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Explicit content is considered "Art" when it serves a purpose, when it conveys a deeper meaning behind the images; otherwise it is just gratuitous sex and/or violence. But even in calling something "gratuitous", we are still acknowledging that it has a certain draw on us, precisely through its flouting of societal taboos, of what is and isn't appropriate to our sensibilities.

It is difficult for me to say what Hayami Jun's "purpose" is in this anthology. It doesn't appear to be wholly gratuitous, although some parts are deceptive in their simplicity, and others are confusing in their apparent incompleteness.

Hayami's girls are wholesome, sweet, shoujo types. ... There is a running theme of the desire to break their haughty spirits through sexual dominance. In the opening story, the protagonist Naoko is multi-dimensional, well-rounded, as much a lover of the arts as she is an athelete. But her partner is fixated on her religious devotion; he wants to destroy and overtake what she holds most sacred, to pry open the depths of her core and extract the absolute beauty lying dormant within. This idea comes full circle in the final arc, where a goody-goody ingenue's path of self-discovery culminates in a tragic end.

There is a sense here of that old adage: "Be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it."

This is not, of course, to make light of the girls' plights. The motif of victimhood is ever-present in these stories. The girls' faces, their pained contorted physical forms, are clear against the backdrop of violent assaults perpetrated by nameless, shadowy offenders; their impotent cries of "yamete!" falling on deaf ears. There is a kind of placid passivity in these girls, reminiscent of Sakaguchi Ango's description of wartime citizens obediently surrendering themselves to their fate, going through the futile motions of life, marching to their deaths.

But here the victims are often jolted out of their resigned numbness by reminders of their own mortality. Their eyes fill with terror at the thought of all the things they will never get to accomplish if they were to die here, now, pointlessly, senselessly, by chance, as easily and breezily as if by a flip of the coin that would decide their fates.

Other girls here actively participate in their own objectification, in a way similar to Miley Cyrus acting out in order to shed her Disney image. I can't help but cringe at the futility of this type of self-destruction. There are many fully human yearnings that go way, way deeper beyond the physical act of sex. But we tend to direct our judgement and verdict at the sex itself. What gives?

Was it William Blake who wrote about capturing Eternity in an instant? Sex serves that purpose here too; a means of creation and condensation of human life. Hayami depicts men on either side of the spectrum: on the one end, those who fear the responsibility of insemination, and on the other, those with a sick fascination for distilling this process down to its essence through the sexual act. There is perverse logic in each transgression, no matter how unpleasant the idea may be for us to confront.

Following one of the stories there is a letter from a teenaged reader, who denounces Hayami's works as seriously sick and disgusting. At the end of it, however, she reveals her primary complaint - that the sensei's bishoujo are too unrealistic and she can't see herself mirrored in them. It made me wonder: is this what it comes down to? Is this our major beef with what we define as "immoral"?

I can't speak for anyone else. There are people out there who hold steadfastly to a rigid morality. Conversely there are those only looking for vicarious satisfaction of their, um, needs. What would they get out of a work like this one? I've heard it said that it's a good thing artists like Hayami have their art, otherwise they might become career criminals. I believe people like him take a very different view to the relation between art, narratives, reality, motivation and action, than we tend to do conventionally. This is something I'm still learning about through my ventures into more transgressive works.

My first foray into Kago Shintarou's work, as well as into the eroguro-horror genre in general. I picked this up late at night thinking: how bad can a manga really be?, at most it's just images on a page. Little did I know, this thought of mine would come full circle in my reading.

Turns out a few scenes in the eponymous story "Fraction" did send my heart racing. But guts and gore aside, what struck me more was the meta-commentary on the manga form itself. The story is presented as an alternating double narrative, between a serial killer's murders and a fictionalised Kago discussing his ... next project.

Even as "Kago" is walking his readers through common devices used in mysteries to create suspense, you still never in a million years could've guessed the plot twists. He gives examples to illustrate his techniques but they are almost tangential and serve only as oblique red herrings.

It reminds me of a riddle I heard in childhood, about a man at a funeral. Apparently if you solve it correctly it somehow "proves" that you "think like a psychopath". Except in this case I can't imagine *anyone* actually anticipating Kago's thought process. He reveals himself to be a perverse genius, as well as a perverse jokester;  his humour is evident even in the glossary inserted in the middle of the volume.

I'm also reminded of the many issues I had back when I first started reading manga. Small and/or unclear frames where I wasn't sure what was happening. Unattached speech bubbles where I wasn't sure who the speaker is. Manga has its own set of conventions and codes, which you learn implicitly as you stumble along.

