Review 61: Trigger

Art: 8.5
Plot: 6
Characters: 6
Sex: 8

I have a guilty fondness for this one, simply because it's so bad. Sporting lines like, "You raped me, but I love you!" and "Steal my everything..." this manga has one-chapter storylines of alternate characters in order to dish out all the bad dialogue imaginable. Unfortunately it's rather annoying to summarize the many plots, as each chapter contains a new one, so I'll stick to the basics: they're mostly about mafia dealings, professional thieves, and other notorious practices involving the aforementioned. There are a lot of guns and semi-rape and tight-fitting secret-agent clothing.

Fortunately, the art style is one of my favorites. This clean-lined style draws the characters in a very refined way almost reminiscent of Record of the Delfinian War. It's quite nice, and it makes me feel not quite as guilty for having read this more than once in my lifetime.

The plots are all awful. They're catastrophically predictable, and they ought to be read to a bad romantic comedy soundtrack, like The Prince and Me or some such nonsense (no offense to those of you who like those, I'm sure it's a matter of taste).

The characters are similarly terrible, but in a way that is downright laughable. One can literally begin each chapter and immediately point out the stereotypes being used. For instance, the first chapter has 'The Strong, Silent Type Bodyguard' falling for 'The Mafia Leader with a Soft Heart'. The second chapter has 'The Thief Who Gets His Heart Stolen' and some other dude who doesn't have enough personality to fill a salt-shaker, never mind a stereotype.

The sex is ridiculous but not as bad as it could be. It gets a decent score because it's often lengthy and suitably explicit, but no extra points due to the frequent semi-consentual nature and the disturbingly cliche dialogue, which can distract readers from even the best sex scenes. Is it really necessary to have dialogue in the first place!?

All in all, 28.5/40. Thumbs-down. Although I may have one thumb up behind my back. Maybe.

Recommendation: So let's say you adore mafia movies, guns, secret-agent stuff, and espionage. Let's say you also love reading yaoi. What do you do? You read this.