Customer Reviews

Desire (Yaoi) (Yaoi Series)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Considering the mixed reviews this volume is getting here on Amazon.com, the first and final thing I have to say about this volume is that, yes, it's worth it. And better for a Yukine Honami fan.

2005 will probably see a lot more Yaoi translation releases, and right now, yes, we non-Japanese fans are buying up every possible trickle. This one is a pretty good trickle.

*Desire* is yaoi, not hints of boy-love, or UnresolvedSexualTension, or slashy hints. Explicit scenes are scattered through the volume, and the storyline itself follows relationship trouble between 2 boys (with a third thrown in for extra ansty goodness).

What is truly pleasing about this volume is the art. *Desire* has a rougher, sketch-like quality to it than Honami's other volumes; it's not as "pretty", but it's still a nice style. Of course, this is fan bias. As it's in a modern school setting, you don't get the gorgeous decadent furs, hats, coats, cuffs, of *Sono Toki Heart wa Nusumareta* (unreleased- you know, the one with the Mysterious Masked Bandit), but the faces are still here. The younger boy for Yukine Honami's couples is the one that hooks you every time.

Perhaps the most appealing part of Yukine Honami's style are her character eyes- not the 80s or girly sparkly eyes, but still expressive and modern. The hollow look, the rejected look, the hurt look... This is what boy-love angst is about. You get a lot of angsty goodness from wounded eyes here.

The dialogue is fitting- and well done. Some honorifics could have been more natural in its original Japanese form, but it doesn't undermine your reading at all.

All in all, a satisfying mix of innocent and clean art balanced by "getting together", drawn out angst, curt misunderstandings, and good translation, that in the end is unexplicably soothing. Definitely one you want to hold on to.

The summary of the story sounded as if it might be interesting, and the positive reviews as well as the recommendation from Amazon that I might be interested, helped me decide to give this a chance.

I was disappointed.

As has been mentioned, the best character in the series (and mentioned by the mangaka in the afterword) got the least amount of "screen time". I shouldn't be surprised at the strong yaoi stereotypes in play, but as they're not my cup of tea I'd hoped to avoid them. Sadly that wasn't possible with this book. An insistent strong-willed "yes trust me this is what you'll like" seme character, square jawed and sexually promiscuous pulls the emotional strings of a delicate sensitive uke character who caves because it's the only way he'll be close to the man of his dreams - it felt very cookie cutter approach without giving me any reason to care whether or not they got together or not.

I love seeing friends become lovers but what the two had together barely felt like a friendship to me.

This story has the sweet elements of "Only the Ring Finger Knows" mixed in with a more balanced drawing style. While the translation is stilted in a couple of pages, the artist's gift for emotional expression in the eyes and faces of the characters is first rate and needs no translation.

Toru loves his best friend Ryoji. Ryoji drops the bomb that Toru turns him (Ryoji) on. The problem? Toru loves his best friend and doesn't want to be used as an adolescent experiment. He also can't tell Ryoji that or he may lose his friendship. Let the angst begin! Hurt, betrayal, indecision and yes, desire, are all beautifully expressed on the faces and body language of the characters. I found the brief sex scenes in perfect line as far as details shown with the characters and the emotions of the storyline. It's explicit enough for first time yaoi readers. And the emotions evoked cross all genders...lots of straight couples deal with does he/she love me or is he/she just using me? This is one of the most re-read of my (embarassingly large) yaoi collection. Not because it's the best art, nor the best translation, but because the emotional elements of the story are much more relatable than, say, being kidnapped by Yakuza and abused by some hot-looking guy, and miraculously falling in love because of that (not that those aren't enjoyable, too and if you're looking for that, may I recommend "Target in the Finder"?). Still, this is an undeniably beautiful story with expressive art.

