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Gluey Tart: Scarlet

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Hiro Madarame, 2010, BLU

Pretty! Pretty, pretty, pretty!

That is all.

No, of course it isn’t. You didn’t believe that, did you? Really.

There are a couple of multi-chapter stories in Scarlet, and they are – odd. I honestly don’t even know what I mean when I say a yaoi story is odd – I mean, they range from full-on crack to quasi-realistic depictions of human existence (leaning heavily toward the crack, of course). I suppose this one is an unexpected mixture of the two. Which makes it not only pretty but worth reading, as well.

The first story arc, for which the book is named, kind of messed with me. It’s about Akio, who is a nice guy, and Ryo, who is not. But it’s not simple. Ryo looks like a beautiful, aloof womanizer, but he is in fact a shy, lonely mess. Well, he is beautiful, and certainly a cheat. But mostly a lonely mess. He starts following Akio like a puppy after Akio makes the only offer of friendship Ryo receives after moving to a new school. They become lovers, by Ryo goes out with any girl who approaches him. He has epically poor judgment and impulse control. He is also largely unable to take responsibility for himself, and he’s a big crybaby as well. One is left kind of wondering why Akio, who seems like a pretty normal, together guy, keeps putting up with this shit. Except that one might possibly remember what it’s like to be young and desperately in love.

Anyway, Ryo makes love to Akio and then leaves him hanging because some girl asks him out. The pattern repeats itself over and over, and Akio is pretty much OK with it. He obviously loves Ryo, and he understands that Ryo is fucked up, and that’s how it is.

Things more or less work out, until Ryo hooks up with Tae, who is one cold bitch by anybody’s standards. And a truly disturbing plot twist ensues. It’s more than hinted at on the first page of the manga, but I’ll just say there’s a bizarre and distasteful bit of violence, and the resolution, while played as a mostly happy ending, is perhaps even more disturbing for that. Because they wind up together, and Akio is, as I said, a nice guy, and Ryo is an unstable freak.

This all sounds unpleasant, and it is. But what intrigues me is that Madarame manages to also convey the love and the tenderness in this relationship. This story contains some really moving romantic bits. Some of the panels are breathtaking – beautiful lines, deftly physical poses, and very hot sex. Her kinetic style (did I really just write that? “Her kinetic style”? Good grief.) really conveys Ryo’s frantic clinging, and Akio’s helpless love for him. (There are also a lot of hyper-deformed panels – I mean, a lot a lot – which I’m not especially into, although I’d like it less if it didn’t fit so well with all the frenetic pushing and pulling throughout the story.)

The second story, “One Night Stand,” is much less worrisome, while retaining the troubled intimacy I liked so much in “Scarlet” (the story). Nobody appears to be mentally ill, for example. I don’t rule that out the way I do, say, a young-looking boy with big eyes and short shorts, but if the character does actually seems psychotic, that is, well, grueling. So I was ready for a break. The second story is all about repressed passion. A nondescript young salaryman, Harumi, watches a not-nondescript hottie in the elevator every day, working himself up into a (very quiet-looking) fervor. When he sees said hottie, whose name is Toki, in a gay club one night, he’s built up enough steam that he can’t help going after him. Toki is there on a dare, and Harumi isn’t wearing his glasses, and as everyone who’s ever seen Superman knows, people are completely unrecognizable when they have their glasses on. So Harumi assumes he’s safe; he’ll live his fantasy for one night, or try to, and go back to stalking Toki in the elevator with no one the wiser.

Um, sure. Whatever. Toki is interested and goes to a love hotel with Harumi, and some really nicely imagined and beautifully rendered sex ensues. It is lovely, gentle, and hot.

The next day, Harumi is shocked – shocked – that Toki recognizes him. Toki stays on the elevator past his floor, waiting for everyone to get off, and then says, “Good morning, Harumi.” Such small details, but the body language conveys the swirl of emotion they’re both feeling. Harumi tells Toki he must have him confused with someone else, and Toki says, “So that’s how it is. Sorry.” No! The agony! The longing! Oh, it’s delicious. Harumi wrestles with his disappointment and his need and his shyness after that moment, but he can’t get up the courage to change things. Until he sees Toki at the bar again one night, when all the bottled-up emotions come out and he makes a scene. Tender declarations and hot sex ensue. Very satisfying. There’s a short third chapter, an epilogue told from Toki’s point of view, which is less heaving with terrified lust and more, er, straightforward. Which is obviously the wrong word. But it’s a refreshing ending to a very cute story.

There’s another short sequence at the end, about a hot player who’s slowly and gracelessly coming to terms with having fallen hard for a dork. This appeals to me for obvious reasons.

Scarlet is a beautiful book. The cover is beautiful, the color splash page is beautiful, and the art is beautiful. I really hadn’t expected to like it; this was one of my “I’m so smitten by the cover I’m going to buy it anyway, even though I’ll hate myself in the morning” purchases. Sometimes those lapses in judgment work out after all.

