Author: Ogasawara Uki
Imprint: BoysL
Publisher: Kousai Shobo
ISBN:4-8775-134-3
Reviewed by Jeanne
Jeez what a title. Haven't a clue what it means. Ura is back, katana is a sword, kami is god. (The no ki part means chronicle of; that I do know.) So is it the chronicle of the god in back of the sword, or the god of the back-sword, or possibly the back chronicle of the god of swords? I do not know; go ask your Dad.
Things get no clearer when we start reading the story. We have a ninja- name of Shinkai, evidently- on the run through the woods, having failed to assassinate his first victim, name of Tsunaie. He thrusts his sword into the ground and lies down to die. He thinks he hears the sword talking to him, saying 'Beg me for your life.' He looks up to see this blond guy in a *really* kinky outfit. Next page it's modern day Tokyo. 'Since then it's been centuries but time has stopped for me.' We have Shinkai, in jeans now, climbing across the joists of a house. Tsunaie down below, in yukata, picks up a bow and shoots through the ceiling. Next page, ninja's all tied up (ever notice how Japanese semes are *all* masters of the bondage arts? Now why would that be, one wonders...) and being screwed for several pages, ending with rape by his own scabbarded sword. Ouch. Cut to a blond guy at his night job needing to run off to the john and jerk off, while wondering if Shinkai's handling his sword just now, no double entendres intended. A certain element of Snoopy's Dark and Stormy Night enters in here. "The maid screamed. A shot rang out. Suddenly a pirate ship appeared on the horizon." A ninja lay bleeding. He crept across the joists of his enemy's house. Somewhere a blond conveni-store worker was jerking off...
Well anyway, back to more tied-up screwing, several pages worth. Tsunaie runs Shinkai through- no, *with* a sword, to the *guts* this time- and drops his body in a hole in the (frozen, you'd think, if it's February and plum-blossom season) ground. Blondie- his name's Shiba, FWIW- comes home, finds Shinkai isn't there, has a flashback to screwing him, jerks off at the kitchen table, goes off to catch the Shinkansen to northern Japan on thinking I believe that he might be there. Climbs mountain, suddenly finds he can't move. 'The sword must be getting rusty...' Does not for a wonder take his cock out and jerk off. Or maybe he does- the panel does a pan up to the snowy mountain side while blondie moans 'Shiin.....' Back in Tokyo Shinkai climbs out of his grave under the snowy plum trees and goes home. And so on.
OK? You get the idea? An awful lot of cock in this and remarkably little sense. Three or four times through, and a consult of Slash-kun's review, and one begins to discern the outlines of what's happening- though apparently what's happening isn't terribly important here. The mangaka is on record as saying she doesn't do plot. How very true. Because the next chapter starts with an explanation of what happened in those woods so many centuries ago, and then shifts without explanation to Shinkai's childhood and the village rich kid, Ryotarou, whom he admired and envied. Ryotarou tries to be nice to him; Shinkai won't have any of it. Shinkai is a pill all through their training together. Ryotarou eventually twigs to the proper way to treat him and-- ties him up and screws him. Heigh-ho.
This chapter ends with Shinkai getting his sword from his dying grandmother. And that's the last we see of Shinkai because the rest of the book is about something else entirely. Guys with wings. One-eyed men with tattoos who get screwed while bound in harness. Shoving tattoo needles into people and watching them yell. Finally there's an end note explaining that this is a side story to another story of hers. Ah well, good. Glad to hear it, and too late. Cause me, I'm not going to read this one. I invoke the text-reader's privilege which is the reverse of the picture-reader's: if you don't give me a story I don't care how pretty your pictures are. Sayonara.
That said, however, I have to give this work props for *not* being the usual run of BL dismissible. I went and read some of BBG's stable of artists afterwards and yes, this one at least sticks in the memory. I won't spoil it any more than I have by detailing the settei, and I'll mention that the scene where Shinkai digs under the snow looking for Shiba has a haunting mysteriousness to it. The art may not be to everyone's taste, but I found it easy enough on the eyes if a bit dark. The computer generated covers and front papers are a bit misleading as to what's inside, but I'm not a huge fan of computer graphics. There's a brassy quality to the colours that recalls (to the exquisite pedant in this corner) the glaring aniline dyes that Meiji woodblock artists loved to put in *their* works. 'It's new! It's cutting edge technology! And it's so *shiny*!!!'