Secretary's Job? by Araya Miki

Rating: 7
Juné 2012 - Taiyo Tosho 2011
1 volume
Translation: Laura Russell

"Adorable and super-talented Takase is the star secretary of his company! His reputation’s been built on his amazing ability to make anyone he works with a success…but what will happen when he’s assigned to the lazy son of the big boss? Can a prodigy improve the reputation of a handsome slacker?" - Juné

Takase's legendary skills basically consist of staring at his assigned target with big round eyes shining with faith and belief until the slacker is guilt-tripped into doing some work, or generally being so cute and adorable that the slacker is motivated to work just to get into Takase's good books. A serious manga this is not. What it is is a gag manga crossed with BL. I defy you not to chuckle or at least smirk at some point in the book. The characters, their actions and the scenarios are ridiculous to the extreme but the humour is very much tongue-in-cheek and is oftentimes a knowing send-up of the BL genre.

Araya has a distinctive good-humoured narrative style that she employs for all her books so readers will either like her work or not. Much like slapstick comedy, the story is not to be taken seriously but read with a wry suspension of disbelief and hopefully with a grin on the face. I, for one, am a fan and always look forward to her books and the silly antics that her characters get up to. Yes, they're silly but Araya is well aware and regularly pokes fun at her own characters with funny narrative asides.  

Secretary's Job is a fun lighthearted title for those who like a laugh. The humour won't be to everyone's taste but it is quite unlike most other humour you get in the BL genre (the most similar I can think of is Sakarai Shushushu's work) so even if you're somewhat dubious it could still be worth trying out just for the novelty factor.

Awkward Silence by Takanaga Hinako

Sublime 2012 - Libre 2004
4+ volumes

Fangirl rating: 10!

Subdued Rating: 8
Translation: Tetsuichiro Miyaki

The fangirl rating should tell you what kind of review this will be and that is basically one big squee because this is one of my favourite BL manga! I love cute romantic comedies and this series is one of the cutest and sweetest out there. If you're a fan of this type of story I implore you to check this out. If you're more a fan of alternative BL then this probably isn't for you, it's very generic and mainstream as far as BL goes, though I would argue that this is one of the better examples of its kind, not original but good at what it does.

Written by popular mangaka Takanaga Hinako of The Tyrant Falls in Love fame, this is my favourite work of hers by a long shot. Whereas Tyrant had a non-con aspect to its couple's relationship that was slightly off-putting to some readers, Awkward Silence is sweetness all the way.

The story's charm lies with its lovable protagonist, Toono, a quiet expressionless boy who's bad at communicating his thoughts and emotions. He's shocked when his longtime crush, Tamiya, the popular outgoing ace pitcher of the high school baseball team, confesses to him. The story follows the ups and downs of their budding relationship. Toono is pretty much the make-or-break factor in this series; if you find him super-adorable, like I do, then you'll enjoy the series and watching Toono's struggles to overcome his natural reservations and learn to express himself; if you find him to be just another stereotypical uke then there isn't much else in the story to recommend itself. There's no plot to speak of, the first chapter is about them getting together and the rest of the series sees them facing minor misunderstandings and obstacles thrown their way. However, if you like the couple, then you'll want to read about them no matter what they get up to. In later volumes the focus shifts to a secondary couple but I find myself looking forward to the brief moments when our main couple reappear, such is my affection for them.

What could have been a very pedestrian work is elevated to another level by Takanaga's expressive art, lighthearted humour and well-paced balance between romance, comedy and angst. Toono could have been a difficult character to depict since he's supposed to have an inscrutable face but Takanaga compensates with cute chibi faces that show his inner thoughts (see above cover illustration) and in the rare moments when he does reveal his feelings he is all the more adorable (and Tamiya is suitably smitten). I find most of sensei's works to be very well-paced, and this manga is no exception. The story is never rushed, the couple are given ample time to develop their feelings, explore their anxieties and then resolve their problems through better understanding of themselves and as a couple. There's usually a generous bit of smut to close out chapters as well, which is always welcome.

If you like manga that gives you a warm fuzzy feeling then I'd say that Awkward Silence is a good bet.

In These Words 1 by Guilt | Pleasure

Rating: 6
801 Media 2011 - 1+ volumes
www.guiltpleasure.com

I bought In These Words for two reasons: first for the amazing artwork and second for the interesting background to its creation. It's a collaborative work by writer 'Kichiku Neko' and illustrator 'TogaQ' (aka Jo Chen), a Taiwanese duo who are now based in the US (at least, Chen is, not sure on the Neko's whereabouts). They started off by self-publishing In These Words in English and Chinese but then somewhere along the line they got picked up by Libre, a big publisher of BL in Japan, and got serialised in Be x Boy Gold magazine, which boasts the likes of Viewfinder and Haru wo Daite Ita among its pages. Possibly the first foreign mangaka to be published by Libre, their reputation preceded them and when American publisher DMP got ahold of the title for their 801 line I was eager to check out their work.

The artwork is gorgeous; if you're a fan of art in manga then this title is well worth your money on the art alone. The 801 book includes several double-page colour inserts of Chen's beautiful colour illustrations. If you're looking for a story that's a little different from the usual BL fare then this is definitely worth checking out because, oh yes, it's different. The story is about a psychiatrist (or psychologist?) facing off a sadistic serial killer; the story is dark, graphically violent and not for the squeamish.

On the basis of the stellar art and the unconventional storyline I'm tempted to push up my rating of this title to a 7, however, the quality of the writing and storyboarding just doesn't match up so overall it gets a fairly average 6.  The premise is interesting, the characters are potentially interesting, however the whole thing falls rather flat for me and at no point did the story nor the characters really engage me. I had a real problem with the structure of the story and the pacing. There are two narratives going on, the main one where the psychiatrist meets the killer in a police safe house to extract a confession of his crimes, and a second narrative that's made up of what could be the psychiatrist's nightmares or memories or premonitions - he's not sure what they are and hell if I had any idea. The nightmare scenes are interspersed with the main narrative and the result is a very disjointed plot and erratic pacing. Perhaps when more of the story is revealed in the next volume then things will make more sense but volume one left me very confused.

Another big problem I had was with the utter lack of romance in the story. So ok, you don't really want to get all that close with a killer but there was no spark of anything between the main characters, no whiff of any Stockholm Syndrome developing yet nominally this is supposed to be a BL story. There are several graphic sex scenes that are part of the nightmare narrative (possibly memories?) but these are proper rape scenes that are violent and devoid of intimacy and all about power play. Frankly, there's nothing remotely sexy about these scenes and the whole tone of the story is rather cold and clinical, set in part by the attitude of the psychiatrist, who's the cool, calm, analytic type, and not helped at all by the methodical unimpassioned way the killer goes about his raping and killing.

Volume one fell rather short of expectations but the story is still interesting enough to leave me curious to find out what happens next and I will be buying the next volume whenever it comes out.

Well, we'll see how long this lasts

Another blog, another random urge to write reviews (badly). It will be a cause for celebration if I make it to ten reviews.