Gluey Tart: Yokan Premonition

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Makoto Tateno, Oakla Publishing and Digital Manga Publishing, 2010

I was having a bad day Friday, so I went to Borders, hoping to be soothed by the gentle and expensive caress of European fashion magazines. Which worked out, by the way – German Vogue has a rock theme! I skipped Italian Vogue’s questionable tribute to the Gulf oil spill, but I said yes to Australian Vogue and British Elle. No Dansk, alas, but I got the September issue of Details, which has a lovely spread featuring Gabriel Aubry. Everybody loves Gabriel Aubry, of course, but I love him specifically because he is the earthly embodiment of Yohji.

Perhaps you remember my Weiss Kreuz obsession/personality disorder – Yoji is the tall, blond ladies’ man florist/assassin. (He isn’t blond in the image above, which is from Ja Weiss, a doujinshi; he is blond in the anime, though.) (I share because I care.) I find Details sort of uniquely annoying, by the way, but this is a very fine photo session.

Why the hell would you want to know any of this? Because we have no secrets! That is the nature of our relationship. And you now understand why I was suddenly in a mood so buoyant that I decided to take a chance on the manga section. Because the Borders manga section, once a joy and a constant drain on my fiscal resources, has become a source of sadness, woe, and lamentation. Much like the rest of Borders. (I would say that is a discussion for another time, but who would I be kidding? Besides, we may never pass this way again. And, does anybody really know what time it is? Does anybody really care about time?) The manga section is a pathetic shadow of what it was two years ago, and yaoi is now a wee, tiny proportion of the pittance that is stocked. It makes me frown. It make me cross. But I was in such a good mood (a contact high from the magazines), I decided that haunting the sorely diminished Borders manga section like a hungry ghost wouldn’t make me cranky and weepy. Up the escalator I went, approximately thirty pounds of magazines (that is to say, four) tucked under my arm.

It was fascinating up there because Dave Mustaine was in the house, autographing his new book, I Was Once in a Couple of Bands that At One Point Didn’t Suck, But I Was Always an Arrogant Asshole. Hundreds and hundreds of people had purchased his book (which has a hard cover and 368 pages and costs $25.99). Frankly, I was shocked. I mean, why? Of course, I bought Walk the Way: The Autobiography of Aerosmith. Twice. So.

Let us change the subject.

(Except, did you see the video of Joe Perry knocking Steven Tyler off the stage? Joe said he didn’t do it on purpose. I’m sure the look of death was just a coincidence.) (Forty years is a long time, y’all.)

Gingerly stepping around Dave Mustaine fans, I found about five yaoi titles, all of which sucked. Except Yokan Premonition, by Makoto Tateno. I scooped this up without bothering to see what it was about or even look carefully at the cover. There’s no need – I loved Hero-Heel, Yellow, etc., and I already know what to expect from Makoto Tateno. There will be hostility and holding out and poorly drawn looks of shock and dismay. There will be garish lace pattern fills and snakeskin jackets. (And, in this one, there’s the S&M turtleneck with the buckle on it, a la Aya Fujimiya, the slightly less tall, red-headed brooding head case florist/assassin from Weiss Kreuz!) (The human brain fills in patterns, you know?)

______

Tateno’s characters look pretty much alike, and there is a certain mood. The particulars of the stories differ, though. Yokan Premonition turns out to be about a rock band (and lordy, I do love me some rock porn). Well, a visual kei band. Which is obviously not the same thing, but close enough, if you know what I mean.

I am wondering about the manga’s title, by the way. Yokan is a jelly made from bean paste, which doesn’t seem right on target, but there is an old-ish Dir En Grey song titled Yokan. (Dir En Grey is a visual kei band.) (A J-pop band called Heidi recently released a song with the same title; the main thing I remember from seeing the video is that the guitar player wore dropped-crotch harem/Hammer/sweat pants, and this is not a good look. Seriously.)

All right. Onward. One doesn’t like to shoot one’s wad too soon, but my favorite line in this manga is on page five: “Singing is just like masturbation.” Really? Because I had not noticed that. The deal is that Akira, the singer of the band the book is about, won’t sing a song written by anybody else, and he thinks of his music as a solitary pleasure. (I still think the metaphor went awry, but it made me laugh, so good enough.) And the setup is ridiculous, as always. (And as it should be. If I want realistic cause and effect sequences, I’ll knock over some dominoes.) Pretty little Akira, who complains that people always think he’s gay (hard to imagine why), happens to overhear a famous actor singing a fabulous self-written song to himself on a roof. I mean, that obviously happens all the time. Akira can’t get the song out of his head, and later, the famous actor, Sunaga, happens to run into Akira singing the song to himself in a hallway. He tells Akira he can have the song if he’s willing to pay the price, wink wink nudge nudge. Later still, when Akira is presenting songs to the rest of the band, they find Sunaga’s song (which Akira has scored, as one does), love it, and want to record it. For reasons that are so unclear it’s really a thing of beauty, Akira feels he must therefore record the song, and he calls Sunaga to find out exactly how much he wants.

