Set in prehistoric times, one story taking 2/3 of the volume and another for the rest. The main story is about Yuuen, son of the chief but a failure at hunting, he is sent to 'confront' Emba, his counterpart in the rival clan...by seeing him every day and tricking him into thinking he's a girl? (No, it doesn't really make sense.) The last is about a boy who gets injured and has to spend some time with a member of the rival clan while he recuperates. It takes the 'they get along wonderfully from the start and don't want to part' path rather than the 'lots of bickering till they fall in love' one. Despite the cracktastic nature of the premise of the first story, it's all mostly just drama/romance, with small portions of angst and humor on the side.

I'm not sure where I got the impression (partly from a yaoi con I went to), but I felt like I'd heard a lot of yaoi fans fangirl over Wild Rock, but I'd never heard of it outside yaoi lovers (bloggers/reviewers that aren't huge fans but will read it). With that background, I was expecting Wild Rock to have great art, really explicit sex, and be really, really good at following all the yaoi tropes fangirls love but other people often find irritating, repetitive, and shallow. Basically, I expected to hate it.

I was wrong about the sex (it's there but surprisingly mild), but for the rest I guess I was fairly right. But ignoring personal hang-ups I'll get into later, Wild Rock was a lot more solid than I actually expected. The writing/execution isn't overly fantastic, but it's decent, the pacing is good, and whatever slack is left there is nicely made up for with the fairly good use of the prehistoric setting. This is probably mostly in the art (I think script-wise you'd only have to make a few tweaks here and there to change the setting of this story to just about any place/time), but the expected garments and backgrounds are used and stand out enough that it really does give the whole manga a more unique feel. It's totally not my kind of story (strong manly uke falls in love with helpless uke is a dynamic that bores me to tears), but it will be for some people, and for them the nice art and the setting I imagine put this firmly in the above-average category. Even for me, till some other things started getting to me, it was predictable and trite but decent for passing the time, at least.

But actually, Wild Rock really bothered me on one level. It's a bit of a digression so feel free to stop reading if, for example, the above half of this review made this manga sound attractive to you. You're probably not in the same boat as me.

****

For a lot of gals, a major attraction of BL is being able to experience a romance with somewhat touchy/kinky areas (near-rape, possessive and overpowering partners, strong men whisking away helpless females, just generally twisted relationships, etc) without having to deal with the light that these kinds of stories tend to portray females in. Though I'm not huge on kinks of that sort, I'm definitely somewhat in this category, with my reaction to my first BL being '...I like this. ....If either of those characters had been female, I would have hated their guts and the whole story in general. But... I don't mind this.'

Wild Rock is undoubtedly one of the stories that banks on this. (Not to say authors do this all that intentionally. But the reception of the story will benefit regardless.) You've got the big strong man and the wispy, helpless protagonist. Supposedly since neither are female I should be able to swallow this, albeit with perhaps a grain of salt. But Wild Rock is just too much for me.

It probably wouldn't have bothered me half so much if the poor protagonist wasn't suffering so heavily from feelings of utter uselessness. He can't hunt well, and it really bothers him. Then, his father sends him off to deal with Emba, and he can't even really do that properly either. Not only does Yuuen always fail whenever he tries to make a stand for himself, but the manga doesn't even give him a pat on the back for trying to be a stronger person, it just makes him look like a misguided fool. The message of the entire story seems to be that his only 'usefulness' is in the fact that Emba wants him. And why does Emba want him? Because he fell in love with him at first sight. You know, when he was being too helpless to save himself and needed to be rescued by the big strong man. So I'm guessing that's what Emba finds so attractive about him. And then, of course, he's useful to his clan in that he can be 'married' off to Emba to improve clan relations.

No matter your gender. I find such a situation/self image being portrayed in a positive light as very, very unsettling, if not disturbing.

****

In he end, I guess I can see how those familiar with feelings of uselessness (and who isn't at some point?) might feel happy to see a story where despite their shortcomings, they can still feel wanted/needed/of use in a romantic relationship. And the art really is pretty nice. But if clearly bad self images being portrayed positively for the sake of romance, predictable plots and only passable writing, or complete disregard for making characterization/anything writing related match the chosen setting bothers you, Wild Rock probably isn't the way to go. ( )

Pre-historic setting. Very simple story. Very appealing characters. Very hot sex. Though the uke is a little too feminine looking for my tastes, the seme is quite studly, the art was very good and the story was enjoyable. Highly recommended. ( )

Kazusa Takashima's yaoi manga "Wild Rock" resides in a special place in many fans' hearts. Its specialness is in both its originality and its clinging to archetypes. The setting is prehistoric and almost aboriginal, which is rare. The characters follow the archetypes: the uke (bottom) is young, girlish and needs protections. The seme (top) is tall, strong and dark-haired. The plot, a Romeo and Juliet sort of "sons of competing clans," combined with romance, proves to be a still-potent formula. ( )