Kazusa Takashima

This manga has three stories. The first and third are about men rescuing a dog (the first) and a goldfish (the third) which magically turn into humans and have gay sex with them (naturally). The third is a story of a guy reuniting with his childhood friend.

Clearly, this is a yaoi that does not shoot for depth. With my tastes I probably should not have read it much less be reviewing it, but hey, I've got it here with me, so what they heck?

The first story has next to no plot or show more characterization (outside setting up the main as mildly perky and his partner as...well, a dog). The dialog is pretty bare bones comments between the sex. The sex seemed...pretty average to me? Of course the story was also supposed to be humorous, but this is one of those cases where 'humorous' just equates to 'silly,' and not even particularly or very originally so (I suppose this is where I should be saying 'besides the whole dog transformation thing,' only really, if you still find such things silly, you've clearly not read enough manga, right?).

The second story is very average and formulaic, but it does get a little more involved with its plot and characters, so I admit I was slightly more engaged. I kind of like childhood friend stories anyway. But it seriously does not get any more generic than this, so if this is your thing, you can find a dozen others just like it that aren't surrounded by verging-on-bestiality kink.

The last story is short and really, really, REALLY isn't anything else than what it says up there.

The art is actually pretty good. Nothing particularly striking, but the guys look manly (save the goldfish-man who is clearly a girl without breasts and has the annoying gargantuan eyes to prove it as well) and pretty detailed. I may have even taken more of a shine to it if it had come with better writing.

In general, I think yaoi without depth are enjoyed for two things: sex and humor. But the humor here isn't much but silliness and the sex is...ok? You can get just as good from stories with more plot I think, and probably BETTER from other more sex-centered ones. I might not be a good judge since I don't fit in this category, but even if this is to your taste, unless you have a thing for dog/fish boys, I'd say look elsewhere. My friend-of-much-more-usual-yaoi-fangirl-tastes even called it pretty bad. show less

I think several of the characters in this series have forgotten the plot. And also possibly that Kujou is the main character. Still, I give this volume extra points for cuteness.

Mikage continues to be wildly jealous of Kujou because she likes Taiki and is under the mistaken impression that he's in love with Kujou. In her efforts to push the two of them apart, she gives Kujou alcohol while telling him it's juice and later takes a picture of Kujou and Touma engaged in something she thinks is show more sex (it's not).

Meanwhile, Taiki is pretty sure that Kujou is Kaito, but he doesn't want to see absolute proof and doesn't want other demons to see any either – he believes in taking care of his friends. Souya seems mostly uninterested in proving that Kujou is Kaito, but, unfortunately, Touma is very dedicated to their task. On the plus side, all three of them would prefer that no other demons find Kaito first, so they team up to protect Kujou when a new threat closes in.

I didn't so much like the beginning of this volume. Personally, I thought Mikage was horrible. When she took pictures of Touma and Kujou together, she kept saying that she thought they were having sex, but what actually seemed to be going on was that Touma was raping Kujou (he wasn't – he was just trying to forcibly remove his shirt). And all she wanted to do was take pictures of it all. I would be happy if she disappeared from all future volumes.

Touma got a somewhat larger part in this volume, and yet I still felt he was kind of boring. He was pretty much just a giant ball of werewolfy rage, but at least he remembered what he, Taiki, and Souya had been sent to do. Without him, I might have forgotten what the point of the series was until Sendou, the new teacher, showed up.

The overarching story was even more incoherent in this volume than it was in the first, and yet somehow I liked this volume more. Takashima found new sources of humor – I particularly enjoyed Yaezaki, the girly-girl transfer student whose dialogue included little stars. However, even more than that, I enjoyed this volume's increased level of cuteness. It not only had more Rebun in cat form, it also had the most OMG adorable mouse ever, Taiki in sweetie pie mode (he cares more about his friendship with Kujou than he does about the demon king's orders!), and even a bit of Taiki/Rebun semi romance. It feels weird saying this, since Rebun is basically a cat, but I totally ship her and Taiki.

All in all, I wouldn't say this is a great series, but I'm enjoying it so far. Here's hoping for more adorable animals and sweet Taiki moments.

Extras:

The beginning of the volume has a character list and a "story thus far" section. At the end, there is a one-page postscript manga created by the author.

(Original review, with read-alikes and watch-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

This was stupid. But also kind of fun. I'm having trouble understanding how Takashima managed to squeeze five volumes out of the premise, though. Since I own the whole series, I guess I'll get to find out.