This whole scene is delightful. Akira goes to Sunaga’s place and seems skittish. I love the dialogue. Sunaga asks, “What’s with that troubled look? What are you, too chaste or something?” “No, not chaste,” Akira says, looking miserable. “But I am a virgin.” (Insert afore-mentioned look of shock here.)

This spread perfectly demonstrates the good, the bad, and the ugly of this and most other Makoto Tateno manga. She strives for a hip, sort of edgy atmosphere, and her success is hit and miss. It hits enough to work for me, and when it misses, I find it kind of amusing and endearing. There’s also the element of one partner being aggressive, and the other partner wanting to get away – but being strangely drawn in. Tateno is a master at that plot device, if you like that kind of thing. The “symbolism” gets absurdly heavy handed – Akira’s band is called Charon, and he keeps talking about hell. Yes, yes, very clever. We get it. Now stop it. (She doesn’t.) And the art. There are some pretty panels to be found, but most of the art is not great. That final panel, where they come together, is really nothing to boast about. And yet – it works. For me, anyway – I can see how it might not be everybody’s cup of high-strung melodrama. I love the look on Sunaga’s face when he says “Come here,” and I love the understanding we get of his character when he adds, “Good boy.” I even like the twisty angsty nervous virgin stuff from Akira. Believable? Er, no. A hot setup for an absurd romance? Yes.

Spoilers ho!
But all Sunaga wants is a kiss. It’s a really good kiss, with some groping, but that’s it. He cuts Akira loose – but tells him he has a better song, and if he wants that one, he’ll have to do more. And Akira realizes he doesn’t have to use the song after all. It’s cute. As the actual story unfolds, Akira reveals how obsessed he has become, and there is sex, more obsession, growth and character development, and a happy ending for everyone (except the dead guy).

Oh, and there’s a final short story called “Sinsemilla.” It is not about pot, but rather about pills, which I found puzzling, but drugs are drugs, I suppose, and there is lots of sex. There are also some extreme head to body ratio issues. No plot to speak of. Just sex, pretty much. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Gluey Tart: Otodama: Voice from the Dead

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Youka Nitta, 2010, Digital Manga Publishing

I was worried about reading this manga. The first and perhaps most “reasonable” reason (or, well, maybe not) is that I was frightened by Embracing Love as a child. At least, I was kind of turned off by the football player necks when the first volume came out, and I’ve stayed away ever since. I’m starting to think that might have been a mistake, but I can’t fix it now because the series is out of print and some of the volumes are woah!-surely-nobody’s-actually-paying-a-hundred-bucks-for-this-no-matter-how-good-the-sex-is expensive. The perhaps slightly less reasonable reason (again, this is obviously something of a judgment call) is that I hate starting a series and getting left in the lurch. I am immature and have abandonment issues and perhaps ought to consider Prozac (well, Fluoxetine Hcl, since my insurance insists on the generic), but I have a pathological fear of falling in love with a series and not being able to finish it. Or, you know, becoming somewhat interested in a series. Whatever. And a series by Youka Nitta is high risk, as far as abandonment goes.

Ms. Nitta left the industry for a while after an art-copying scandal in 2008, leaving several much-loved series on hiatus or dead or something. Nobody knew. Well, she is back (or so her new English-language Web site indicates), so maybe she’ll start working on Otodama again – but who knows? It’s unclear how derailed her career is. Not utterly, I hope, because damn it, I like this book (yes, it’s all about me). There’s apparently one more volume in Japan (which is not yet slated for publication in English, so far as I can tell – Doki Doki’s site doesn’t have any scheduled releases posted past summer 2010, which might just be a minor glitch but does nothing to ease my mind), and that volume does not conclude the storyline.

Only tangentially related aside
But in checking that out, I discovered that June is going to publish Ayano Yamane’s Target in the Finder series this summer! Holy shit, this is good news! I have the first two volumes in English but didn’t get the third before it went out of print, and I have suffered for years over this egregious lack of judgment. I even bought it in German because – well, we will not speak of that, but my German is only very slightly better than my Japanese, so I still need the English volume.

Back to the post
Speaking of Doki Doki (yes, we were), that reminds me of my only real objection to Otodama – no sex. (Doki Doki is DMP’s sex-free line, damn their eyes.) In discussing this sort of thing, people often say things like “it was so good, I didn’t even miss the sex,” and brava, I say to them, for they are obviously mature about their comics reading in a way that I am not. Because Nitta is an artist and author who is deservedly famous for her explicitly sexy yaoi, and I want her to put out, damn it. This is an enjoyable supernatural police story, and no, the utter lack of sex doesn’t leave any gaps or anything – but the setup is sexy, and this is Youka Nitta! There could be lots of hot sex! Why wouldn’t I want that? And the series might never be finished, so if she was building up to it slowly, we might never get there! Arrgh!

Sigh. Life is cruel, but we will try to go on as best we can, despite our lack of inner resources. (“We” meaning “me,” of course, although you should feel free to overly identify.) This manga – Otodama, the book about which I am ostensibly writing – is really very enjoyable. The story is solid – batshit crazy, but solid – and the boys are pretty. Their necks are not overly thick, you’ll be relieved to know.

