Author: Senko Tomiya
Imprint: Bonita Comics
Publisher: Akita Shoten -1991
Volumes: 11
Reprint: Revival Comics, Tousuisha 1998
"A good, well-trained dog never leaves his master."
It starts as a series of offbeat, quirky but happy-go-lucky comedies. Then the originally 11 volume series evolved into intense but heartwarming stories of attachment, longings, friendship and romances. Because the quality of drawings is not so consistent, non-Japanese readers might either really like this work’s literary quality or just not get it. Protagonists’ ideas on Japan/West, Foreigner/Japanese, etc are also quite off in a sense.
This is an ultimate boy-and-his-dog story. Literally so. It’s about a miracle of finding the one and only who fulfills the VOID of a person seemingly perfect but empty at heart.
Not sexually explicit at all, but what one generally calls a more-than-friend-less-than-lover relationship between two protagonists: Toshitaka MOTOMIYA and Tadashi NAKAI. In addition, there are a matter of fact sexual relationships between guys including Toshitaka and his friend, his elder brother and its partner and else.
Toshitaka is perfectly capable, nice but quirky. His friend, Tadashi NAKAI. is an awkward inferiority-complex-ridden, but pure-hearted boy.
One day, when Toshitaka was a small kid, he said, "I want a big Western-bred doggy with lush long hair." His three much elder brothers smiled and cheerfully replied, “Why do we need to have a dog? We already have one in the family. It’s you, our lovely Toshitaka-kun.” Never being an insistent kid, Toshitaka did not push.
Several years later, Toshitaka, meets a transfer student Tadashi Nakai in his high school. Tadashi appears to be perfectly Caucasian with his bright blond hair and blue eyes, in spite of his Japanese name and upbringing. Tadashi was an orphan raised by an old childless couple. Now, Toshitaka finds his Western-breed, and decided to keep him. Socially awkward Tadashi believes he’s found a sincere confidant in Toshitaka, a soft-spoken, book worm looking, low key fellow per excellence. Well, it does not take long for poor Tadashi to find out who really Toshitaka is, and his quirky personality. Why cannot Tadashi leave Toshitaka who takes advantages of him, see nothing wrong to manipulate somebody else’s life and call him his doggy, and who says outright that he likes only Tadashi’s Western appearance?
Note that this starts as a almost surreal comedy. Tadashi, is supposed to be funny because he is very Japanese (as he sees it), hopelessly sentimental, old-fashioned, loving cherry blossoms and wanting to talk about his interests in old temples. He has developed a strong sense of inferiority about his foreign appearance, because everyone regards him as "Gaijin=foreigner". He hates girls who only see his looks. Thus, he acts angrily while he is very timid at heart. Toshitaka and the brothers are nice, loving, and competent, but as we will gradually find out, have their own unique lines of logic and live with it.