In order to follow a manga's plot, on some level you need to suspend your awareness of the limitations of the comic-book format and subsume your attention wholly into the story itself. "Fraction" pulls you away from that. Its horror is hiding in the gap between content and form, waiting to ambush you unawares and gloat over the satisfying result of your dumbstruck manukezura.

I felt unexpectedly enlightened after reading "Fraction", if "enlightened" is the right word for this sort of anti-revelation.

The one-shots that make up the remainder of the book are a mixed bag. "The Returned Man" continues to subvert expectations. I couldn't help but read some kind of social commentary into "Collapse", perhaps a rebellion against the cultural edict to put on a brave face and soldier on in trying times. The final story, meanwhile, carries notes of the nightmarish confusion in Yumeno Kyūsaku's "Dogra Magra".

I can't recommend this book to everyone. But those who can stomach it, should read it. You might get a sense of how caged-in our realities are, and perhaps take a step outside of the box, discover hitherto unknown directions.

Nothing in this world is black-and-white. I don’t condone cheating, but I can sometimes empathize with the circumstances that lead to its occurrence. Why do people marry? Who decided for it to be a social norm? Love is an emotional state; marriage is a legal contract – from whose moral perspective does one necessitate, or even relate to, the other? These are the things I don’t question, because going down that rabbit hole could mean pulling the ground out from under my feet in search of an answer that may not even exist.

In some ways, I see myself in Miyoshi – her immaturity, her artlessness, ... her reckless disregard for a secure future that to an outsider seems like a mix-up of priorities. But deep down, she understands the most important fact of all: it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if we choose shameless indulgence over decent abstention in this moment. At the end of the day, we go back to being alone.

In Akutagawa Ryunosuke’s short story “The Handkerchief”, a grieving mother visits her dead son’s former professor, and feigns a smile while covertly ripping up her handkerchief under the table with trembling hands. The professor admires her restraint as an exemplar of Japanese “bushido”, later to find the same gesture described as a third-rate gimmick in a Western theatre reference book.

Different strokes, as they say, for different folks. A different woman (such as Miyoshi's friend Iida) would have been touched by Watanabe's handkerchief-tearing act of love and repaid him with her full devotion, but to Miyoshi, he comes across as a clown at best and a lunatic at worst - and either convinces her that she's been shackled to the wrong marriage.

Miyoshi and Arishima belong to the same class of people, who worship their freedom and define their own codes of conduct without much regard for the status quo. Watanabe is blindsided by his absolute morality, resorting to passive-aggression and violation of his own personal boundaries to defend the love he believes to be righteous. Togawa (Reika), on the other hand, clings to her ethics as the sole guiding light in a world that has been unkind to her, but feels understandably let down and lost when her perfect self-discipline fails her in securing Arishima’s fidelity.

So the crux of the story hinges on which moral compass you choose to align with. The beauty of the rotating narrative is that you aren't allowed to get too comfortable in any one character’s shoes. None of the pairings really seems, in Miyoshi’s words, “destined to be”: two marriages wrought with inequalities, and two married individuals trying to make up for a lost chance at love built on shaky ground to begin with.

Is Miyoshi’s obsession with Arishima any less frightful or absurd than Watanabe’s fixation on her? What makes her fail to see the parallel between their plights? What about Togawa? What about the surrounding remarks that she’s so lucky to have this charmed marriage, this charming husband – a husband who naively traded on their mutual vulnerabilities, when in reality he’s barely scratched the surface of her laboured fortitude? He was eating yakiniku with his family while she worked to support hers. Who are we as outsiders to judge how she should think and feel, how Watanabe should act, or to whom (or what) Miyoshi’s and Arishima’s loyalties should lie?

Arishima said it well, “Sometimes good people can be detestable, and detestable people can turn out to be good.” But in relationships there are no good or bad people, only how much you’re willing to give and take in the name of love. The ones who are in too deep, covered in wounds of war; the ones who live a lie out of obligation; the ones who refuse to live a lie out of obligation _to themselves_; and the ones who forget themselves in the eyes of others – they’re all good and detestable in their own ways. To paraphrase Dazai Osamu: that, too, is human. The grand spectacle, circus, tragedy, and unknown that is human emotion.

Love and let love.

-

[Based on vols. 1-4]

It's a stretch to call this a collection of "stories" - these are vignettes, ranging from 3-pagers to 3-parters, about young people in love.