The setup is ridiculous. The first chapter is called “Aural Hypersensitivity.” Which is pretty funny all on its own. The details are good, too. Kaname (the pretty blond without the stubble or cowboy hat, as opposed to the mysterious Shoei, the pretty blond with the stubble and the cowboy hat – and boots – and, um, chaps, WTF?) has hearing so acute he can perceive things nobody else can, including voices of the dead. He was once a forensic researcher who was known as “the ears of the police” and was “famous throughout the agency for his good looks.” He is now an “acoustical analysis expert” and naps in a sound-proof shelter. This cracks me up, all of it, but especially the sound-proof shelter. Non-stubble blond sometimes works with Hide (the one with spiked dark hair and no glasses) a private investigator, former police detective, and brother of the senior investigator, Superintendent Nagatsuma (the one with the non-spiked dark hair and glasses). Unstubbled blond and spiky brunette did a lot of police work together but resigned over the same case, several years ago, all of which becomes increasingly important and germane as the story progresses. (If the story progresses. Wah!!! The uncertainty! The humanity!)

Ahem. Anyway. I have decided against outlining the plot. There’s a lot of plot here, y’all. Too much plot to capture in a few hundred words. Which is nice, especially since you can actually follow it, and it makes sense (in a batshit crazy way, obviously). There are two stories in this book, the first one kind of independent of the second one, except for all the setup (and there’s so much setup it gets kind of awkward, but it pays off eventually). The second one is longer, and it develops a lot of what the first story alludes to. And the crimes are solved very scientifically. A cherished example: unstubbled blond listens to a recorded cell phone message the police weren’t able to make anything of, and he announces, “Your client’s voice is coming from behind the suspect… From the atmospheric reverb, I’m certain they’re in a car. From his voice, I’d say the facial structure is unusually narrow… He’s young, too, no older than thirty. He’s short, and I don’t hear any stress, so he may be unemployed.” That last bit is what seals the deal for me. That is quality pseudo-forensic babble.

There’s also a female character who serves a structural role in the story and is insanely hot. I see this as an unexpected bonus. Kinukitty does not read yaoi – or sort of implied boys love, in this case – for the female characters. This is not because I don’t like female characters. Far from it. I’m just not much good at multitasking, and when I’m reading yaoi, my focus is on the guys. Perhaps the near-tragic lack of physicality between any of the guys has allowed me to appreciate Superintendent Tadashiki.

Nitta’s layouts aren’t the star of the show, but she does provide lots of nice details in the art. When Acoustic Man puts on his headphones and slumps forward, listening to police recordings, he looks pained in a way that makes you want to give him a cookie and put him in bed for a nap. Or in his lounge chair in the sound-proof shelter. And when spiky-haired brunet watches him suffering, you feel his pain and discomfort, as well. There are some interesting visuals, too.

I like the legs progression, although I can’t see any reason for it. It doesn’t flow very well into the next page, where spiky-haired brunet is anguishing. (Twice.) I do like that image, though, on its own. The art pulls its weight in telling the story.

So, was it worth it? Did my Otodama experience justify all the angst? Er, yes. Thank you for asking. The story isn’t a cliff hanger, so, hysteria aside, it really does kind of work as just one volume. There’s a lovely and, yes, fulfilling connection between the two characters. It’s enough.

Would have been better with sex, though.

Gluey Tart: Kiss Your Hair

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Duo Brand, 801 Media, 2010

I don’t understand how a story about a hair fetishist (and a book named for same) could go so far wrong. Seriously. The first story in this book is about two servants at an estate where everyone is hired for their long, beautiful hair. One of the servants does very naughty things with the master – wink wink, nudge nudge. Delighted as I was by this premise (and that would be very delighted indeed), my reaction to the actual story can be summarized thus: Meh. There were long-haired pretty boys, sex, romance – but not enough detail in any area to sell it. The art isn’t quite good enough to stand on its own, either.

But I did not despair, because I had not actually bought the book for the hair fetish story. Frankly, I didn’t give a damn about the hair fetish story. Or the second story, whatever that was about. (I couldn’t tell you, literally to save my life, and I’m too lazy to get up and walk into the next room to pick up the book. Ditto stories three and four.) No, I cared about the guys on the cover, and they were in the fifth story, “Escape.” That’s the one I had my hopes pinned on.

My standards aren’t usually so low that four out of five stories in a compilation can suck and I’m just fine with that. (There was a sixth story too; don’t remember that one either.) This was a special case. It’s a Weiss Kreuz thing.

I’ve written about my Weiss Kreuz situation before, recently and less so. I have a major, major thing about two of the characters in that anime, which is insanely bad. Really – however bad you’re thinking it is, badify it about 75 percent, and we might be in the ballpark. It’s almost one of those so-bad-its-good things. Almost. Which is like jumping from the roof of one building to another and almost landing. We are not concerned about the shocking lack of quality offered by Weiss Kreuz, however. We are concerned with – me. Me, me, me. Me and my bizarre fixation with Aya and Yohji.