Kaito, the prince of the demon realm, desperately does not want to marry his fiancee. He has hated her ever since she stood by while his beloved kitty Rebun almost drowned. Kaito opted to escape his impending marriage by traveling to the human world, where he ended up in a smaller, show more slighter human body, while Rebun ended up in the body of a full-grown human woman.

Kaito, now going by the name Kujou, isn't completely free yet, however. His father has sent three demons, Touma, Souya, and Taiki, after him. It's a good thing that they're mostly idiots. Souya has the hots for Haga, the school nurse, not realizing that she's actually Rebun, and Taiki is best friends with Kujou and thinks he's 100% human. Touma is smart enough to suspect Kujou's true identity, but the only way the three can know for sure that they've found their target is if Kujou has the prince's tattoo on his back. This, of course, means that they need to somehow strip his shirt off.

That's what this entire volume was devoted to: people trying to strip Kujou's shirt off and failing, mostly because Taiki was not very bright and was super-protective of his friend. And also because Rebun was awesome and one of the series' few intelligent characters. I loved Rebun. She took no crap from anyone, had no problems with using Taiki as a weapon, and was adorable in her kitty form.

I'd probably have liked this volume more if it hadn't been so hard to follow sometimes. The artwork and text placement were occasionally confusing. For example, I thought Zezelle, Kaito's nanny, was actually Taiki. It took me a bit to realize that 1) she was a completely different character (although there were indications that the similarity was intentional) and 2) she was actually a woman. That was also when I realized that an earlier scene, in which Kujou asked out a burly member of the girls' judo club, was not a joke about Kujou accidentally asking out the wrong person, but rather a joke that played on readers' expectations about who he was attracted to.

This series is going to get old fast if the jokes keep relying on “the idiots failed to take Kujou's shirt off” and misunderstandings about Kujou and Taiki's sexuality (several students assume they're a gay couple, which didn't stop one girl from aggressively pursuing Taiki). Still, for now it's an okay series, and I'm looking forward to seeing more of Rebun.

Extras:

Two four-panel gag comics, a four-page comic-style afterword by the author, and four pages of rough sketches of the characters from back when the series was in its planning stages.

The original plan for Rebun's cat form was even more adorable than what Takashima finally settled on. Also, it sounded like Takashima pieced jokes and details together on the fly, which may explain why the story is so crazy. That, and she went through at least three editors during the course of the series.

Rating Note:

I was torn on what rating to use. I liked Rebun a lot, but this really was fairly stupid. I decided to give it 3 stars (C grade) rather than 3.5 stars (C+) because I doubt I'd be reading more than this first volume if I didn't already own the rest of the series.

(Original review, with read-alikes and watch-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less

Synopsis:

This manga is set in prehistoric times and is composed of three stories.

"Wild Rock"

This is the longest of the stories. Yuuen is the heir to one clan, while Emba is the heir to another. Both clans have been warring for some time, and Yuuen's clan keeps losing game to Emba's clan. Knowing that something must be done, Yuuen's father comes up with a plan. He instructs Yuuen to dress and act like a girl, seduce Emba, and, er, somehow use this to the clan's advantage. I'm not entirely show more clear on the details of this "plan." Anyway, it seems to work, and the two young men fall for each other. Yuuen, however, believes Emba has only fallen for him because he thinks he's a girl. Feeling guilty about lying to Emba, Yuuen calls off his father's plan...but then Emba visits Yuuen's clan and reveals the things he had been hiding from Yuuen. This story has a happy ending.

"Innocent Lies"

This story takes place further in the past and stars Yuuen and Emba's fathers (oh yes, the two have a history together). Yuni (Yuuen's father) gets angry after some of his clan members complain about having to put up with him just because he's heir to the clan. For some reason, this prompts him to try to find an oath flower (a difficult-to-find flower that young men give to women they'd like to propose to). Unfortunately, he gets injured by a trap set by Selem (Emba's father). Yuni doesn't know, at first, that Selem is the heir to an enemy clan. As Selem takes care of Yuni's injury, the two young men gradually grow more attracted to each other. Unfortunately, their respective positions mean that they can never be together. This story has a bittersweet ending.

"Child Rock"

This story is a bit of fluff for those who want to see how Emba and Yuuen's relationship has worked out. Emba's brother now has a child named Nava, and Emba and Yuuen are bathing him before taking him back to Yuuen's brother and his wife. Yuuen's brother is apparently clueless and has no idea that Yuuen and Emba's relationship is anything other than symbolic.

Review:

I originally wrote up a longer, more detailed explanation of what prompted me to buy, read, and review this, but it morphed into a giant rant about libraries, collection development policies, and the dangers of saying "we don't collect porn" without bothering to define the word "porn." So I'll just move on to the review.

