G-Defend by MORIMOTO Shuw

by Lynda

In 2014, because terrorist activity against the government had become rampant, the Diet established a special Diet garrison (DG). Over the next 8 years, the DG lost 7 garrison Chiefs (called Head Instructors, or kyoukan), every one of them to terrorist attacks. This has kept the garrison in disarray and ineffective. Till now.

The year is now 2022. The 8th Head Instructor, Ishikawa Haruka, has managed to beat the odds, staying alive and bringing the garrison together to form an effective defense against terrorist attacks on the Diet. How has he managed to stay alive against repeated attacks on him? He has a dedicated bodyguard and would-be lover, assistant Head Instructor Iwase Motohisa. How has he managed to forge the garrison into an effective and unified force? He's talented, focused, works hard, cares deeply about everyone in the garrison, bosses everyone around like they're his little brothers, and applies liberal and judicious use of salary penalties. Yeah, right!

Actually, Ishikawa is the most irresistibly beautiful, riveting, lovable crabby uke. Semes jump through hoops to please him. When, on page 1 of volume 1, Emori corners Ishikawa in the locker room in order to profess "I love you, instructor! Every time I'm near you, I lose control!", poor Emori gets knocked out with a police issue stun gun for his trouble. When Ishikawa gets drunk and starts French kissing someone at a party (he's a slutty drunk), everyone lines up hoping to get kissed too. When Ishikawa promises to be "servant for a day" to the winner of the annual competition, garrison members do 10 times the usual damage to each other trying to win, much to the disgruntlement of the medical staff.

Unlike some stories, where semes circle each other like hostile dogs with their hackles raised, in G-Defend the competition among semes is competitive but good natured and somewhat subdued. The rivalry never gets in the way of work. This is due in part to Ishikawa's deft handling of personnel, in part to a garrison rule that couples are not allowed, and in part to everyone acknowledging Iwase as Ishikawa's proper seme. Even semes who have other partners find Ishikawa adorable enough to arouse their protective instincts.

G-Defend is episodic, frequently consisting of 'slice of life' vignettes rather than a continuous multi-episode plot. There is one long story in which an underworld boss hires a terrorist from America to capture Ishikawa for him. He's determined to torture and kill Ishikawa as revenge for losing a past encounter with him. The terrorist works with 3 hand-built androids, one of whom looks like Ishikawa, and is obsessed with Ishikawa for his own private reasons. To get around the nearly infallible protection provided by Iwase, they bribe a Diet member, who demands Iwase act as his bodyguard until he can find replacements for his private bodyguard. While Iwase is away, the androids trash the garrison and kidnap Ishikawa and Dr. Hashizume. This is, of course, followed by that mandatory action sequence: the motor vehicle chase. This story arc ends with a rather impressive series of hand to hand combat sequences between Iwase, the androids, and the terrorist. Of course, as promised by Morimoto, the science fiction aspects of the story never get completely out of hand and the ending is always a happy one.

The 'slice of life' vignettes are like windows on to the characters' private lives. In between the stress and danger of dealing with terrorists and the drudgery of the daily business of running a garrison, we get to see them eat, wash laundry, drink coffee, and fall in love. I prefer the short vignettes in G-Defend over longer story arcs. The vignettes make the characters seem more real, like friends. You get to know who likes their coffee black, who can never turn down a challenge, who has the dryest, most ironic, sense of humor ... and there's enough of their work life showing through that you don't forget that they have real work to do.

The stories and relationships tend to be sweet and romantic, humorous and good natured. Over all, it's a feel good kind of title. There's angst, but it's mostly the tears, insecurities, and self denial kind, not the overwhelming, wrist-slashing kind. Morimoto herself remarks in one volume that the story sometimes borders on being a comedy.

Morimoto handles ensemble casts very well. While Ishikawa and Iwase are the principle characters in G-Defend, part of the charm of this title is all the other couples running around in the background. Her couples run to sweet, protective semes and shy, persistent, and sometimes crabby or aggressive ukes. It would be nice if her seme-uke dynamics expanded to include other types, but I can't really complain, I like happy, romantic, well-adjusted couples.

Several of the side stories describe the relationships between the principal side couples. While many other couples exist and get very little story time, none of them feel neglected. One of the delights in re-reading G-Defend is looking in the backgrounds and corners of the pages to occasionally find side characters and minor couples going about their everyday business. A touch here, a grin there, a little abuse, all serve to flesh out the minor characters and their relationships without taking focus away from the principle characters and story. Even after reading each volume multiple times, I can still discover little things I've failed to notice before. Morimoto admits that every recurring background character in G-Defend has a name. I hope she gets around to fleshing them all out for us, I would love to get to know more of them.

The garrison consists mostly of attractive young men. Though women serve in the garrison, they seldom appear. As a result the DG is a hot bed of yaoi couples, and they are the norm rather than the exception. Morimoto proves in her other series that she can write excellent female characters, but you won't find them in G-Defend.

G-Defend consists of (currently) 11 volumes, published in Racish, known for it's mildness. While there's lots of kissing and groping and sex, all the sex is implied or fade to black. The first 9 volumes date from 1994-1997; after a hiatus, the story resumed serialization in the October 2000 Racish, and volumes 10 and 11 came out in 2001.

Morimoto is a self-professed fan of Hong Kong action flicks, possibly kung fu and wu xia movies as well. You can see it in the police equipment, the way the weapons are handled, and the action sequences. If you're a fan of hand to hand combat sequences, you may find G-Defend, and her newest work, Jinjuu Horetsu Den, interesting.