Because the guys on the front of this book (hey, we’re talking about the book again!) look like Aya and Yohji from Weiss Kreuz, who just happen to be my OTP (one true pair, fanfic-speak for the two fellows upon whom I have affixed the majority of my unhealthy erotic attention). I saw the cover and didn’t really care about anything else. Aya is an intense, redheaded, sword-wielding assassin. He often wears a long, swishy burgundy leather coat and a sort of S&M turtleneck with a leather strap that buckles across his throat. Yohji is an impossibly tall, lanky, world-weary blond who kills people by strangling them with a measure of wire he flips out across vastly improbable distances, from his watch. (God is in the details, people.) Yes, I hoped the story about those characters (not-Aya and not-Yohji, I mean) would be good, but such is my depravity that I was in fact willing to spend $15 or whatever it was (see above re. poor memory/too lazy to go look at book) just to have an image that looks like these characters but is slightly better drawn. I cannot defend this. Obviously, I am mad.

So, that fifth story. Not much happens, and it’s not entirely coherent, but it does not suck, at least not too much, and I do remember it. Huzzah! (We like to keep the bar low for celebrating our wins here, chez Kinukitty.) The sort-of redhead (the cover is murky and undecided as to his hair color, but I am morally certain it is red, based on the “because I insist” principle) is an assassin who is injured and shows up at a safe house run by a tall lanky blond. And, what do you know! The redhead and the blond were friends in high school! And apparently the redhead became an assassin to avenge some injury inflicted on the blond. All that is a bit lightly told and sparse on details, much like party mix is always mostly peanuts, hardly any cashews. I always wonder, in cases like this, if the author simply miscalculated about how many clues to leave for the reader – maybe in her efforts to avoid banging us over the head with unnecessary back story, she unwittingly left us with less a rich tapestry and more a moth-eaten sweater. Or maybe she just didn’t feel like fleshing out the details. I don’t really have any theories, but I do remember thinking the other stories suffered from a similar feeling of not being fully imagined. Whatever they were about.

Anyway, the initially grim assassin perks up under the care of the tall, lanky blond, who is sad to see his old friend go. And, basically just like that, the two wind up at the airport, flying off into the sunset together. You think I’m skipping over a lot of story there, but I assure you I am not. It’s a sweet ending, really. And sort of a sweet story, to the extent that there’s any story there. The important thing is that there are several images that look very Aya/Yohji to me, and because I am a simple creature, I am happy.

I don’t actually know anything about Duo Brand. Who is it? Is it a person? A collective? A person who houses a multitude, like the Borg? Whoever it/they is/are, I can’t help wondering if the hive mind is aware of and perhaps likes Weiss Kreuz, particularly Aya and Yohji. Because Crimson Wind? Redhead with a sword, with a tall, lanky blond. Shards of Affection? Murky redhead with a sword and a long, swirling burgundy coat with a sort of blond (his hair is white, which is of course almost the same thing). Isle of Forbidden Love? Well, not a redhead, but a lithe young thing in pigtails, a kimono, and geta, his legs wrapped around the hips of a blond pointing a gun – so I’m willing to ignore the lack of red hair and generally unassassinly air (Kinukitty is somewhat catholic in her kinks). Do I have all these titles? Yes, I do. Am I ashamed of myself? I would be, if I were familiar with this thing you call shame. Did I really just buy them because they remind me of Aya and Yoji? Er, yes. Shut up.

So, Kiss Your Hair. I don’t think so. Unless you need that picture of the Aya-like eyes. And I would support you in that.

EXCITING UPDATE! (July 4, 11:39 a.m., CDT)

I was doing the laundry and found Isle of Forbidden Love (don’t ask), and guess what! Pig-tail guy does have murky red hair! And a sword! My excitement cannot be contained.

That is all.

Gluey Tart: Worth a What?

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mean? I’d always assumed it was some bit of sexual innuendo of which I was unaware. I didn’t think that this time, though, because there is no sexual innuendo of which I am unaware. So I thought more about it. (That’s why I haven’t written a column in months. Kinukitty is very single-minded.) And I thought, well, there’s “drop a deuce,” but that refers to pooping. Everybody poops, yes, but that’s not quite right for sexual innuendo. Well, it is in some circles, but Kinukitty does not do scat. This is not a minority opinion on Kinukitty’s part, so I don’t think that’s what Mr. Simmons intended the song to be about. But there is no actual “he’s worth a deuce” sexual innuendo. One assumes he meant that he’s hot enough to do twice in one night, but he has himself pretty much admitted he had no idea what the hell he was talking about (or so said something I read online while meticulously researching this conundrum). It’s all just kind of overblown and clumsy and stupid. Which is one of the things I like so much about Kiss.

