Review 123: L'Étoile Solitaire

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

So there's this cold-hearted president of a large hotel-buying company that's trying to expand into Japan, and he tries to buy a small chain of traditional Japanese hotels from its young and inexperienced president. So of course he falls in love with him, decides not to buy the hotels, but his nasty/evil advisor guy interferes and tells the young uke he's only making trouble for the older president... seen it all before. Oh, and possibly THE WORST cliche ever, the 'blonde and spoiled female fiancee' cliche is utilized to its full extent. Very, very predictable and dissatisfying throughout.

Art is decent. Only decent part of this manga, actually.

The plot is horrifically bad, as said before. No need to elaborate further, I trust.

The characters aren't necessarily unlikable... they're just very obvious types. The seme is the good-hearted but misunderstood wealthy young CEO, while the uke is the shy, naive kid who's still in school (at least they say it's college in this one). Then there's the aforementioned bitch-fiancee, and I'm sure that says it all. And evil advisor-guy, who tries to get in the way of the two lovebirds because he's jealous and clearly has an old crush on the president.

The sex is so boring it's barely noticeable. I flipped the page and was like, 'wow. That's it?' Pretty uninspiring.

All in all, 26/40.

Recommendation: Read this only if you're intending to use it to outline the many overused plot devices in yaoi manga.

Review 122: Shortcut Love

Art: 8
Plot: 6
Characters: 7
Sex: 6

This one stars a high-ranking executive who creates designs for logos, adverstisements, and televison ads. He and his group are less popular lately, but a new guy shows up who works way harder than the rest of them, and he seems to be brilliant despite his lack of experience. The leader of the group is tired of his job and has no enthusiasm for life, so at first he takes the newbie's bold suggestions as insults. Until one day when he starts to see that the guy just wants to create better designs, much like he himself did before he lost interest.
This would all be kinda uninteresting if there wasn't a random semi-rape scene with the new guy 'coercing' the group leader. With that added, it's extremely uninteresting and vaguely irritating. One more cliche, check!

The art is all right. Typical style, really. The characters didn't particularly stand out, but the style was decent.

The plot, as mentioned above, was mediocre and frustrating once the rape-scene came into play. The business parts of the story aren't all that fascinating, and when the reader finds out that there won't even be any build-up before the historic 'first sex' scene, it really deflates any remaining interest.

The characters aren't particularly moving. The new guy comes off as really annoying and immature at the beginning, while the group leader is stuck-up and bored of life.

The 'sex' is lame and predictable, with the typical 'I'm being raped but it's actually kinda nice' situation. Which I don't have to describe by now, as I'm sure you all know what I mean at this point. Seriously frustrating - it's becoming a pet peeve of mine for sure.

All in all, 27/40.

Recommendation: Not worth your time, nor anyone else's.

Review 121: Work In

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

This one is an 'office worker' (aka 'salary-man') romance between a worker and his younger boss. They're probably in their early thirties or late twenties, I'd guess. At first, the gay worker - who has had rumors spread about him in the office, resulting in his alienation - is extremely lonely, which is when he starts to fall for his boss. They end up going out for a professional drink, but the worker gets smashed and tells his boss how he is so lonely in the office. Later, the boss ends up confessing to the worker and intiates a relationship they have to keep secret from the other workers.

The art is different, more realistic than some, but pleasing all the same. The worker doesn't have a pretty face, but that makes it even more easy to believe. Both main characters are good-looking, but they aren't the type of extreme-attractiveness characters you often see.

The plot, as described above, is pretty reasonable but not overly creative. Thankfully, occasional humor makes up for this.

The characters are very endearing. Much sympathy is generated for the worker, and the boss is a likable guy on the whole. They seem to match quite well. The worker even seems to grow throughout the story, which is unusual for many yaoi.

The sex is not an explicit scene like in most stories, but it achieves a similar steaminess and succeeds in involving the actual personality of the characters.

All in all, 33/40.

Recommendation: Pretty darn good. Read it if you like the office setting yaoi, or just if you wanna read something sweet.