In light of the long academic break I'll be having due to my recent week-long class suspensions, I decided to write as much as I could in this duration to make up for the past deadlines I barely made through. However, this time, I want to take a break from the manga reviews for a little commercial—a little spotlight for the other media of BL: visual novels, anime, and of course manga. And so with this idea in mind, I thought up an outline for the proceedings of this small project, which can be found here.
For this blog post, I'll be putting one of the major contributors of yaoi to the spotlight: visual novels. Keep in mind that these little highlights will only be short descriptions and reasons for recommendation, so I won't be going into detail with analyses and the like. And I'll try my best not to ramble too much that they end up as long as my usual in-depth reviews.
I'm going to start by saying that Yamamoto Kotetsuko is one of the several mangaka whom I have read most if not all of their works because I trust their skills and have not been disappointed so far in terms of art style and plots. Although I will admit, her stories have at one point been too common for me that they weren't very memorable, but nonetheless they remained enjoyable in its simple form and never actually went "wrong".
I bought this manga in the recent Cosplay Mania '15 market, not knowing what to expect from the art style and synopsis. The art was significantly different from what I usually see, for better or for worse, and the blond, I thought, doesn't look very bishounen nor does he look like my type. But because of the mere fact that it was rated 16+/Young Adult plus the hooking, eye-catching title, I decided to buy it. (I know, it was presumptuous of me. But usually, I notice that the yaoi manga with less sex scenes have more story to make up for it.)
It was on one long-awaited pay day when I was looking for local sellers who just might have Natsume Isaku's "DASH!" that I happened upon a local merchant from Livejournal. Sending her a PM, I learned that my desired manga had long since been sold to another buyer and I was given a list of all her available secondhand manga. After some contemplation and research, I bought two titles from the list that caught my interest. (Simultaneously with two others from a different store, but that's a different story.)
One of such titles was Cute Beast by Tsuge Amayo. To be honest, when I checked this title in my 'researching', I didn't expect a lot; actually I was mostly in it for the art style. I find it borderline androgynous, somewhere between what I consider a nice balance and too girly (see: my review on You & Me, Etc.) but I decided to buy it anyway because hey, why not, I thought, it's not everyday I get to find accessible sources for manga.
To be honest, when I was going over the choices for the next batch of manga for me to buy, this manga didn't make it to the top choices. At that time, I had planned to buy only three volumes, but Kyugo's work was not one of them, although I took a second look at it because the art looked nice. (If you're curious, the three volumes I originally wanted to buy were Cute Beast (my review), Wolf Magic, and New Beginnings.) But out of sheer excitement over getting my allowance and having a discount if I added one more, I decided to include it in the list. And oh boy, was I glad I did.
Let me start by saying that Natsume Isaku is my absolute favorite mangaka (which totally has nothing to do with why I chose to review this one first, not at all). Unlike most of the other talented mangaka, Natsume-sensei's manga does not consist of angst and drama; instead, they are more focused on half-hearted comedy and slice of life. Her characters are everyday people — from businessmen to teachers and students to landlords and tenants. Usually when I read manga with these types of settings and characters, I forget them as soon as I read the next manga, unless the story has some sort of twist. Her art is by no means extremely realistic nor sexualized; in fact, I suggest reading her manga not for the sex (like most yaoi manga), but for the heartwarming story.