It isn’t just Simmons and Stanley. This is a game everyone in the band could play. (Well, Ace Frehley seemed to have his shit sorted out, as it were; “Parasite,” for instance, is a weirdly very sexy song, with a kick-ass guitar riff to boot.) Not so much the case for “Baby Driver,” by drummer Peter “Yes, I’m to Blame for ‘Beth’” Criss (also on Rock and Roll Over). “Go, baby driver/Been driving on down the road/Oh, what a rider/Carrying such a heavy load/Don’t ever need to know direction/Don’t need no tow, food, gas, no more.” The first question, obviously, is what the hell is he talking about? No, seriously. What the hell? And the second thing is, Jesus Christ, what is going on with this sexual metaphor? It is a sexual metaphor, that much is clear. Even if we leave aside the confusing lyrics (in fact, let’s do that, please), what on earth is going on with “go, baby driver”? There’s a fine tradition in ’70s rock of calling the groupies or what have you “baby,” and presumably that’s what Mr. Criss had in mind, but this strikes me as a sort of terrifying misstep.

And Kiss fans know from missteps. I’m going to limit myself to some of the high points from the first six albums because, frankly, I don’t want to hear any of the other albums again, ever. (Well, that doesn’t include the four solo albums released in 1978, of course. They are troubled, troubled records, but I have a completely indefensible yet persistent sentimental weakness for Paul’s solo album, and I might also argue, if cornered, that there are actually some songs worth listening to on Ace’s. Peter’s album is pretty much crap from end to end, and I’ve never actually listened to Gene’s, and I don’t intend to. If you try to make me, I shall be cross.) Here are some of my favorite flubs:

  • “Flaming Youth” (Destroyer, by Gene, Paul, Ace, and Bob Ezrin – I think Ace was drugged and kidnapped and forced to participate in this one) – “Flaming youth will set the world on fire.” That one doesn’t mean to be sexual, but come on.
  • “Room Service” (Dressed to Kill, by Paul) – “Baby I could use a meal.” Oh, my god.
  • “Goin’ Blind” (Hotter than Hell, by Gene) – “Little lady, can’t you see/You’re so young and so much different than I/I’m 93 and you’re 16/and I think I’m going blind.” This song, in which Larry King tells his girlfriend that they can’t be together any more, has always cracked me up. The premise is supposed to be amusing (and it is), but I’m not sure Mr. Simmons knew what he was doing with the going blind metaphor.
  • “Hotter than Hell” (Hotter than Hell, by Paul, who sounds like Jerry Lewis when he sings “Lady, oh lady,” something that I, not being French, find uniquely repulsive) – “Hot, hot, hotter than hell/You know she’s gonna leave you well done.” Am I the only one who gets unpleasant and not-sexy burn unit images from this? This song also features an earlier and inarguably more successful – if not exactly successful, per se – exploration of the Mr. Speed theme, with “I’ll take you all around this whole wide world before the evening is through.”
  • “Mainline” (Hotter than Hell, by Paul) –“ You needed some loving/I’m hot like an oven.” Ah, the merciless overlord of the exact rhyme. The thing is, Mr. Stanley really wanted a phallic reference here, not a yonic one. I’m sure of this.

Ah, good times. Now, I assume Mr. Simmons’ response to all this would be to unzip, pull out his big old bank ledger, and wave it in my face. Which is part of the fun, probably. I don’t care what he thinks, and he doesn’t care what I think. That’s called détente. Go, baby driver.

Gluey Tart: Madness

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Kairi Shimotsuki, December 2009, Blu

The marketing copy says: “In a distant future, violence has savaged a wild wasteland. Kyo, the leader of a ruthless group known as Madness, has spent the last few years imprisoned in a church, with no memory of his true nature. Tenderly cared for by Izaya, a gentle and beautiful young priest, Kyo’s life has become a tranquil one – until the day the church is attacked by an old enemy… The back cover further promises us a futuristic yaoi adventure filled with brazen lust, tender love, and murderous rages!

How can you go wrong with that?

Sigh.

This title is a mess. Not even a hot mess – more the floor of my closet kind. There are some nice things down there, but is it worth it to dig through all the murky crap to ferret them out? We have a big negatory on that, amigo.

I blame everyone. I mean Shimotsuki and I mean Blu. We’ll start with the publisher and work our way back.

The printing sucks rocks. The art is heavily toned and is very dark and dense in places, meaning there’s a lot of ink on the page, and that’s a disaster with the pulpy, gray paper Blu uses. There just wasn’t ever going to be any way to get this kind of art to print clean on this kind of paper. But the problem seems to go beyond that; the screens are so clogged with ink that you can see patterns. Reversed type (white type on a black background) is difficult to read, and faces (etc.) look dirty and grainy.

The darkest areas blend together into one indecipherable mass. Seriously, what the hell is going on at the top of the page here?

This is making me squeeze my eyes shut and pinch the bridge of my nose in annoyance. It’s more than just production problems, though. The printing fiasco only emphasizes the fact that the art is overly busy and often fails to provide much of a hint about what’s going on in the story. Not only is this ugly, but I defy you to tell me what’s going on in this page.

