3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Nice and sweet, September 24, 2008
This review is from: Crushing Love (Yaoi) (Paperback)
Well, it is not the best yaoi manga I have ever read and it is definitely not a "must-have", BUT it is still somewhat compelling. So, if you are a serious yaoi fan and like to research the genre you can try it.
Its a more romance oriented kind. Love is the main theme, and everything is focused on emotions, reasons, and feelings of the protagonists. The stories are rather touching and sweet (a bit naive too). The sex scenes are explicit and emotional, but without getting into details.
The book is an anthology of six stories, or rather four because 1&2 are closely related (the second one is some kind of an epilogue to the first one), and the same works for 3&4. They are all (1-4) connected by the secondary character, a businessman and club owner Shingyoji Yukihito.
The first and the longest part "Crushing Love" is a story about money, debts, vicious bet, and before all about broken heart. When an ex-lover returns asking for money brokenhearted, revenge-thirsty Kuroda Keiichiro proposes a bet; but the events turn out beyond expectations and Kuroda gets involved in someone's life and falls in love again.
It is rather sweet and consistent story, however sometimes the motives seem not quite logical for me. Anyway, seme is definitely eye-catching and interesting person here. Uke acts like a crazy rabbit sometimes ;) (you will see why ^_^)
The third and fourth stories ("Purity and Tyranny of Love" and "Love of a Tyrant King") form a similar duo and tell the story of a prosperous businessman Yukihito, from Kyoto (owner of the desperately understaffed night club). It is about Yuki's love life and his crush on his childhood friend Sei (and vice versa regarding the crush part). The couple is circling one another not able to declare, then Yuki makes final leap and seizes his love-price and ... happily ever after. Well that was nice, although Yuki is a tyrant indeed!
The fifth and sixth stories "My Throbbing Heart" and "Love Love Me" are unrelated but connected thematically because both tell about high school love affairs. They are nice but rather undeveloped, the last one seems the weakest in the whole collection.
From the graphical point of view, the drawings are not very great, sometimes too schematic, but there are some good "shots" too (especially face close-ups). It seems like an author not always was able to catch the face features consistent at different angles and emotional moods.
But generally speaking, I like the overall mode and style, and the arrangement of the pages. The drawings are large, making pages light and clear, not crowded with dialogs and onomatopoeias. And ...a dust jacket is pretty :)
Concluding, this is nice, light read. The stories can keep you interested. I have read it few times already and it never failed to cheer me up.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Same old, but really cute~, September 22, 2008
This review is from: Crushing Love (Yaoi) (Paperback)
First, I think I'll do an overall view before semi-reviewing each story separately ^^ Okay, overall, the book is pretty darn cute while the art is pretty good, but nothing to scream about. Unlike the last yaoi book I read (Thirsty for Love) I actually didn't want to rush through it!
Couple 1- This is my favorite story of the lot. I fell in love with the character Kuroda~ You'll see why when you read it, haha. (I don't want to ruin anything). It's probably the most cute story in this book.
Couple 2- I enjoyed this one because it showed the 'love life' of a character from the first couple's stories. It's pretty enjoyable and the scene in this one is the sexiest (in my opinion) <3
Couple 3- This couple was interesting on how they first truly met.. yay for school love! haha. Either way, though I didn't really like how the guy with the classes looked, he was pretty sexy looking in the scene.
Couple 4- This last couple was probably my least favorite of the stories, but still okay. I personally didn't like how they had two 'sex buddy' stories in one volume, but I think you'll still enjoy it.
I know the mini-reviews kinda sucked, but trust me, this book is worth buying. Though, just to be safe, I would suggest borrowing it from someone before committing to buying it yourself. Enjoy!
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