Customer Reviews

Fake Fur (Yaoi)

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

The art in this book is over the top. Expressions to just simple passionate moments that jerk at your heart. Nothing chibi in here, which I love. The story is pretty good, though I wish there were more, and maybe there will be another book.

In the flurry of yaoi manga released in the last few years, a good amount of mediocre to downright bad stories somehow came through: flat characters (no pun intended), horrifically stereotypes seme/uke characters, and thoroughly unbelievable plots. This is not one of those. As a queer person myself, I've looked in vain for manga that really tells a story about being *gay*, not just about some guys having ridiculous amounts of sex at the office/school/boys' schools. Because the reality is that there are so many ways in which being gay shapes someone's identity, and a story just won't resonate unless there's some element of an actual queer identity. The stories in Fake Fur are that much more touching for the fact that the main character is struggling to come to terms with his identity, which is something anyone, gay or straight, can relate to.

Not that the sex scenes aren't hot as hell. =P

I left a longer review on Manic Love that talked a lot about this book. I think some of the reviewers here didn't have the benefit of reading Manic Love before Fake Fur, and I really think it helps the overall clarity of Fake Fur to read Manic Love first.

There are some truly moving, beautiful moments in Fake Fur. I admit, I had to read carefully, because the translation sometimes seems more "wordy" than I imagine the Japanese version is, but the payoff were some unique moments in an increasingly homongenized BL world in English.

Highly recommended as an emotionally moving story and a different kind of BL title.

I think all those who like ONLY happy-feel, fluffy manga should avoid this. Also, all those who are not used to manga with some realism should also NOT read it. Note that some previous reviewers found the book "depressing", and some may indeed find it to be so. However, I read "Fake Fur" and its "prequel"/spin-off "Manic Love" together, and I do think that all characters get their "happy endings" in this series. Those "HEA"'s are just more realistic than in average yaoi, and all of the characters suffer and grow before they get to their much-deserved "happy ending".

In my opinion, it's rare to find such a gem among the multitude of shallow, high-school-love stories. And don't get me wrong: I do like some of those fluffy, happy-feel stories as well. But a diverse reader will definitely appreciate the originality, uncommon depth and emotional charge conveyed by this manga.

This is a part of the trilogy; one of the other two books is also published by June, and is called "Manic Love". Some readers think that "Manic Love" is the prequel to "Fake Fur", but it's not strictly that. The two stories are complicated and intervened. Both of them feature quite a lot of fairly explicit (at least, definitely suggestive) sex. As the mangaka noted, she tried to draw "pages after pages" of sex in these stories, and she definitely succeeded.

I liked mangaka's unconventional art style (it's rough, and a bit sketchy in some cases, but I found it much more expressive and emotional than other, more "drawn-out" works.) The eyes of her characters are very expressive, their speech and behavior is deeply emotional and hard to forget. Overall, I enjoyed this series a lot, and can recommend it wholeheartedly.

I read this book in Japanese and loved it. I was excited to find there was an English version, but after reading this, I was left wondering, "Is this the same book?" I went back and read my Japanese copy again because I didn't remember it being so confusing and disjointed. Well, the Japanese made perfect sense to me. I feel sorry for English readers who only have this version because you're missing out on a great book. I wonder if this publisher was in a hurry to put this on the shelf because it seems like they didn't make much effort to make it understandable to an English speaking audience.

Personally, I love Yamagata-sensei's artwork. It is sketchy, as one of the other reviewers said, but she has a unique way of capturing expression in the eyes that makes her characters endearing. You can feel the characters' emotions without having to understand the plot.

This is also the middle book in a trilogy. That adds to some of the confusion. I see that the first book is going to be published by the same company. For some crazy reason, they decided to call it "Manic Love." This has nothing to do with the real title. It's a pity another company didn't pick it up.

I don't think this book is a complete waste of time, but if you really want to read it, learn Japanese.

I agree with the reviewer before me that there are very odd actions preformed by the characters for no reason at all and the art is HIDEOUS but I found myself oddly liking the book. Mainly because it isn't about you average guy who suddenly realizes he loves another guy, this guy was gay from the beginnng and is excepting himself. Even though both stories in the book don't end, they are left open for the reader to get what they may from the book.
I'm keeping the book but I doubt I'll reread through it again.

Once again I'm annoyed with DMP's quanity over quality as I can't stress how bad the art is. It is TERRIBLE. But I must admit, it's a hell of alot better then whatever Ms. Hoshino can dish out.

I even wonder if I should bother with DMP's books anymore.

I don't normally take books back to the store - in 24 years I've only return 2, this being #2. It looked good and although the summary is typical-yaoi the title really caught me and I thought it would be something different. Well, yeah, it was different - but not in a good way.
The art is sketchy and disjointed, leaving figures horribly out of proportion and not much detail elsewhere. The characters aren't rounded or developed in any way - they are extremely 2-dimensional - and there are so many names thrown up without definition of the character its hard to remember who each person is. They also tend to do very odd, very abrupt actions that are meant to be intriguing but end up only being extremely weird [like breaking a window just so the blood can be licked off his hand, or sniffing a wet painting... I guess for nostalgia?].
The main chara goes through the whole book trying to "find himself" and "understand why," but only succeeds in confusing the reader until one finally just ends up skipping over all the 'meditative' thoughts in order to find some sort of plot... which there wasn't. Except the need to sleep around and become an actor in many badly sketched hentai scenes.
He wandered aimless and depressed - which is exactly what this manga is. Aimless and depressing.