There are many pages like this. I figured out more or less what happened in the first third of the book by mentally filling in the blanks. It’s not like it required a lot of ingenuity. A priest, Izaya, is sheltering the leader of a feared gang of killers – the Madness referred to in the title. Izaya is beautiful, effeminate, and pure. He believes the killer, Kyo, is really a gentle man. There’s also a sword named Sigfreid. (Sigh.) A member of Madness (I think) shows up to steal the sword, killing everyone in his way. Kyo shows his stuff and goes nuts, killing the interloper and getting his sword back. He announces he’s going to become a bounty hunter and takes the priest with him. The priest is apparently able to dampen Kyo’s berzerker streak. Whatever. Details are thin on the ground, and frankly, I don’t care. To be fair, there is a kicky bit of interpersonal heat in a couple of panels that imply Kyo doesn’t just want to jump Izaya’s bones (that’s stated clearly, no implication necessary) but might also love him. And that Izaya might, in his innocently ignorant, Mary Sunshine way, also love Kyo. After they embark on their adventures, Izaya keeps saying Kyo was a different person in captivity – which appears to be almost literally true. Kyo was sweet and gentle in prison, and he couldn’t remember his crimes; and after he escapes, he can’t remember what he was like before he got free. I’m sure I’m supposed to be intrigued by that, but not so much, it turns out.

But, to continue that impulse toward fairness, I should also note that there are a few scenes that almost make up for the rest. After the priest keeps Kyo from killing someone else, Kyo is overcome with lust and jumps Izaya, holding him down and kissing him. (Izaya suppresses Kyo’s berzerker rages, and there is apparently a sexual element to that. Which is potentially hot. In theory, anyway.) It was difficult to figure out what actually happened because of the drawing and printing problems, but you can get it from context. Kyo quickly brings Kzaya off, and our exceedingly innocent priest couldn’t be more surprised.

I have no idea what’s going on with the porn actress thing, but the main image made me snicker, in a “that’s kind of nasty but it surprised a chuckle out of me, sort of like Perez Hilton” sort of way. It’s immediately followed by another scene that’s supposed to be funny and possibly sexy and is actually just mildly stomach-churning, but I’m taking my wins where I can find them.

I just paused for some serious introspection, which I will spare you. (You’re welcome.) The main problem with Madness is that its reach exceeds its grasp. I think it’s going for a Saiyuki kind of sustained violence and jacked up level of constant interpersonal strife and irritation. Sadly, Shimotsuki’s skills aren’t up to it. The violence doesn’t work because you can’t really see what’s happening; the art just isn’t good enough. And the interpersonal strife doesn’t work because the storytelling doesn’t have the goods either, which means that the constant bickering among the characters isn’t amusing. It’s annoying. It’s all a big muddle, like someone left a cake out in the rain. There are some good bits, like the idea of the innocent priest being in love with the bloodthirsty, terrifying killer. Madness itself is a fun idea – a group of killers so wild and bloodthirsty everyone is terrified of them. That has some very sexy, badass possibilities. There’s also some mysterious gang hunting down Madness members. That could be interesting, too.

And then there’s Miyabi.

I had high hopes for Miyabi. She’s absurdly busty, but there’s nothing wrong with that. I don’t read yaoi titles for the female lady women characters (that would be a loser’s game), but the possibility of having one who’s just a member of the team, just as deadly and sarcastic as the men, that’s appealing. And Miyabi has a secret – she supposedly killed Kyo. Which she obviously didn’t, since there he is. Not that I’d blame her if she had. But anyway, nobody knows why she supposedly did it. I assume all will be revealed in volume 2, but I’ll never know, since I won’t be getting volume 2.

There are some other characters, some other complications. Things happen. If I haven’t put you off this book yet, you should buy it, and then you’ll know. And if I have put you off it, the details don’t matter anyway, do they? I may be making excuses for myself, but seriously, I used up all my energy clawing my way to the end of this thing. And not in a good way.

And while we’re talking about buying or not buying, I’ll note that this is an expensive title – $14.99. I was attracted by the heft, though, and I’d rather pay a few dollars more and feel like I’m getting something. In general, I mean. I’ve seen some pretty skimpy titles lately at the old price of $10-$13, and this makes me frown. It’s ironic, though, that I would really have preferred that this particular title be shorter. I was pretty crabby by the time I finished it, and for a book about a theoretically hot, crabby, insane killer with multiple personality disorder or something, that is a sad state of affairs.

Gluey Tart: Sense & Sexuality

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You Higashino, 2009, Media Blasters

This manga was always going to be one of those things for me. Like when you’d really like a dense, perfectly moist brownie, but you go and get a bag of M&Ms from the snack machine instead. The experience isn’t without its redeeming features, but it isn’t the platonic chocolate experience whose reflection you once glimpsed against the wall of the cave in the flickering light of the bonfire. I was iffy about the plot description and a little less than iffy about the art. The cover design is quite good, and I’m pleased to see a bit of a trend toward actual design on these things, rather than just a big image of the characters embracing against a spray of flowers or whatever. They don’t have to look like 1970s romance novels. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it’s nice to have options.) But I digress – as usual.

