My Bad by Shinba Rize

Rating: 3
Juné 2010 - Houbunsha 2002
1 volume
Translation: Phillip Rankaboshi

My Bad is a collection of mediocre one-shots that range from average to really rather bad. This is some of Shinba's earliest work and boy does it show. The volume cover art is fine but once you open the book you're confronted with an awful title-page illustration of some uke where the anatomical proportion is drawn so bad it actually hurts your eyes. The next title-page illustration is no better. Thankfully the main body of the manga is drawn much better with just a smattering of dodgy disproportionate bodies cropping up but even those few are distracting once you've been put on guard from the first page.

Of the five stories in the volume there is only one that I actually enjoyed, two I thought were so-so, and the other two I mostly frowned through. The one I liked was the fourth story about a high school boy falling for a train conductor whose voice he likes so much that he takes long train journeys just to listen to the conductor's announcements and chat to him on occasion. It's a cute little story that works because the characters are quite likeable (unlike some others in the rest of the anthology) and you can see why they fall for each other. The conductor is an unpretentious straight-talking kind of guy and the uke finds that he can chat to him easily even though he's usually bad at talking to people. The conductor takes an interest in the bratty kid who has a habit of skipping school and I'm happy when they get together because the uke has found someone he can open up to and I'm glad that the seme has found love just because I like him.

The two stories I didn't like feature less affable characters, one has a spoiled selfish uke who cries for a week when the relationship doesn't go his way and the other has an aloof seme who casually rapes his doormat of an uke for the flimsiest of reasons. The title story is about a boy who has a secret crush on his neighbour and stoops to stealing his underpants. The boy's pervertedness is amusing at times but on the whole the story, like the rest in the anthology, is too formulaic and superficial. The last story is of a type that I usually like, cracky gag manga about an idiotic couple, and for this reason was probably the story that I liked second best in the volume. Yasunobu's and Takashi's fathers are leaders of opposing political parties and at school they maintain an antagonistic front but in secret they are passionate lovers who call each other "Yasu-bear" and "Taka-pie"; they view themselves as a modern day Romeo and Juliet. It's silly and cute, and ends with an heroic and heartwarming coming-out.

Though I say I liked one or two of the stories, at best, they were still very average. I was suckered in by the pervy premise of an underpants-thieving uke but you don't have to be; there are tons of better manga out there and the only reason to buy this title is if you are a maniacal Shinba Rize fan or if you have nothing else to spend your money on and it's selling for really really cheap.