First let's talk about the good: the art, while likely not everyone's cup of tea, is right up my alley. Clean, sparse panels - sometimes just text on an empty background. Drawn in a sketchy style, figures are gaunt but graceful. Naturalistic movements; poetic melancholy. A thoroughly indie vibe. In a few places the background shading makes the floating text slightly hard to read; squinting is highly recommended.

~70% of each vignette consists of inner monologue - while this delivers in terms of ... raw emotional intensity, it doesn't do much of anything to push the plot along (...what plot?). All I got was a series of abruptly edited moments thrown in my face like confetti. The characters have names and dialogue (most of them anyway), but no semblance of personality - or rather, the snippets presented are way too short for the reader to get to know them, or for any reasonable character development to occur. These people seem to exist solely in a world of love, for the purpose of love, and as such, I couldn't connect with any of them. I could only connect with the feelings and memories of past loves they evoked in my mind - which is all well and good if that's the intent of the mangaka, but 200+ pages of this shtick is a tad excessive imho. Every few chapters, I found myself craving a real story with a substantial plot.

By far my favorite from this collection is "Yoru no Hitokake", in which a roadkill incident causes the protagonist to re-examine her life. "Itaitashii Love IV" is moving, but missing that little ... something. Overall, the vignettes would have better served as blueprint sketches to be fleshed out into full-length works - or at least, I hope that's what they were used for anyway.

Recommended as an emo teenage diary, lovingly illustrated; a tonic for broken hearts in small doses.

Someone once said the reason we enjoy reading stories is because, unlike real life, stories have endings. This is perhaps why I finished「Boku wa Mondai Arimasen」feeling unsettled - its 7 odd, surrealistic one-shots (the final story is split into two parts) left more loose ends than satisfactory closures. Having read Miyazaki's other collection,「Yume kara Sameta Ano Ko to wa Kitto Umaku Shaberenai」, though, I find this one more accessible by comparison, its overall tone more hopeful, if not exactly optimistic. It's illustrated in the same artistic style - glassy-eyed doll-like figures, male characters often odd-looking, the younger ones confusingly effeminate in appearance, buildings and landscapes ... carrying a hint of mecha/steampunk influence, climatic scenes dissolving into a sketchy or watery mess - and set in the same dream-like, isolating world. Imagine the happenings of a Raymond Carver story taking place in a Borgesian setting - that's more or less the vibe of this manga.

The stories are loosely threaded together by few common themes: the over-protectiveness of loved ones, the longing for a human connection, the conflict between inner desire and outside expectations, etc. There's a fragile beauty in the narration that treads the fine fine line between normality and lunacy, solitude and romance, captivity and freedom. At times enigmatic, often unexpected, and always poignant - much like the human experience itself. This is a sobering read, worth reflecting upon beyond the last page, that will make you sadder but wiser.

It's hard to rate/critique someone's personal story, but here goes.「Boku ga Watashi ni」details part of mangaka Hirasawa Yuuna's male-to-female (MtF) transition process. It's a highly educational read - about three-quarters of the manga is devoted to her sex reassignment surgery (SRS) in Thailand, and there's a lot of in-depth information on the medical and legal procedures involved, including corresponding terminology, the whole nine yards.

Occasional comic relief comes from her tongue-in-cheek explanations using food ingredients as substitutes for anatomical parts (sausage for chinpo, etc) and interactions with quirky Thai staff. Parts of the narrative made me wince in vicarious pain (phantom limb...er...appendage + dilation, anyone???). And ... while she reveals some level of anxiety and unease as expected, being a stranger in a strange land undergoing a life-changing operation, I get the sense that on the whole Hirasawa is deliberately downplaying the emotional/psychological aspects of her journey. And as a cis-gendered reader, that is perhaps what interests me most in trans-gender stories - the stuff that you don't find in pamphlets and medical literature - the heart and soul of the storyteller.

Then again, it's easy to be an armchair critic and say: "I wish the story had more this and that," without giving thought to the broader implications of what that might entail. Hirasawa states in her epilogue that her intent is first and foremost to educate - not to enforce equality or demand societal acceptance, but to simply share her experiences and let the reader draw their own conclusions. And with a sensitive topic as such, I can see some necessity in her taking this approach, and I applaud her ability to take a step back and keep a buffer distance from certain expectations and/or biases.

Towards the end Hirasawa raises some important questions which she invites the reader to reflect upon: What is gender? What is "normal"? What constitutes "normality" or "otherness" in our world today? While the story may not have directly addressed these topics, its overarching theme presents much food for thought in this regard: one individual's struggles, both physical and psychological, in order to achieve a state of "normality" that most of us take for granted.

And, for what it's worth, I will never look at a sausage the same way again.

