Simoom

Author: Aoki Soh
Imprint: Chara comics
Publisher: Tokuma Shoten
ISBN: vol.1: 4-19-960001-9
vol.2: 4-19-960060-4

Reviewed by Jeanne

I do so like Aoki Soh's works. Sunny and civilized, happy and generous, the Mozart of mangaka. Her people may have their dark sides- after all, she started with the demon generals of Yoroiden Samurai Troopers- but all are fundamentally decent and ultimately on the side of the angels. Her work is comedy in the Shakespearian sense of the word- stories in which the innate balance of the universe is always being restored after some minor upset. And in her yaoi she represents that restored balance the way Shakespeare did too, by having everybody pair up happily at story's end. Aoki does this with even-handed egalitarianism. The guys get their guys and the girls get their guys, and I suppose if there are any girls who want each other, they get each other too.

Simoom isn't BL per se. It's that kind of shoujo that has BL as an occasional theme here and there, while its main story is about something else. Nice if it had been a main theme, but I can't really complain. This way you get a plot or several, and lots of characters, and comedy and a touch of tragedy and a mystery to be solved-- the usual shoujo sandwich with lots of meat inside it, and cheese and pickles and mustard and mayonnaise as well. Even better, you get it all set in a fantasy Arabian Nights world, with people in turbans and impossible katakana names, and the girls in what look like saris to me, all drawn in a detailed style that rejoices the eye. Like the early shounen ai artists, Aoki isn't afraid of wasting ink, or not in this series. (Oddly enough, her explicit BL stuff is much sparser in design.) So you get to spend as much time looking at where a scene is set as at who's in it.

As for who's in it, at story's centre we have a young and terribly genki prince, Sivas, the only child of the king of our little Arabian Nights kingdom, and for aesthetic appeal we have his silver-haired tutor cum baby-sitter. I somehow managed to read both volumes without ever once vocalizing the tutor's name, a bad habit I have when it comes to katakana. I must now confess that he's called Razzaaz. I agree, one automatically wants to turn that into Razzmatazz. So I'll now go back to my lazy reading habit of looking at the first few kana of a name and ignoring the rest, and call him Raz. Raz is a honey. White-blond hair, white-blond eyebrows, the usual quizzical Aoki eyes. And he's the usual Aoki hero, the one who'd be seme if this was straight BL- principled and high-handed and short-tempered and just a bit of a prig. (Think Sh'ten. Vash. The guys in Sex Gossip and Polaroids and Otogi Night...)

That he's also a powerful magician is a secret at first, which the young prince Sivas only discovers when something tries to attack him and Raz comes brilliantly to the rescue. Magicians have an unchancy reputation about the palace. Seems that Sivas' mother was carried off by a magician right after he was born. Her ladies fell into a magical slumber, and when they awoke the queen had vanished and the newborn baby prince had an elephant birthmark on his tummy. (A pity elephant birthmark so unhappily recalls Crayon Shin-chan's Mr. Elephant, about whom the less said the better.) Sivas' father won't talk about what happened, and Sivas blames him for not going out to find the evil magician and destroying him. Sivas himself is determined to do just that, which is why he spends so much time sneaking out of the palace to wander the streets of the city, chatting with the inhabitants and calling himself Aladdin. That, and the fact that it's more fun than doing lessons with Raz. But of course, outside the magic barrier Raz has erected around the palace, Sivas is subject to attack from magical powers and human kidnappers.

Throughout volume one Raz has dreams and flashbacks to a mysterious dark-haired man, his sworn blood-brother, whose narrow eyes are alight with seduction and malice-- the guy who'd be the stalking uke if this was standard BL. It's not, because Raz himself seems to have had some tender feelings for the Queen; so we must assume that our dark-haired charmer, Shulivarath, is the wicked magician responsible for the Queen's abduction. Especially as the men who are sent to abduct Sivas himself, and who wind up getting an imposter instead, admit under magical interrogation that they were sent by Shulivarath. (A nice scene. Raz' visual progenitor is one of Aoki's and my main loves, the equally silver-haired demon general Rajula of ST.)

The story takes another twist with the arrival of Raz's real younger brother, a silver-haired wastrel called Vadraan. Vadraan gets into the palace by disguising himself as a woman who claims to be carrying Raz's child, news which reduces all the serving women to tears. Vadraan hasn't seen his brother in ten years (as long as Raz has been celibate, by a strange coincidence), but now he's come, as he says, to make Raz his own because 'that useless dork of a wizard is gone.' He's quite prepared to help Raz kill the man, not that Raz seems to have any desires along that line. Raz does talk a lot about killing his brother, though, whose wanton ways (the guy's been selling himself to get to where he's going) offend Raz's prune-faced notions of propriety. Between Vad's shameless bura-kon and the hints of Raz's attachment to Shulivarath, the reader may be forgiven for getting her hopes up. Hopes alas are at once dashed by the second last story in vol.1 (the last one is outside the Simoom story line entirely), which is a flashback to what happened on the fateful journey Raz and Shulivarath made together. (Where to and what for must wait until vol 2.) Not to put too fine a point on it, our beautiful guys who seemed destined for each other are both lolicon. I really could have done without this detail. Shotacon guys who lust after little boys are a charming fantasy. Lolicon guys who lust after little girls- and run from anything with breasts- are unpleasant reality. No, of course that attitude's neither fair nor logical. When did I ever claim to be either, she asks cheerfully.

Volume two is more intensely devoted to the Sivas, Raz and Shuli plot. Everything after this is a major SPOILER for same.