I just read this one yesterday and it was really cute, yet also pretty angsty. Toru, 17, is in love with his best friend Ryoji, also 17. One day Ryoji up and says that Toru turns him on whenever he thinks about him(even when he's 'with' girls). o.O . Toru gets kind of upset about Ryoji's announcement and decides not to talk about it with him again, until Ryoji goes one step further and declares he wants to 'do it' with Toru. Yes that's how Ryoji phrased it a few times. Smooth huh? Toru doesn't like Ryoji's casual attitude about their affair though, and pretends to date a senior, hoping to make Ryoji jealous and admit his feelings for Toru. It's a cute story.
The sex scenes...yes that's why you're looking at this manga, I know...they're pretty tame. FAKE was tame, yet still racier than Desire. You see a little kissing and mainly chests and the occassional leg. (No dangly parts of course, even during some racier groping all you see are hands.). I don't understand the rating either, as one reviewer pointed out. It's suggestive, but not nearly dirty enough to have a high rating (pity really). Despite not living up to my smuttiness needs I gave it a 5 because the story was pretty good and the art was nice. I think you'll like the ending too. It's only one book long, so a quick, satisfying purchase. I don't regret buying it. :)

I've been waiting forever to get my hands on this title. it wasn't on the shelf at my local bookstore, alongside copies of "Gravitation" and "Selfish Love" so i had to special order it. i devoured it in a matter of about 2 hours. taking breaks of course to catch my breath and recover from the emotionallly messy teen-angsty place, the book takes you to. the first time i saw the cover online, it grabbed me because the way the characters were drawn differed from alot of manga. there's a softness to the lines in the faces and eyes that almost suggest a japanese/american art hybrid which is quite refreshing.

Toru has been secretly in love with his friend Ryoji for quite a while but fear of hurting their friend ship has forced him to hide his feelings. this arrangement was going rather well until one fateful day Ryoji confesses "when i look at you i get turned on" to Toru. Before our adorable little protagonist can fully recover from that surprising revelation, he's hit with another ton of bricks when Ryoji suggests they sleep together. Now this is really tricky because Toru feels that if he refuses, Ryo will sense To's attraction towards him. On the other hand, can Toru really just have sex with one of his best friends, someone who he's in live with, and just walk away without being even more consumed by the love of his life.

i won't spoil the plot, but it get's messy fast (in more ways than one *GRIN*) between toru pretending to date tall and gentle Kashiwazaki (Hottie Mchotterson) in order to hide his feelings from Ryo. And the extremely tender and painfully realistic lovemaking scenes, this book is sure to please readers on several counts.

it did plug in the issue of (i can't be with you, we're both guys) which is getting really contrived, but it didnt focus on that anymore than half a page. when you get down to it, this book was about uncertainty in love. i found the writing and character exposition more realistic than alot of mangas out there. alot of stories tend to throw characters into romance/sexual relationships through very outrageous and over the top means and circumstances. what i loved very much about this book is that it all seemed natural, the progression of the relationship of these two boys. it reminded me alot of my own highschool experiences with unrequieted love. indeed the book is just teeming with that raw teenage emotion that evokes those feelings of exubrance and doom all in the span of about two seconds.

the only real issues i had with this book was the character of kashiwazaki. i thought he was really special, and personally i thought he was much more worth Toru's time than Ryo, yet i dont feel he got a proper send off. he was just sort of left there without any kind of ending to his story arc. he actually seemed liked the only person in the story who wasn't caught up in his own trials and tribulations, long enough to think of someone else.

also, the sex scenes really are not that graphic at all so i'm not sure whats with the Uber-republican parental advisory. if anything the scenes are suggestive, and really touching and moew clumsily sweet than anything else. it felt at times alot like a movie the things that the artist chose to focus on. it seemed quite cinematic. be on the lookout for the pinky-promise page, and Toru crying in the bathtub. take the hugging in the rain scene, add a sad indie-rock acoustic guitar song and you have a scene from an independant gay flick.

the art was superb, the characters were relatable and human. the plot is teeming with emotional urgency and heartfelt insecurities, in the best possible way. i highly recommend this book to any fan of the genre or someone just curious, this is a wonderful read to start with. "Only The Ring Finger Knows" is still my favorite title but "Desire" is a really close second.

Totally worth the wait.

I bought this manga because I liked the artist/writer's previous works. This story, to be honest, was not exactly up to par with what I read before (like Rin! for example) because some of the scenes were forced, which may leave some readers feeling uncomfortable, and the deus ex machina ending didn't really fit in, in my opinion. Some development was lacking in Ryoji & Kashiwazaki in regards to their feelings towards Toru. Yet, on a different note, Honami's artwork was very beautiful as always.