This is for all the misfits out there. You who have been stepped on, brushed aside, ignored, misunderstood, despised. You who have risen to the challenge, tumbling through the lanes of life, falling and getting back on your feet over and over again. You the underdog - this is your story.

A pair of alien brothers are sent on an undercover mission to investigate the merits of planet Earth as a possible future home for their kind. In three volumes we follow the duo's quest to adapt to modern-day Tokyo living, playing witness to all their escapades - from the tiniest gaffs down to the dangerous ... and the illegal. There's no shortage of action in the way of car crashes and sci-fi superpowers, but equal if not more focus is devoted to their clumsy navigation of the social / dating scene - to hilarious effect.

The ostensible star of the show is younger brother Fuyunosuke, whose good looks and winning ways (in human form) stir up a sensation wherever he goes. However, the real driving force behind the plot is older brother Natsutarou with his well-intentioned ineptitude. Along the way we run into a few side characters, each going against the grain in their own way. We steal glimpses into their psyche and insecurities as they rub shoulders with the protagonists. At times the formula can seem clichéd and somewhat lacking in depth, but the motif it underscores is a powerful one: the search for identity, belonging, and human connections.

Art-wise, the character designs reveal hints of retro Western comics - the main duo could probably fit in on the cast of Archie or Scooby Doo without a hitch. Faces are more baby-fat than angular, and readers in search of eye candy will have their hopes dashed (sorry, folks). The cityscapes, on the other hand, are where the illustration really shines. Every street scene is meticulously done, and I could almost feel the colorful, bustling vibe of Tokyo leap out from the page with each turn. Different districts, from Ikebukuro to Harajuku, are skillfully depicted, creating a kind of virtual tour of the city. It's a shame that the series hadn't gotten a longer serialization, there's real potential there of a wealth of places and topics left unexplored.

All in all,「Tokyo Alien Brothers」embodies the shounen archetype - an action-adventure story that makes us laugh and feel at the same time. Between the humanity of aliens and the alienation of human beings, one can't help but pause in contemplation: what exactly is it that makes us human? Perhaps the answer doesn't matter. For at heart this is just a poignant tale of brotherhood, a cup of tea that warms your soul at the end of a long day. And it's alright if you scald your tongue on the first sip - to err is human; we live and learn.

So here's to the misfit in all of us.

There's an old joke that the shortest story ever to unite elements of politics, religion, royalty, sex, and mystery consists of a single line:

"My God, the Queen is pregnant! ... But who did it?"

Expand it into a shoujo manga series, and that's more or less the premise of「Oujo no Jouken」. In the European-esque, matriarchal country of Bragança, the sudden death of the queen leaves her two daughters Estrela(16) and Lua(14) in direct ascension to the throne, on one condition: that whoever is first to bear a female heiress gains the right to rule. Both sisters are infatuated with their cousin Affonso, who happens to have ... an agenda of his own. Thus a power struggle unfolds in the form of a race for pregnancy, wrought with love, sex, lies, and betrayals.

So far, so soapy.

As a reader who gravitates towards the more mature, sobering themes in terms of manga choices, I picked up「Oujo no Jouken」in search of a pulpy read. The series fulfilled all my expectations wonderfully. It's beautifully drawn - perhaps not the most exquisite artwork I've ever seen, but the rich array of royal balls, lush costumes, and handsome suitors certainly appeased my inner otome (with the exception of Syldonio, who consistently looks like a turd). The story is exceedingly readable, with no pretensions of high culture, history or politics - it's a soap opera through and through, and unapologetically so.

Character development is a bit of a hit-and-miss. Personally I appreciate the sparing use of inner monologues and flashbacks (compared to certain series that smother you with too much of both...*coughKuzunoHonkaicough*), leaving room to readers' interpretations. To that end it can come across as a bunch of teenagers making bad life choices with little insight into their actions - but thinking back to high school history lessons on the lives of royalty, you can't underestimate the destructive power of ennui. Traces of Marie Antoinette's infidelities and the conspiracies of the Medici's are felt in the story, and I couldn't help but think to myself as I read: this is what happens when you let adolescent girls rule a country.

But sarcastic jabs aside, I enjoy the series for what it is at heart - an entertaining family drama you don't have to think too deeply about - and look forward to the next installment, further unraveling of the whodunit behind the (possible future-)queen's (impending) pregnancy.

[Review based on vols. 1-2.]

I seem to have a knack for picking out incest manga based on the cover. Nieruchi - which roughly translates to "boiling blood" in English - is one crazy ride with enough drama to keep you interested and entertained, but hardly makes you feel anything akin to that of the suggestive title.

