Customer Reviews

Alone In My King's Harem (Yaoi) (Yaoi Manga)

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I bought this Manga expecting Yaoi, I was VERY disappointed. The Seme look male. The Uke are all dressed like girls, all of them look like eight year old girls with their clothes off and there is no actual evidence saying they ARE boys in some stories. No gentials nothing. It seems to stress even more their girls. There is no action. No plot. Nothing. The stories are dull and boring and DMP made a huge mistake ever picking this title up! As soon as I got home, I flipped through it and shoved it on eBay straight away. It's a horrible title for any Yaoi Fan, as I am. This IS NOT YAOI! Don't make the mistake I did and waste $12, you can buy something 100 times better like something from BeBeautiful.

It is annoying that DMP keeps classifying everything with a hint of boy's love as Yaoi. This book is of course not Yaoi. The stories cannot even be classifed as Shounen-ai as the ukes merely resemble flat chested females. Some of the stories are sweet, if you like a dose of sticky sweetness, but the drawings of the ukes simply put me off.

This was the hot commodity at the DMP table at Ycon, and I can see why! The art style is very delicate and elegant. Many of the pages are beautifully designed around the text, breaking out of typical manga paneling. I was a little surprised I enjoyed the character types so much, too, because usually I do not like long haired boys. But the stories and characters were so sweet they won me over.

The first three stories (except Night Circus) are fantasies which lay out relationships between the main characters and show us why and how they come to love each other. This can be a challenge to do in a short story, and I've seen many other manga fail in this area. The settings and back stories are very inventive! I especially loved the story of a boy with such a beautiful voice that he is kept locked away and forced to sing only at night: the Canary. He meets a man who tries to set him free and begins to sing only of him... Night Circus seems like a successful experiment in storytelling, a series of equal-sized panels depicting a dreamlike romantic sequence. This is my favorite. I do agree these could have used more explicit scenes, but that's a personal preference.

The last two stories, unfortunately, are typical generic yaoi dreg. A student asks another student, "I heard you'll do it with anyone, how 'bout me?" So they do it. In the next chapter, we find out they fall in love. And... that's it. Hopefully since these two chapters were published, DMP manga will turn down the zillions of similar unimaginitive series and we'll be left with nothing but fresh material.

i got this book b/c i've loved every single one of the other DMP books i'd read, even though i'd read the other reviews. yes, the long-haired and otherwise completely feminine characters are a bit of a turn-off if you're expecting boy on boy action, but for people who have a cross-dressing[...] and for anyone who is interested in exploring that realm this book is perfect. this was the first DMP book that extensively featured fantasy elements (such as a fairy queen, a fantasy kingdom, and a magical circus), which i enjoyed. what makes this worthwhile for me though is the artwork, which is some of the best i've seen and which fit the stories perfectly. (the freedom of the drawings and layout reminds me of clamp's clover series if that gives you an idea.) the masculine guys are drawn well also. if you're looking for a strong story with strong characters then you should def. try some of DMP's others (like the popular -only the ring finger knows-), but if you've read all the others and want to try something different this is def. worth getting.

I blame this one on yet another hurricane. I was without power again and out of new manga. So, against better judgement (and excellent Amazon reviewers) I ordered it. This is a compilation of multiple stories, all of which but the last are fantasy-genre.

First off, it did NOT deserve the explicit warning on the front. I would judge this 16+. DMP is in the habit of stamping non-18+ yaoi this way, so I shouldn't have been surprised. The first story, the title story, has some well drawn characters, but the uke is SOOOOO feminine that it's basically a straight tale with no sex. Don't get me wrong, I love bishonen, but this was even more feminine than that. And entirely too much white space. In fact, other than the Circus tale and the final school-oriented tale (the only tale in fact which I felt like I was finally reading yaoi)almost half the book was taken with solid black or white and text. Excuse me? For that price, I want a GRAPHIC novel (and yes, I mean that both ways). I actually enjoyed the circus tale, even though it was not yaoi and it was very short. It was a sweet, short tale with elements of "Pet Shop of Horrors." Good story, but shonen-ai, not yaoi.

Unfortunately, not even the final tale of the class President begging for sex from the school gigilo could make up for the other stories which were somehow infantile and weird at the same time. Next hurricane I'll stick to looking at stars.

Anyone who is familiar with Lily Hoshino's work should know that her ukes tend to be very feminine, and very beautiful. Her art work for lack of a better word is amazing. This manga is no acceptation. While I would not call it yaoi, for most of the stories are more shounen-ai. I really enjoyed it. There were four one-shots, including the title piece, and a two-shot. All the one-shots were very fantastical, while the two-shot was more high school-it was also the most graphic in the manga.
My favorites in the manga were Alone in my Kings Harem and The Sea Bed of Night both of which were very sad and sweet. I would have bought this manga for those two stories alone.

I loved this manga. I thought it was very cute. No it isn't yaoi, with all the hot steamy sex, but there's romance between guys, and it's adorable. The art is very beautiful as well. It's a collection of short stories, and yes, most of the bottoms (uke) look/dress like girls, but hey, that's not a problem, right? Either way, it's cute, and I would recommend this to anyone.

I had the pleasure of reading this over the weekend. I remember when it was first published in english, and due to the bad reviews I read here on Amazon, I steered clear of it. I'm very sorry I did so, because what I experienced while reading this manga was far better than any of these reviews will lead you to believe.

I agree with what's been stated repeatedly: this book is not technically yaoi, it is shounen-ai. Hoshino Ririi's uke boys are beautiful, much more beautiful than women, and do seem to be nothing more than women (or girls) with flat chests. However, Hoshino-sensei does not write your typical manga story, and I feel that her character designs compliment her stories quite well. Rarely with her work will you find the standard "schoolboy angst" or the "childhood friend/lover" story you've read a million and one times. Hoshino-sensei's stories are heartfelt, strange, and very touching. The first one-shot in this particular manga of hers nearly brought a tear to my eye. As someone who reads an average of 10 to 12 mangas per week (most of them unlicensed in America), that's really tough to accomplish, because I have seen it ALL!

Hoshino-sensei is a lover of fairy tales and fantasy, and her ukes reflect that in a very appropriate sense. There is no explicit sex, but it is obvious when the characters do have sex, and it is often. The art style is unique, the stories are very original and well-told, and to be honest, I'm upset that I waited so long to read it. The haunting imagery is somewhat similar to director Tarsem Singh's work ("The Cell", upcoming "The Fall").

Overall, I wouldn't just toss this one aside just because the ukes are especially pretty. Despite the fact that the stories call for that sort of character, the genres of yaoi and shounen-ai are not without their fantasies. Even some of the most realistic mangas ever drawn rely on incorrect (or impossible!) positioning, and an overall complete lack of sexual reality. No matter what your favorite yaoi title says, no lube=no fun. Period. Give this one a fair chance.

I remember liking the story of this manga, but I had trouble getting over the way-too-feminine-looking uke. I cannot emphasize that last part enough, but I guess it's apparent from the cover. I really prefer yaoi with more masculine male characters. Sure, they can be amazingly bishounen (pretty boys), but this crosses the line, I think. If you can get past it, it's a sweet, mostly romantic manga with several different one-shots (short stories). Same thing with My Only King, another manga by the same author.

When I bought this, I had no precise expectations, which is always good for when you read something. What I got was beutiful stories about love in all it forms. Loving someone who has forgotten you, loving someone who you cannot be with, and so on. It isn't what you'd call dirty, so if you're looking for dirty stories about bishonen then go somewhere else. But the stories are very beautiful reading.