma and Gyokuto are corn-syrup sweet. They are affectionate with Nozomi (often in a disturbingly physical manner) and his reaction to their advances I obviously intended to be humorous, but the idea of kids behaving in that way at all is disgustingly creepy.

Tateno’s real talent lies not in storytelling or characterization, but in art. Her men are lanky and handsome; they look like Abercrombie & Fitch models, but no one could mistake them for women, and they looks refreshingly adult (Gyokuto and Soma, on the other hand…then again, women apparently don’t exist in the world of Steal Moon, so who could tell?). Her backgrounds receive less attention than her characters but they still convey a sense of atmosphere without being overbearing. She can also draw a pretty dynamic action scene, in both senses of the word.

For all its many faults, Steal Moon ends with a cliffhanger that actually had me wondering what happens next. It’s certainly no masterpiece, but if you can get past the sexualized little boys, the gaping plot holes, and the cardboard characters, you might want to check it out. There are worse ways to spend half-an-hour than by looking at pretty drawings of men.

Details

Publisher: Digital Manga
Author: Makoto Tateno
Pages: 200
Format: Manga
MSRP: $12.95
Date of Publication: 8/13/2008
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