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.

Let's Review: Critiques 100-120

All right, another batch of twenty reviews is up, so you know what that means! Let's put them all in order and see which yaoi is on top - har har - this time around.

Junjou Karen - 34
Bitter-sweet Cafe - 32
Shibararetai - 32
Bakumatsu - 32
Uso to Kiss - 32
You're My Love Prize - 31.5
Seiryou's Scariest Tales - 31.5
Secret Agreement - 30.5
Kawaii Hito - 30
Nagaraja - 29
$10 - 27
Rules - 27
Anbalance Lover - 27
Groupie - 26
Competent Chairman - 26
Jazz - 26
Secrecy - 25
Night of Replicant - 24
Animal X - 24
Bath Towel - 23

Congratulations to 'Junjou Karen' for this time's top score! And my heartfelt consolations to 'Bath Towel', our esteemed loser.

Honorary Loss goes to 'Animal X' for what I can only call Most WTF Manga in the yaoi category. I will be having nightmares. Thanks a lot.

Review 120: Nagaraja

Art: 8
Plot: 8
Characters: 8
Sex: 5

Hmmm... no sex. Barely any kissing. I get the feeling that maybe this isn't a yaoi (no, really?)... But I'm going to review it anyway, as it was in the yaoi section of Spectrum Nexus. Despite the fact that Prince of Tennis is also in the yaoi section. Hn.

The fantasy-esque plot is kinda interesting, but not developed to its fullest. The characters are pretty nice but not above normal likability. There is no sex, so that gets the usual score for really, really bad sex.

29/40.

Recommendation: Fantasy shounen-ai lovers? Anyone?

Review 119: Anbalance Lover

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

Chapter One basically serves as a definition of 'reach-around'. That being said, the plot is mostly decent. The art is kinda lame... didn't like the hair at all. The characters don't entirely make sense (or have personalities... 'kay). The sex is laughable, but not in a way that you'd actually laugh. More like cry. Hmm.

'Anbalance' Lover is really supposed to romanize to 'Unbalanced Lovers'. In your face, Spectrum Nexus! Erm, just kidding... they're my only source of yaoi at the moment (more on that later). Love ya!

I know you wanna hear about the plot, but it's really just an group of smaller stories, all involving 'unbalanced love', which apparently is the politically correct term for 'rape' nowadays. Oh, yaoi, you do make me roll my eyes far too often. I may develop eye-strain.

27/40.

Recommendation: Not this time, folks.

Review 118: Junjou Karen

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

Oooh... I really, really like the way the kid in the middle looks (in the manga, too, not just the cover). This one is an interesting trip concerning an uke caught in a guilt-relationship with a slightly abusive seme who makes him have emotionless sex to 'atone' for something he did in the past. The uke accepts this as what he deserves, but meanwhile falls for a student he's teaching at the nearby high-school. Said student is the initiator, thankfully, (?) but can such a pure-hearted love come to fruition for someone with such a dark past - and a vindictive lover?

Plot is interesting enough. Characters are very likeably, especially Shirasaka (the teacher/uke). The sex between the stone-cold seme and the guilty uke is as uninteresting as it's supposed to be, while the sex between the student and uke is much more satisfactory.

34/40. Whoaz.

Recommendation: For those of you who like more drawn-out plots and built-up sexual tension. Mmmm.