Sera and Rumina are half-siblings with the same father, George(?). George was married to Rumina's mother, but cheated on her with another woman which resulted in Sera's birth. The story opens with the two mothers having a friendly tea session together, and it baffles me that the author never provided more back story about ... the affair, or the fact that the two women seem to be on good terms and completely okay with their man's infidelity, so much so that they allowed their kids to have play dates together and become besties. Is this a regular occurrence in Osaka (or wherever the manga is set; it seems to contain quite a bit of Kansai-ben)?? But anyway, fast forward some ten years. Now both in secondary school, Rumina has a crush on Sera, and she becomes intimate with a male classmate out of desperation to escape her feelings. It's never made clear why she's so hung up on Sera like he's the only guy in the world, apart from that one time they held hands when they were 5-years-old. And Sera, too, has a pursuer, but she reminds him of his helicopter mother and it makes him quite repulsed. He tells Rumina that he's afraid of all women except her, and they share a kiss. The logic of how they came to fall in love with each other doesn't seem convincing, but I guess I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and read on. A series of unfortunate events happens, and the two become separated until a chance encounter in adulthood, and from there the story dovetails into a romance between any two young people with occasional allusion to their blood relationship almost like it's an afterthought of sorts.

My main gripe is that the nature of their relationship was not properly dealt with at all in the story. From the beginning very little is revealed of Sera's inner thoughts, and initially he seemed to me motivated more by spite than by love, which makes his character growth later on in the story somewhat abrupt and unrealistic. Rumina, for all her desperation and awareness of the "wrongfulness" of her feelings, doesn't put up much of a fight, both externally and internally. She seems to give into Sera's desires at will. Even after a 7-year absence in which they were both presumed to be out of each others' lives for good, there is no satisfactory segue leading up to the rekindling, no thoughts or conflicts over the moral implications of their actions. The motif of blood line runs throughout the story as constant references to a "stirring", "flowing", "simmering/boiling" within their veins with no clear connection to any other part of the story and seems to serve no purpose. The parents are spectacularly useless (or just too good at removing themselves from the picture) and, for the most part, one-dimensional characters with no real depth. We never get to know their thoughts on the affair and its consequences on the kids.

The sketchy art style lends an overtone of grittiness and intimacy to the story, but some details are skipped/glossed over here and there that caused some little confusions, especially towards the end. Overall, I feel the manga suffered from poor pacing, trying to cram a story spanning 20+ years into a 7-chapter volume, especially one dealing with a delicate topic like incest, feels way too rushed and there's simply not enough room for insight into characters or buildup leading into events. While not a must-read, this is still a refreshing break from the typical high school romance with a satisfactory conclusion.

There is often beauty ensconced in the mundane, and while I wouldn't call the premise of「Saraba, Yokihi」"mundane" by any means, it does a wonderful job of weaving everyday moments, little slices of life, into a greater patchwork in equal parts shocking and sentimental.

The main story revolves around a young couple, Akira and Keiichi, drifting in and out of time to construct a narrative of the course of their relationship from childhood to present. Early on hints are dropped that cumulate into an important - and somewhat disturbing - revelation, but the author does a good job of gently easing you into uncomfortable truths and fleshing ... out each character's mental space. I find the gender reversal in Aki and Kei's relationship dynamics oddly satisfying - Aki being the stoic, independent one and Kei leaning more towards the emotion-prone, damsel-in-distress end of the spectrum, although he does experience quite a bit of character growth as the story progresses.

Secondary narratives told through the perspectives of supporting cast Tamaki and Kou see a sprinkling of the usual tropes pertaining to unrequited love, but somehow manages not to feel exploitive or overdone. For one thing, the characters are sensible, albeit flawed to varying extents, the imprints of circumstances on their actions lucid and striking. Character interactions are the strong suit of this manga - I particularly enjoyed the exchanges between Aki and "Kei-chan", a spoiled child at her daycare center who acts as both a foil and an unflinching representation of Keiichi's inner desires.

The art is somewhat less detail-oriented compared to some of the other manga I have read, but still clean, crisp, and lovely nonetheless. (In fact I had picked it up the first volume on a whim based on the cover, without any idea of what it's about.) Pacing is slow and physical intimacy is scant, which, given the nature of the story, seems rather appropriate. All in all, this is a richly-built up account of young people grappling and growing through the pains of misdirected love. Recommended for mature josei readers looking for a non-traditional romance.

[Reviewed 2017.03.12 based on Vols. 1-3.]