Manga Friday: Girls and Boys, Boys and Boys
This week’s "Manga Friday" features titles from two Aurora imprints that are for adults only. I’ll try to keep the review itself safe for somewhat younger readers, but, if you’re twelve or so, picture me shaking my finger sternly at you and saying you should move on to something more age-appropriate.
Next week should see Manga Friday return to a variety mix, so you kids can come back then.
Most of the manga that get translated for the US market are either shonen (boys’ comics, like Naruto and Bleach) or shojo (girls’ comics, like Fruits Basket) – stories for tweens and young teens, mostly. (That’s the biggest audience for manga in Japan, too, so there’s more of those kinds of stories to translate to begin with.)
But there are also seinen (stories for “men” – mostly in their twenties – like Lone Wolf and Cub) and, the smallest subset, josei (stories for adult women). The books this week are all josei, roughly the Japanese comics equivalent of American romance novels.
(My initial plan was to review two redikomi – books about boy-girl romances, with some tasteful sex – and then two yaoi – boy-boy romance stories for a female audience. But I only managed to get through one yaoi book, so there are only three reviews here this week.)
Love for Dessert
By Hana Aoi
Aurora/Luv Luv, May 2008, $10.95
Love for Dessert has six stories, all with a (sometimes very loose) food theme – the title story sets the tone. Koyama is a young woman who’s just gotten a full-time job at a big ad agency, working for a tough young boss, Kuze.
She’s also been befriended by “Morimoto from Sales,” who indulges her sweet tooth, and eventually (once the big rush job, which has been causing agida and getting Koyama behind, even after lots and lots of overtime, is done) gets her drunk and tries to seduce her.