I LOVED this book! The story was sexy and funny, and the sex was explicit and plentiful. The perfect recipe for yaoi. The book opens with Sagami “mounted atop” Tatsurou and about to collect on a debt. Only, the author flashes back to the preceding events just before the payoff. A truly delicious way to hook a reader.

Tatsurou is a yakuza. Only, the yakuza life isn’t what it used to be. Sure, some people are afraid of him but his flashy car is borrowed and he barely makes enough money to live on. His role in the gang is to collect debts. When the gang president sends him to collect from an old man who owns a factory, Tatsurou runs into trouble. He knows the old man from when he took Tatsurou in as a kid. He can’t bring himself to shake the man down. While drowning his woes in booze, he runs into an old school rival. Sagami isn’t afraid of him and easily solves Tatsurou’s problem by burning the debt note! Only, the gang is expecting that money and will come after him for it.

Sagami has been in love with Tatsurou since he cried after losing a kendo match when they were kids. He knows Tatsurou won’t give up his tough guy image to be his lover without a fight. So, Sagami strikes a deal to loan the money in exchange for his body. Slowly, Sagami weans him away from the yakuza life (for which he really isn’t suited anyway). Sagami is calm and collected through most of the story, while Tatsurou is the quintessential reluctant uke. Their battle of wills is delightful, and fun. Tatsurou is falling in love with Sagami, but doesn’t understand the feeling since he’s never been in love before.

The romance had a surprising depth, and the characters are very charming. I fell for the hot-tempered, tender-hearted Tatsurou immediately. And Sagami was dignified and loving, a nearly prefect seme. The translation was relatively smooth, and the story flowed well. Overall, I can’t recommend this yaoi novel enough, and I will look for more by this author. ( )

Sleeping with Money is a bit different, in a good way, from the other books in my yaoi collection and that's one of the reasons I enjoyed it.

Tatsurou is a yakuza who happens to have the worst luck. He's dirt-poor, he actually has a conscience (that he can't get rid of no matter how hard he tries), and his yakuza status means virtually nothing in modern Japan where yakuza are no longer at the top tier of society (they're actually viewed as scum and more of a drain on society than anything else).

Because of that conscience that he can't get rid of, he fails to collect money from an old man who once took care of him. He ends up owing his superior several million and to avoid having one of his fingers chopped off, he accepts the help of a loan shark named Sagami. But Sagami has an ulterior motive. He's well aware of Tatsurou's penniless state and doesn't count on ever getting that loan money back. Instead, he wants Tatsurou to pay it all off with his body.

The plot made me chuckle (so did some parts of the story, to be honest), but for the most part, I had fun reading this book. To get the negatives out of the way first, some of the phrasings and translations were awkward, Tatsurou has a limited vocabulary range, and the POV shiftings near the middle gave me headaches. However, those minor things didn't bother me much and I was willing to overlook them since the book itself was enjoyable.

Tatsurou's status was interesting because it's not every day you come across a pathetic yakuza. Usually, the yakuza in yaoi are tough and aloof, and Tatsurou is none of those things. Even if Tatsurou did have the perfect makings of a mob boss, it still wouldn't matter because the yakuza are losing power in Japan. They don't have that much influence any more and they're actually afraid of police officers. That beginning, to me, was interesting enough to keep me reading.

Another source of entertainment would probably be how humorous this book is. Sleeping with Money is not as angsty as other yaoi works I'm used to, and Katagiri actually does attempt to make jokes and poke fun at Tatsurou. Tatsurou has an assistant who is in lust with Tatsurou, which gives rise to some funny dialogues, and that same assistant models and sells used panties online. The name of Sagami's loan company made me laugh, and Tatsurou's pathetic situation is a joke itself.

But the major reason I found this book so fun was because I liked the characters. I'm mostly indifferent towards Sagami, although he does have funny moments during his possessive, sadistic streaks. I loved Tatsurou as a main character. He's got the right blend of vulnerability and tough attitude. I think his character suffers from the flaw of falling in love with Sagami too quickly, but again, I'm willing to ignore that detail when I like how he's portrayed overall. And I absolutely cannot forget about his assistant, Hachi. Hachi is like Joey from Friends—dumb but funny and lovable.

Sakuya Fujii's art is a perfect compliment to the novel. I was surprised that the illustrations didn't have beautiful, willowy characters, but Fujii's style provides the comedic and exaggerated expressions that match the fun, over-the-top personalities of Katagiri's characters.

This is one of the better novels released by Juné so far, and I recommend giving this a try.

This is maybe the first time I read a yaoi novel where the story is almost as interesting as the sex... (not that I read so many, so maybe this is not an exception!).

Tatsurou is a yakuza member without the attitude: from a poor family and with hopes to improve his perspective, soon out of high school he joined up a gang and now lives as debt collector. The work is pretty simple, since the reputation of the gang is enough for him to collect the debt without really making nothing of nasty. But then he is asked to collect a debt from the one man that in the past tried to help him and Tatsurou can't do that. In a drunken stupor he makes a bargain with Sagami, a former high school mate, now president of an important financial firm: Sagami will borrow Tatsurou the money he needs in exchange of his body: the day in which they sing the contract Tatsurou surrenders his body to Sagami and again every month as interest till the day he could repay the borrowing.

Both Tatsurou than Sagami are interesting characters. Tatsurou is a good guy without perspective that earns his day in the only way he knows; he knows that he is not a tough guy and he fears the day when someone will uncover his disguise. When he makes the bargain with Sagami he knows what he will face but he didn't expect to enjoy it so much. As he refuses to admit that he is not a bad guy, he refuses to admit that he is attracted by Sagami, and justifies his surrendering with the fact that Sagami compels him and during sex he is tied down; but he knows very well that the ties that held him are as weaken as his opposition, and that he could break them when he wants.

Sagami felt in love with Tatsurou in high school: he was entranced by the young boy with the angel face and the fiery behavior; actually he felt in love the first time he saw tears in Tatsurou's eyes, and at first he tries to do all he can to see again that tears. But he really doesn't want to hurt Sagami, he wants to see that tears from pleasure not from pain. It's obvious that Sagami is enjoying what they are doing together, but if let him know believe that he is forced will leave to the guy his honor, he will do that, since he most of all loves Sagami's spirit will.

As always in this yaoi novel there is sex, and a lot of it, but it's not too much unbelievable as in other stories, even if multiple orgasm one after the other without resting time and the use of some sexual terms that in the past I only heard for female anatomy make me turn up my nose here and there. But well, it's funny, and no one is expecting reality from this type of fiction!

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