vignette00's manga / #childhood friends(39)

The story seems simple in the beginning: Legna is an Oracle, a kind of fortune-teller meets courtier for the king (who is himself a teenager). In order to unlock the answer to his most recent dream, one in which someone intends to kill the king, Legna undertakes the Aruosumente, a dream trial where he must match up ten tarot cards with ten people in his life, so that he may turn the wheel of fortune and discover the would-be killer. Except that's where things get tricky. Legna, it turns out, has been living in a little cocoon, completely shielded from the politics surrounding his own position as Oracle, the death of his father, and even the circumstances of Lante, the captain of the Black Guards and one of his fellow courtiers To complete the tarot-matching stage of the Aruosumente, Legna must begin unraveling the years he's spent turning a blind eye towards the complexities of the outside world, and in the process, reevalute his role in the court and the intentions of everyone around him. Aki's art is fluid, simple, and mesmerizing, and her characters are a fascinating mix of expected tropes (the headstrong king, the strict but deadly loyal adviser, the day-and-night twins, the wiley scientist) and unexpected twists. Sometimes the twist is that Aki's not interested in making any one character too good or evil. Legna is loyal, inflexible, trusting, and blunt -- Aki is smart enough to not compromise on any of those traits in an attempt to appeal to the reader. The same with Lante, who starts off as if he's a joker hiding a heart of gold and tears, but turns out to be much more complicated, in part because that characterization is exactly who he is. But where Aki succeeds the most is the knitting together of court intrigue and dream logic. Tarot cards are an easy crutch to lean on, as it adds perceived """depth""" and a pre-constructed way for your narrator to arrange the other characters in the story by traits they may not have yet displayed, but Aki uses it to her full advantage. At every turn Legna turns over another interpretation of the people in his life, especially Lante, and the tarot cards only underscore, never trample, on the plot. Legna goes through his trial like the protagonist in a video game, and part of the appeal of Aruosument is how very much it feels like an open world honeycombed with mysteries waiting for you to discover. Even when the story gets a little too videogamey (a shady conversation with a disgraced character in a dungeon, really?), there's always a little touch of humor or the unexpected. This is Game of Thrones meets Persona-4, and that's 100% meant as a compliment.

Frustrating, slow, and not particularly well drawn, this manga still sticks with me because of the wonderful characterization of its main characters, Toshi and Kyuu. Kyuu grows up through the three volume series, and his homesickness is particularly well written. The mangaka doesn't shy away from sketching out everyone's complicated cowardice, from Toshi who won't tell Kyuu his feelings, to Kyuu who is afraid of appearing two-faced, to Kyuu's brother, Sumi, who can't stop running away. This is a manga about how to care for other people and convey that caring, and the sweetness of the end is doubly rewarding because of how hard it was to come by.

This is one of those beautifully quiet and elliptical love stories that Akemi Takaido exceeds at. The main character Ryuuzaki, a star runner, finds himself grappling with his feelings about his childhood friend, who has recently found himself a new boyfriend. Coincidentally, he also crosses path with Toya, the star swimmer of the school, an idol among the girls, and possibly someone who knew Ryuuzaki a long time ago. There's a romance, but it's in the style of Wong Kar Wai's "In the Mood For Love" -- all looks and brief touches and pained conversations. Like all the best romances, it's not obvious, but convincing, why Ryuuzaki and Toya might be drawn to each other, and they meet first on an emotional and intellectual level before moving onto clandestine flirting. The first four chapters -- the only part that's been scanlated -- wraps up Ryuuzaki's arc with his childhood friend and hints at the beginning of Toya and Ryuuzaki's own scandal. I'm a sucker, as always, for Takaido's pacing and goofy humor, and how she surrounds all her main characters with tons of their own friends so that the romance is rarely the only thing on the table. Her art is cool and sultry at the same time, and there's a star quality to her characters that is consistently intriguing

Main character Gin is from a rich family who refuses to accept his homosexuality. He strikes out on his own as a famous professor of archaeology, but has been for 14 years sex friends with his childhood friend Ei, himself a forensic scientist. Gin has been denying his feelings for Ei, but Ei is determined to prove to Gin that they, too, can find love. The story is ultimately about one person's (Gin's) dramatic reaction to the equally dramatic rejection of his sexuality. I love the story for Ei and Gin's relationship -- not because it is realistic, but because it manages to retread setups and ideas without feeling tired. There's a little bit of Koisuru Boukun (which I hate) and a lot of Junjou Egoist (which I'm fonder of) in the setup, but Ei has Nowaki's steadiness and Morinaga's devotion without Nowaki's inferiority issues and Morinaga's... everything else.... and that really turns the story around. He's not fazed by anything Gin throws his way, because he hasn't spent 14 years loving a difficult man for nothing. I want to love this story of human feeling transcending all else, but there's the issue of just how tried all the other components of the story are. It's not that these aren't real social issues gay men face every day (rejection by family, professional ostracization, sexual assault), but somehow throwing them together into the same story and giving it a rapid fire approach cheapens Gin's story. So ultimately but for the grace of Ei goes Gin -- this is a story fully saved by Amasaki's humanism.