The plot synopsis advertises this as a Taisho era love story (and I originally typed “ploy synopsis,” which is a pretty insightful typo). The Taisho era was from 1912-1926, and I understand “Taisho jidai” means “the period of great righteousness,” which is an amusing setup for a decadent bit of porn. (I mean decadent in the Victorian/Edwardian aristocratic sense, as does Higashino. We’re not talking about cults of Cthulu. Although I’d love to read that. Oh my god.) The Taisho era was known for its liberalism, following the Mieji era, and this is also part of the joke – my knowledge of Japanese history is sadly fuzzy and lacking in details and context, but I’m almost certain that the liberalism of the day did not extend to a completely blasé attitude about same-sex cavorting. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

Higashino does, by the way, throw in an inexplicable (and clumsy) nod to historical accuracy by having one of our wealthy cad protagonists assaulted by communists. To which I said, huh. Communism was a big deal in Taisho Japan (and elsewhere). The Japanese communist party was founded in the early 20s in response to the Bolshevik victory in Russia a few years before, and there was high-profile violence. The police came down hard on the movement and had pretty much stamped it out at the end of the decade. Unlike the farmer and the cowman, communists and fabulously wealthy robber barons can’t really be friends. But throwing it into the middle of this mindless post-Edwardian romance just feels muddled. It’s a convenient plot device, certainly, and of course one must thrust one’s characters into each other’s arms in some way or other. But it felt heavy-handed, especially since the historical accuracy is otherwise, shall we say, uncertain. (And, oh dear, I feel another disclaimer is in order; I have nothing against historical inaccuracy, either. I’m all for it, in fact. It amuses me. What I’m commenting on here is the mix – juxtaposition is everything.)

In the notes at the end of the manga, Higashino explains that the whole point of the manga was to draw dandies in the clothes of the time. That’s as good a reason as any, and better than some. And she does convey an aura of Oscar Wilde-ish world weariness and spoiled, bored dissolution and self-indulgence. So, full marks for that. The first stories of the book show a series of bets our two main characters make about who will be the first to seduce some sweet young thing. (The protagonists are named Masatsugu and Kuniomi, but we will refer to them as the blond and the brunet – or, ultimately, uke and seme, which should surprise no one. I have a hell of a time keeping track of some Japanese names because I am lame and undisciplined, and Masatsugu and Kuniomi flat-out refuse to stay in my brain for even a moment.) These are somewhat amusing and occasionally kind of charming. One of my favorite moments is when the blond looks out the window of his carriage at his next victim and says, “A school uniform, eh? It’s so stoic. It’s arousing.” At the beginning of another story/bet, he looks out from his box seat at the opera and says, “I would love to open his tight rosebud. And make him writhe with pleasure beneath me.” That’s funny stuff.

Also, there is actual nudity (instead of whited-out absences of genitalia or those bizarre half-there rods of light), and it is drawn reasonably well. After a series of these bets, the brunet confesses his constant and abiding love for the blonde and calls off any further bets. The blond is conflicted (which is to say, he does not say no to sex but is uncertain about the eternal love portion of the equation), but after the brunet is wounded by communists in an alley (“Your wealth was created by the suffering of the people! You’re going to pay!”), the blond starts to realize that he too has Serious Feelings. And they (literally) sail off into the sunset. It’s nice. It amused me and made me smile.

I do have an artistic bone to pick. The drawing is OK, overall, but there are a couple of clunkers that just made me stare in dismay. I mean, look at this:

What the hell? Seriously, what the hell? This is an abomination. (Maybe I should rethink my earlier enthusiasm for Elder God yaoi.) And while I’m flapping my hands in horror, I’ll note that there is the occasional blip in the sex scenes, too. Toward the end, brunet says to blond, “I’ll make love to you countless times, over and over… Until you smell like me from within.” To which I say – well, I don’t know what to say. Other than dear God, no.

These unfortunate malfunctions are the exception rather than the rule. They don’t ruin the reading experience, but they do leave a bad taste in your mouth. It’s the sort of thing I expected, though. I decided not to buy this title several times before I finally gave in, a victim to my completely irrational impulses. “It isn’t going to be that great, and you already have several thousand books in your to-read piles,” I said to myself. “But – but – but – post-Edwardian dandies! And I like the cover,” I whined back to myself. “You like all kinds of things. Things you’ve already purchased. Read one of those – this one isn’t going to be special.” “But – cover! Suits!” “Oh, for Christ’s sake, just go ahead and buy the damned thing, them.” “!!!!!! Cover! Suits!” Sigh. Sad, but true. I am a shallow magpie of a woman. So I bought it on July 18, according to Amazon’s handy feature that sometimes (but not always) keeps me from buying multiple copies of bright and shiny titles. Now that I have finally gotten around to reading it (which shows the level of anticipation I’d built up), I’m happy enough with it. I could like it more, but I could also like it a lot less. (I had a similar experience with Higashino’s Gay’s Anatomy, now that I think of it, except that I didn’t actually buy that one. It just came down to not really having a hospital fetish and also, inexplicably, not really liking characters in glasses.) (I assure you that Kinukitty has no such biases in real life.) (Thus endeth the pointless parenthetical comments and also, coincidentally, the post.)