Before rereading this, I vaguely remembered it as being little more than an excuse for hot caveman sex. Now...well, I was kind of right, although there wasn't as much sex as I remembered (a grand total of two sex scenes, which take up a fairly small percentage of the volume). There isn't much plot, and what there is doesn't quite make sense. But still. The result is kind of sweet, and, while I think I'm a little more critical of it than I was when I first read it back in grad school, I liked it overall.

If for some reason you pick this up for the story, you may be disappointed. I still don't understand why Yuuen's father's very first suggestion for how to deal with Emba's clan was for Yuuen to dress and act like a girl. First off, why was seducing the clan's heir the best way to go? Second, why Yuuen? Oh, and why did it never occur to Yuuen that Emba would have noticed he didn't have breasts when they hugged? Later, when Yuuen and Emba are married in order to unite the clans, I wondered about the way clan inheritance worked. Would Yuuen and Emba still be expected to father children? Could Yuuen's brother's son become the next heir instead? Then, during “Innocent Lies,” I wondered why Yuni and Selem couldn't have gotten married to unite their clans, the way Emba and Yuuen did. I suppose I could make something up about Yuni and Selem's fathers starting the feud and therefore not being as receptive to uniting the clan...but that would be pure speculation, because no answers are given in the volume itself.

Do you know why I read this back in college, though? It wasn't the story that caught my attention. I saw the front and back cover illustrations, and I was hooked, just like that. (Um. The humor and general sweetness of the stories helped, too. Yes.)

Takashima sticks with stereotypical character designs. Yuuen and young Yuni have slight builds, and Takashima emphasizes this by having Yuuen dress as a girl. Yuuen has a fairly gentle personality and is more suited to taking care of a wounded Emba than hunting. Young Yuni is more combative and maybe a bit bratty, but still designed to be cuter than, say, Emba or Selem. Emba and young Selem both have more muscular builds, even though they're supposedly about the same age as Yuuen and young Yuni. Emba is quiet, capable, and protective, while young Selem seems similar, only maybe a little more easy-going.

When I first read this, I hadn't read much like it before, so the character types didn't seem quite so stereotypical to me. During my reread, the stereotypes were more noticeable, and it bothered me a little that Emba and young Selem were so much more capable than Yuuen and young Yuni. This was more clearly shown, I think, in Emba and Yuuen's story.

Every time Yuuen tried to hunt, he had to be saved. In one instance, his lack of hunting ability and knowledge of how to protect himself got Emba injured. As far as I can tell, the only useful things Yuuen got to do were bandage Emba's injuries (which he indirectly caused) and charm Emba with his gentleness and pretty face. At one point, Yuuen's brother says “Women have it too easy! Not having to hunt... They live a nice, easy life.” There is nothing in the volume to disprove this, since women show up rarely and the only demonstrated “task” they perform is bear children. If you think of Yuuen in the role of “woman,” then there's a little more data to work with...but it's still disappointing stuff. Emba seemed perfectly fine with Yuuen sitting around and doing nothing but admiring him as he hunted, and he didn't mind giving Yuuen some of his game as gifts.

Getting back to the stuff I liked about this manga... I didn't know it when I first read Wild Rock, but I got lucky in the way the relationships played out. Both of the sex scenes are consensual, hurray! “Wild Rock,” my favorite of the three stories, is very sweet, and I was glad that it ended happily, even if I was left wondering how clan inheritance was going to work. Even though I didn't like “Innocent Lies” as much, I loved the bit where Yuni gave Selem the necklace that marked him as his clan's heir. It made for an even better reread of “Wild Rock” - keep an eye out of the little moment when older Yuni notices the necklace wrapped around older Selem's wrist!

Another thing I liked about this volume was its touches of humor. Takashima didn't take things too seriously. I loved that older Yuni and older Selem very much knew that their sons were in love and did not just have a symbolic marriage...while Yuuen's brother was completely, utterly oblivious. I also admit to laughing a bit after reading the re-write of the first scene, although I'd argue that Yuuen caused Emba far more trouble than Emba ever caused Yuuen.

Overall, this manga is a pleasant bit of fluff that happens to have a couple on-page sex scenes. Even several years later, I still like the visuals and find the romance between Emba and Yuuen to be sweet. I just wish that Yuuen could have had a chance to demonstrate at least one useful skill.

Extras:

There are an extra couple pages that re-do the first scene of the manga: instead of killing the big cat that was about to attack Yuuen, Emba gets swallowed whole by it. Poor Emba. There are also a few sketches throughout the volume, as well as an author's note about each of the stories.

(Original review, with read-alikes and watch-alikes, posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.) show less