Vadraan hates Shuli with a passion. Why this leads him to tempt Sivas out into the desert and knock him out with drugs there is a mystery. Raz comes in pursuit, determined to kill his brother. Vadraan is perfectly prepared to die, but insists that in exchange Raz grant his last request: take Sivas away- 'the son of the woman who betrayed you'- in order to keep a mysterious promise that had been made to Raz. Raz declares that he isn't interested any more in whatever this promise involves. Vadraan is thunderstruck, and prepares to slit Sivas' throat 'because I can't stand the idea of Shulivarath getting his hands on him.' Murkier and murkier. But at that moment a bright light shines from Sivas' body and knocks Vadraan flying. It's the elephant birthmark on his stomach protecting him, as it protects him from all magic as well. Raz rushes to Sivas' side and looses a bolt of energy just as his brother recovers enough to try stabbing the prince. At this point Sivas recovers and prevents Raz from finishing Vadraan off. Sivas disapproves of people killing their relatives, even if said relatives have just attempted princicide on himself. In the face of a morality more rigid than his own, Raz can only give way with a bad grace.

Vadraan gets lodged in the city with a young female friend of Sivas'. Raz won't have him in the palace. As Vad lies unconscious, we get our first flashbacks to the past. Raz went off to become a great magician, and Vad accompanied him. Raz was outstanding and Vad not much good (he sold his favours to get passing marks on the exams) but he didn't care. As long as everybody loved and admired his marvellous older brother, he was happy. But along came Shulivarath, and next thing the two have sworn blood brothership. Shuli having effectively stolen Vad's place, Vad puts a smile on his face and takes himself off with his little store of magical knowledge. But he hears that Raz is prospering, and that he may become the King of Wizards: either he or Shuli. Vad knows that Raz will win that contest- and then he awakes in the present.

And that night Shuli comes to the house, makes off with Sivas' friend, wounds Vad who tries to protect her, and leaves with the message- Tell Raz to bring the prince to a certain hill tonight, or this girl dies. To pass the time until Raz appears, or doesn't, Shuli tells his prisoner the true story of the past.

The position of Wizard King became vacant, and he and Raz were the only two possible candidates. But to become the Wizard King, one must not only possess the requisite magic talent, one must unite with a member of the royal house of Analian, who though they be human carry the blood of the spirits within them. And by a happy coincidence, the house of Analian had a young daughter- a very young daughter- that both our lolicon heroes fell head over heels in love with at first sight. She in turn says in her childish fashion that she'll be quite happy to marry them both. Her father however declares that they must wait until she is fifteen, and they agree- whoever wins the princess and becomes King, the other will bear no grudge against him. So they wait for however many years, visiting the little girl from time to time. And on the day of her fifteenth birthday they appear at court-- to be told that the princess married two months ago, refusing both of them. And of course, it was Sivas' father she married. Shuli tells Sivas' friend that he's now come to take the queen's son away with him so as to become Wizard King at last. Nothing overt's ever said, but think about it. What Vad was pushing Raz towards, and what Shuli's contemplating now, is a little same-sex marriage to a fifteen year old boy. No-one ever said the member of the house of Analian one unites with has to be female.

But Raz gets Shuli's message from his wounded and bleeding brother and goes off to confront his old blood brother. Right after that, Sivas gets the story out of Vad and goes off to rescue his friend. Shuli and Raz battle in mid-air, very dramatically, while raking up all the grudges of the past. "You used to hide the love letters that came for me!" Raz pouts. "Are you still mad about *that*?" Shuli snorts. "*You* said you'd bear no grudge if I won the Queen." "Well, I don't," Raz retorts. "Then why'd you do what you did??!!" At which point it comes out that both men believe it was the other who made off with the Queen. Both are astonished to learn this. Shuli says that yes, he came to get the queen and her baby son on the day of Sivas' birth. But when he made to lay hands on the Queen, there was a bright light and next moment she was gone. Raz's doing, obviously, because why else would Raz have hung about the palace like he did for fifteen years afterwards?

Raz says he only wanted to protect the son of the woman he loved, a notion which makes Shuli snort in disbelief. And into this melee comes Sivas. Shuli tells him the whole story, and Sivas is hurt and betrayed. Why didn't Zaz tell him any of this, he asks. "I couldn't," Raz says. "I was ashamed to admit what my blood brother had done. I was afraid of losing your confidence and that of your father if my past relationship with the Queen was known." But he asserts again that the only reason he stayed in the palace was to protect Sivas. Raz may be a priggish Aoki seme manqué, but on him it looks good.

Especially since there's the self-seeking Shulivarath for comparison. Shuli fails in a bid to grab Sivas- that elephant birth mark is so useful- so he takes the girl hostage again by magic and attempts to blackmail Sivas into submission. Sivas throws himself at Shuli- and a bright light shines from his body, and who should appear but the Queen his mother, now restored to the real world. She knew that as a member of the house of Analian she was fated to marry the future wizard king, and that she would be punished for having chosen an ordinary mortal. Her punishment was to be separated from her son until he reached the age she'd been when she first married. She returned to Analian. But all the time she was watching over her son from the birthmark on Sivas' stomach and protecting him from there.

We have a happi endo of sorts. Shuli is told there's a new daughter of the house of Analian- a very young daughter- and off he goes to try to become Wizard King again. Mother and son, husband and wife, are reunited. Sivas' young friend, who'd given up hopes of staying that when she discovers that Aladdin is actually the Prince, is invited to the palace. And Raz goes off on his travels, in spite of everyone's urgings to stay, in order to find his own path. And of course Vadraan goes with him, overjoyed at having his brother to himself at last.