Rating:  

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

MSNBC’s Sexploration column discusses the mainstreaming of otaku fetishism, of all things - although they neatly overstep the twin-headed viper that is yaoi / yuri (unlike us, who unceasingly stare into the abyss so that we may spare you the horrors within…).

Guess that would’ve really scared the curious onlookers peeking in from the safety of their cubicle farms.

When anime conventions started in the U.S. back in the mid-1990s, the main demographic was mostly Asian college-age male students, says 32-year-old otaku expert Lawrence Eng. “Now, at least 50 percent are female,” he says. “Fandom itself is more diverse than ever.”

Within the adult realm of otaku culture, cuteness is fetishized (hence the Hello Kitty sex toys) and gender is often bent or dissolves altogether. Women are penetrated by octopi and young women in short school-girl skirts save the world. Men, on the other hand, are often passive worshipers of small figurines depicting sexy characters.

Rating:  

Never fear, my friends- there is a Yuri Menace review on the way! Until then, hop aboard the man train!

In many ways, Fake is a mismatched cop story: the manga is about two NYPD detectives, complete opposites, who are paired up and have to adjust to each other’s different styles. While they often find each other exasperating, they eventually learn to work together, becoming effective partners and close friends. Except in Fake, these guys become more than friends. A lot more.

The story opens as Ryo arrives at the 27^th precinct for his new assignment with Criminal Investigations. Ryo’s a good cop, hard-working, conscientious, a read Boy Scout. To his dismay, his new partner is Dee, an impulsive, loud, lazy, belligerent guy. But he has a kind heart, so Ryo finds it impossible to hate him. Their first case is a drug-related murder. The victim’s son, Bikky, is in danger from other drug dealers who think he has some of his dad’s stash. Ryo brings Bikky home to live with him so he can protect him, but when the dealers make their move he ends up having to save not only Bikky but also Dee. Another kid falls into the story almost immediately when Bikky’s friend Carol gets mixed up in a mob murder. It’s Dee and Ryo to the rescue again!

Read the rest of this entry »

More news on the yaoi craze threatening to swallow your children whole - this time, from the San Francisco Chronicle (’Brokeback comics craze‘):

“Yaoi allows for a kind of enjoyment - visual stimulation without the self-examination,” says Tina Anderson, a writer whose yaoi is published in the United States and Germany. “It allows you to distance yourself from the fantasy.” What Anderson touches on is the way heterosexual sex in entertainment caters to the male point of view. A common complaint among high school manga and yaoi readers is that male-female sex shows the woman and little of the man. Yaoi, on the other hand, shows the man, and as one 15-year-old remarked, “It shows everything.”

But the popularity of yaoi and the demand for pornographic man-on-man love has brought the industry to a crisis. Publishers polybag and label their books (some even put boilerplates inside their flaps, stating that all characters depicted within are 19 or older), but no amount of shrink-wrap can protect them from the content itself - or the resistance of the large chain bookstores to carrying it.

“Everything in print is available and orderable for our customers,” says Jim Killen, graphic novels buyer at Barnes & Noble. B&N carries mature fare like Preacher and From Hell but doesn’t stock everything its Web site does. But there is a certain line that the retail chain refuses to cross.

My question (and it was posed to me as well by our fellow blogger AnaKhouri) is - where’s the Yuri-love? Surely girl-on-girl action is compelling in its’ own right, yes? And yet I don’t see a comparable explosion in yuri manga.

Okay - normally I leave all the yaoi-related stuff to AnaKhouri, but I figured I’d put my toes in the water a little and talk a bit ‘o man-to-man love.

About.com’s Deb Aoki notes that yaoi artist Youka Nitta has pulled out of Yaoi-Con, possibly due to claims that she traced a number of fashion photographs for use in her work. (I’m reminded of the line from Chasing Amy, with regards to inking comics: “You’re a tracer!”)

To be honest, I’m not chuffed one way or the other - I’m just using this story as a test-case for writing more yaoi-themed posts in the future.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled post.

Rating:  

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

Rating:  

If you read my previous ‘Yaoi Menace’ review (on the manga Freefall Romance), you are already familiar with the Three Basic Yaoi Plots. If you haven’t read it, go do so now. I can wait. OK, all finished? Then you’ll know what I mean when I say the first volume of Love Recipe by Kirico Higashizato follows Plot # 3.

Tomonari Ozawa is and has just landed his first job in the big city at a publishing company. He’s ecstatic until he reaches the department he has been assigned: Rose Boy, the firm’s very successful boy’s love magazine. He’s utterly horrified at the prospect, but, in true Japanese style, is still determined to do his best. Thus he begins his career making coffee, answering phones, and replying to fan mail, all under the watchful eyes of his co-workers, every one of whom is a BL fangirl. They’re all enchanted by his adorable looks and sweet personality, and before long Ozawa is being sent to retrieve manuscripts from writers who are pushing the magazine’s deadline. The writers (who are nearly all female) are equally charmed by Ozawa, and he quickly becomes the magazine’s most popular employee.

Read the rest of this entry »

Rating:  

In my life I have found one ironclad rule that it always pays to follow. And that rule is, “Never trust a yaoi fangirl.”

The majority of fangirls have brains so addled by their love of gay sex that they are incapable of discriminating between a good story and a bad one. As long as there are drawings of men getting it on, they are happy.

Unfortunately, one day I misplaced my reason and trusted the word of a known yaoi fangirl. The result was my purchasing Hyouta Fujiyama’s one-volume yaoi manga, Freefall Romance.

Let me explain something for the uninitiated. There are three basic plots for yaoi manga.

Read the rest of this entry »