The problem I had with DMP's publication was that on nearly every other page, a few words were in bold, which was a) distracting/annoying and b) less and less effective. I have never seen any other US manga publisher bold so many words on every page, additionally, it does not allow the reader to interpret the words in its context and also by looking at the actual panels of drawings.

Lastly, in a few places, "Mr. (name)" was used by these high school students. Now, I've never heard a high school student refer to another as "Mr." and I can only assume that the original Japanese pronouna had "-san" or "-sempai"...something like that following them. Not only is it an awkward translation, but seeing how some original Japanese sound effects were kept, I think DMP should just leave in the suffixes when necessary and put in a note to explain them.

I just finished reading (yeah, just NOW) and the first thing that came to mind was "Wow, that was great! I've gotta read it again!" and so I did...
(Just so you know, that is NOT my usual reaction whenever I finish reading a manga title...)
And then I thought about sharing my thoughts on it.

Well the first thing is obviously the cover... it's so gorgeous! I'd pretty much say just the beautiful cover is worth buying this manga.

But there's also the cute story, full of angst and and cute boys! ^^

Another good thing about this manga is that its boys were NOT the typical long-legged and really broad-shouldered ones (like seen in Zetsuai). That usually drives me nuts! The drawings here were just plain and simple, no fluffy stuf and no flowers of stuff like that, but it is very pretty just the same. The characters were really cute, especially the main couple! Poor Toru is such a sweetie too! ^_~

I recommend this title, it's really sweet and simple, a lot of interesting scenes, yaoi and not shounen-ai.

I can't say there's something about it that drives me to it, the whole manga is great: from the plotline to the drawings.
It has become one of my top five favorite yaoi manga titles (and that's saying something ^_~)!!!!

This book was a yaoilicious pleasure. It gave me goosebumps more than once. It stands out from the average 'schoolboy loves schoolboy' story because the antagonist is so aggressive. Right on the very first page he tells the pretty-boy protagonist "When I look at you I get turned on." Don't misunderstand this, it's not a 'plot what plot?' sex story. It has a great angsty story with sex scenes that add value. I love how things unravel between the two boys. It's great to see an antagonist so free and unabashed. There's no 'Oh my God I'm hot for another guy, wah I'm gay!' going on here. That's refreshing.

All of these things warrent a 5 star rating in my estimation, but I must point out the art is only adequate. The creator admits in the afterward she can't draw 'handsome, beautiful-looking guys'. The translation is substandard. There are two pages where the dialogue makes no sense, and that kind of stinks because it's one of the goose-bumpy parts. A few other pages where they're not using contractions, or where something is just stated too formally, pulls you out of the story. It's too bad. I just try to remember that DMP is new at this stuff. I'm sure they'll perfect things as the go along. Stories like this one are worth these minor foibles.

If you're in this for the storyline, don't buy this. Personally, I found it pretty awkward. Some parts of the plot are left undeveloped, making them unbelieveable. It also seemed a bit rushed at places. The only part of it that I liked was the ending. I didn't really like the art style either. The blurriness of it just didn't appeal to me. Overall, the manga left me feeling dissatisfied.

I'd recommend you buy "Only the Ring Finger Knows" by Kannagi and Odagiri instead.

This was a pretty good book. Not the best though. Basically, it's about a shy kid, Toru, who has a crush on his best friend, Ryoji. Ryoji admits that he gets turned on by him. So they experiment. But Toru is sad because his friend doesn't actually love him. As I said, the book was okay. The characters barely changed throughout the whole book. They weren't complex enough for me. Toru ended out being the same, doormat kid who's shy, and Ryoji is still the same pompous jerk (to me anyway). The art isn't the best either. It's not exactly "anime" drawings. That can be okay if you draw it right, but in this the art was so-so. The outcome I didn't care for much either. It kind of proves that shallowness wins in the end. I wanted Toru to end up with the class president (who, much to my dismay, plays very little part in the book, but I think he was the best character). Lastly, it's extremely angsty. Sometimes it just gets a bit confusing. Overall though, the book was okay. Great sex scenes. Not actually "raping" but some non-con stuff. But, hey, I like that stuff. If you want to read it, I'd seriously recomend borrowing it, not buying. It's an okay book, and if you can borrow it from someone, I'd definitely recomend reading it.