rmthunter's Full Review: Tamaki Kirishima - Ruff Love
Tamaki Kirishima's Ruff Love is an odd little story, a yaoi manga that veers into contemporary fantasy -- an erotic variation on "a boy and his dog."
Taketora writes historical fiction. He's not very good at it -- people say his stories are boring. That's probably because he's boring. He's zoned out most of the time, doesn't have any close friends, seldom smiles, just writes his stories and goes to work at his uncle's bar, where he's popular because, he suspects, he looks like his late grandfather Takeyuki, who was a very popular actor.
One night, as he's preparing for bed, he leaves an offering at his grandfather's shrine and thinks to take something out to the grave of his father's dog, Shiba. He finds a boy half out of the ground, complete with cute furry ears and tail, who mistakes him for his grandfather and informs him that he, Shiba, has come back as a human to repay him, Takeyuki, for his kindness. When faced with the realities of the passage of time and human mortality, Shiba happily proclaims that he will repay his debt by serving Taketora.
Shiba is enthusiastic but unpracticed, which is a polite way of saying he's a total klutz, but Taketora find himself responding to Shiba's innocence and enthusiasm: they fall in love. The upside is that as Taketora becomes more involved with Shiba, his stories get better. There are, however, complications, mostly in the form of Akatsuki, a large black dog who also happens to be a man. He's a grumpy sort, always hungry, and always ready to jump Shiba: he, too, has come back for love, but can't find his human.
Two points of note: right up front, I found this story immensely appealing, even though it has serious flaws. The character of Shiba, innocent, devoted to Taketora, and irrepressibly good-natured, is worth the price of the book. On the other hand, it's a very frustrating book: the characters, which are admirably sketched out, are only sketches and would hve benefited by more development -- even Shiba, who is the most complete character here, could benefit by some indication of his growing maturity and competence at the tasks he has undertaken. I think Kirishima had the makings of a knockout story here that never quite made it past the drawing board, so to speak. The graphics, as is normal with manga, are clean and open, with a good narrative flow. The character design is well done, Taketora's rough angularity playing off the rounded, cuddly quality of Shiba very nicely (although Kirishima tends to fall into the "chibi" renderings too often for my taste), and the story line is solid, although it also could have used more development. I guess that's my main complaint: it's got an unfinished quality that keeps it from being a 5-star effort.
The sex scenes are quite explicit, and some may object to the implications of the "boy love" in this case, which could be interpreted to veer more toward the American understanding of the term than the Japanese: Shiba is really too young for a physical relationship when he first comes back, although he does, as boys will, grow up.
As much as I love this book, I can't honestly rate it all that highly because of the flaws. It's a real 3.5.
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