Hellishly Hot Gay Romance with an INCUBUS!
Written: Oct 05 '08 (Updated Oct 19 '08)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Well written, superlatively drawn, this is an engaging manga featuring gay romance.
Cons: The Homosexual elements may offend some.
The Bottom Line: Yaoi is an interesting style, gay romances for Japanese women. This one more than most reaches western audiences.
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| talyseon's Full Review: Yayoi Neko - Incubus 1 |
Incubus by Yayoi Neko
Warning This is a Yaoi novel. Yaoi is a Japanese art form depicting romances between men, written for and by women. They range from sweet romances to quite racy and graphic. If this is not your cup of tea, well, you have been warned.
Judas is a neurotic with low self esteem. Outside of that, he is talented; an art student, and very handsome, even if he can't see it. He is socially withdrawn, and shy, and can not believe that anyone could possibly show any interest in him.
He is fixated on one of his Professors, Richard Belgium, though that worthy is totally unaware.
However, when Judas dreams, it is not Professor Belgium who haunts his dreams. Instead, it is an entity Lenniel. Lenniel is an incubus, a creature half human and half ifrit. And in Judas' dreams, he tempts the boy.
There is a delightful dream that launches the book. Alone at a table, Judas waits, hoping his professor will join him for a meal. However, instead, Lenniel places a beautiful piece of cake before him. But as he goes to take a bite, Lenniel restrains him, and tells him, "Wait. That cake you are about to eat is the best cake you'll ever taste in your lifetime. - The only thing is this: this is the only chance and the only piece you'll ever get to eat in your life time. That single slice of the finest cake ever baked in the world is the only piece you're allowed to have."
Judas' considered reply is this, "If that is the case...then I'm not going to eat it....after it's gone, I'm scared that I'll miss it's taste too much." That really tells you most of what you need to know about Judas. He is afraid to live, because what if life does not measure up to his expectations? And that is why he chooses to live a life quietly pining for a man who does not know he is alive. It is so much safer than getting involved with someone who might love you back.
Now, imagine his reaction when Lenniel turns from pastry to seduction. And imagine his reaction when he startles himself awake, and discovers a piece of cake on the table next to him!
And so the seduction continues, night after night, dream after dream, getting closer and closer to complete consummation, though Judas always manages to come to his senses at the last moment, and pummel Lenniel off of him. It is a strange courtship.
And Lenniel does not confine himself to dream seduction, but instead approaches Judas in real life. And Judas finds himself wondering if he is going mad.
Of course Lenniel has a purpose in revealing himself in the waking world; there is another supernatural creature interested in Judas, and Lenniel is here to protect him.
The next chapter recounts the seduction of the ifrit, in the guise of a butler named Kent, by the young master of his household. Though Kent is very aware of the impropriety of this mixing of the classes, his young master is relentless, and seduces the older man.
Back to the present time. The ifrit has come for something he needs, a human soul to help heal his young master, and Judas' soul is a rare one without protection! Can Lenniel, a mere half-blood, protect the man he loves?
This story is fairly simple. It is, as is so often the case, burdened with an angst ridden Uke (the passive partner is called a Uke, the aggressive partner, the Seme. In America, it would be the catcher and the pitcher.) The Japanese love a good story dripping in angst. However, this one rises on the strength of the writing. Also, the translation is a cut above, less awkward in some of the translation of idiomatic expression. If the story seems sparse for the pages used, it is because there is a lot of seduction, and very steamy, rather graphic sex. Neko is not shy about, well, anything. And while she does follow the convention of making the actual phallus a sketch rather than a full detailed depiction, she is not squeamish about drawing them, in action.
And that brings us to the art, which is superlative. Ms. Yayoi is talented. She draws men to look like men, not malnourished androgynous supermodels with huge eyes. Her influence is obviously manga, and the noses in particular are stylized, however, her musculature and anatomy are superlative, making her men HOT.
And from the view of composition and perspective, she is excellent. She is not a slave to background, providing minimal detail, or a complete lack, if it does not suit the focus of the panel. She uses lines and radiating lines to underscore the action or drama of a particular action panel, being truer to the emotional content, than to the architectural.
All in all, this is a superlative Yaoi. It is well written, and well drawn, and very, very sexy, as befits a book entitled Incubus.
As a bonus, she has included a short Yaoi entitled Weapon of Mass Destruction about a researcher creating cybernetic soldiers. Since he has a prosthetic leg, he thinks himself undesirable; a notion a soldier disabuses him of quite erotically before being shipped off to war. The soldier is gravely wounded, and like the Six Million Dollar Man, they rebuild him, a living cyborg weapon system.
However, he is not exactly the bomb the military wanted, since his love of the scientist is something that can't be programmed out of him. The art is much more detailed than that in Incubus, and this is an extremely hot and steamy little story.
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And Yaoi Anime!
Kizuna, Volume One
Kizuna, Volume Two
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
talyseon
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Location: Texarkana, AR
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