Between the early volumes and the 2001 volumes, there is a significant change in some of the proportions of her character designs. The early characters are sometimes gangly and awkward, especially seen from the side. Later designs are consistently well proportioned and athletic looking. The other character design change is Iwase's hair - it used to be short and somewhat spiky, now it's longer and hangs in his eyes. You can see the design transition from the images here. These two images are from volume 1, the group image above is from volume 8, and all the rest of the images are from volume 10. Morimoto's character designs aren't as elongated and thin as, say, Ozaki Minami's, they aren't as buff and beefy as Kodaka Kazuma's, and they aren't as feminine as CHI-RAN's. Call it a sort of a shapely, athletic, masculine middle. While I love her newer character designs, I have a certain fondness for the old gangly designs. I've fond memories of many young men whose bodies grew too fast for them, making them gangly, awkward, and endearing. In general, the backgrounds are well thought out and reasonably detailed, and sometimes kind of fun.

The Couples

Iwase x Ishikawa

Iwase is a puppy-like, optimistic, protective seme. He's always got something sweet to say, a kiss, or hug, always offered with glowing admiration in his eyes and nearly always in public. He likes backing Ishikawa into a corner and snatching a kiss on route to some crisis, and while he pushes for sex, he's pretty patient about waiting till Ishikawa is in the mood. He frets with jealousy, and sometimes becomes overly protective, until an irritated Ishikawa fends him off.

Ishikawa is one of the nicest crabby ukes I've encountered. He really does care about all the members of the garrison, and has a knack of managing people that borders on the fantastic. Ishikawa's clueless about romantic relationships - he believes his relations with Iwase are secret when in reality, that secrecy is his own private fantasy. Generally sweet tempered, his insecurities and general sense of decorum fuel his dislike of public displays of affection. Of course, being Japanese, he finds Iwase's open affection, American style, disconcerting and embarrassing. Ishikawa's abuse of Iwase is famed within the garrison.

Nishiwaki x Hashizume

Nishiwaki is rather like a big brother - he'll happily give someone a hard time and his praise is frequently back handed, but he's vigilent when it comes to quietly supporting his friends. His observations are humorous, dry, insightful, and sometimes barbed, and he keeps them to himself, something that drives Ishikawa crazy. He is observant and hard to fool when it comes to people, usually knows the emotional goings on between garrison members, and frequently plays match maker behind the scenes.

Hashizume is one of the few people Nishiwaki is careful to treat gently, almost as if Hashizume was made of glass. Of course, Hashizume is stronger than he appears, as he himself frequently asserts. As internist, Dr. Hashizume is constantly on the search for garrison workaholics in need of treatment or rest, something none of them want. He is constantly chasing after Nishiwaki, who dodges his monthly physicals. The one time Hashizume stops chasing him, everyone assumes that the Doctor has come down with a cold. When Hashizume is seriously wounded, Nishiwaki silently promises to get his physicals on time, if only Hashizume will be okay. Naturally, he takes his silent promise back after determining that Hashizume will recover. Hashizume's incessant pursuit of Nishiwaki and Nishiwaki's skillful dodging of all things medical are also famous within the garrison.

Kitatani x Ikagami

Unlike Iwase's puppy-like eagerness, or Nishiwaki's manipulative charm, Kitatani is responsible, caring, and most of all, adult. He's famous for insisting that garrison members clean their plates at meals. He terrifies Ikagami to the point of giving Ikagami nightmares. Kitatani, as quarter master and head chef, is part of Nishiwaki's secret information network.

Ikagami is one of the few shy, assertive ukes I've run across. He's soft spoken, sensible, patient, and responsible, which leads to him being partnered with the hot headed, hot tempered Motoki. Ikagami's story pre-dates the main story. When he first joins the garrison, he's afraid to eat nearly everything in the cafeteria, thereby attracting the attention of the relentless and terrifying Kitatani. The story of how they get together is both funny and sweet.

Motoki x Noda

Motoki and Noda are really minor supporting characters. Motoki is your classic out-going, hot headed, hot tempered, can't sit still, never turn down a challenge, bundle of testosterone. Noda is calm, sensitive, caring. Together, they are very cute. While their story consists of a mere 2 pages of morning after talk, they appear frequently throughout the volumes - in the background, in the foreground, off to the side, everywhere. By the time they actually talk, you feel like they've been a couple forever.

Alec

By far, Alec is one of my favorite characters. Like Iwase, he's originally from Los Angeles, and has taken research rotations to the DG in the past. He's got style: long flowing hair, frequently braided and draped over one shoulder, cool sun glasses, long flowing robes, and is crazy for things that shoot, burn, or explode. He's smart, sassy, humorous, fun loving, and has an attitude.

Characters

Alec SAKAMOTO - Expansion Division Head
HASHIZUME Shino - Doctor, Internal Medicine
IKAGAMI Jun - External Division Member
ISHIKAWA Haruka - Head Instructor
IWASE Motohisa - Assistant Head Instructor
JOU - Computer Division Member
KAI - Doctor, External Medicine
KISHITANI - Quartermaster
Martin SCOTT - DG Los Angeles Garrison
MIFUNE - Internal Division Head
MOTOKI - External Division Member
NAITOU - Ministry of National Safety, Terrorism Department, Department Head
NISHIWAKI Tatsumi - External Division Head
NODA (the elder brother) - Computer Division Head
NODA Yoshiya (the younger brother) - Computer Division Member
SEI - Maintenance Division Head