Shiiku-gakari Rika/ Rika the Breeder
MOTONI Modoru
A creepy, stomach-churning, awful and fascinating story about a school where ijime (bullying) and sex have been stylized into a system of government. 'Most horror is loud. Rika just goes on getting quieter and quieter.' Two volumes published by Biblos, which take you just far enough to make you scream to know more. Or scream, period. Instant classic. (Jeanne)
See the review and the article for more.
Haru wo Daiteita /He Hugged Hooker
NITTA Youka
Once known famously as 'He Hagged Hooker' until they corrected the misspelling in later volumes. (Jeanne)
Kato and Iwaki, two ex-AV (porn video) actors fall in love with each other. Some angst, very hot sex scenes, unusually intricate and detailed art. It reminds me of a black and white anime cel using screen tones in place of colors. In many ways, it's nothing but a common love story following their evolving relationship. Part of the fun is watching Nitta skillfully weave a continuing story and still follow each 'theme' of Zips. And of course, it's full of sex because almost every issue has hot sex scenes! (EmiA)
See here and here for more information. This series first appeared in BBoy Zips, and these are summaries of two Zips anthologies with Haru wo stories.
Otoko ga Otoko wo Aisuru Toki (When a Man Loves a Man)
NITTA Youka
This series continues on with Last Waltz, Night Cap, Irokoi. Portrays the lives of Shinjuku 'Hosts' - men who work in bars where women pay outrageous price for drinks to have good looking guys serve them (and can be bought for the night, too.) There are five major gorgeous characters, all with different personalities and entangled love life (with each other, of course!) Not as much sex as "Haruwo", but the story is deeper, especially in Night Cap and Irokoi. (EmiA)
Love Mode
SHIMIZU Yuki
This modern tale of rich men and their loves features sex in every
takoubon, serialized in BBC. When the main story offers no sex, the side stories make up for it. Aoe runs a high class escort service at the behest of his family, and the many couples in Love Mode revolve around the business: The good natured Takamiya, a customer of the escort service, is routinely abused by his friend Izumi, whom he mistook as an employee of Aoe's business; Aoe rescues Naoya from destitution and is
inexorably drawn into a relationship with the serious, determined, responsible Naoya; Aoe's brother is always accompanied by his devoted servant, bodyguard, and lover. While the stories are sometimes predictable, each couple is an interesting study in a different kind of relationship. (Lynda)
Kohri no Mamono no Monogatari/ Ice-cold Demon's Tale
SUGIURA Shiho
A Boy and His Dog ... or rather, A Young Man and His Demon. This tale of a classic yaoi uke - innocent, trusting, clueless, and oblivious, and the fierce, untamed demon who love him is set in a European like fantasy world, complete with handsome princes, sword fighting, and Buddhist monks. By volume 8, an interesting mystery forms giving substance to this highly romantic, sometimes comedic, shounen-ai drama. Keep an eye out for the secondary couple, Wild (Wird) and Rapunzel (a guy), both long haired beauties, one dark, one light. The Rapunzel side story is an especially romantic retelling of a classic fairy tale. (Lynda)
Tale of the Ice Cold Demon, of course. Fairy tale style fantasy about a boy and the demon he freed from an ice cavern. It always felt to me rather Beauty & Beast-ish, although I suppose it's more Beauty & Beauty in this case. Gorgeous art, a long and convoluted plot, lots of romance, beautiful demons, dashing sorcerers, what more can you ask for. (Mimi)
Petshop of Horrors
AKINA Matsuri
PSoH, starts as a collection of loosely connected stories about the mysterious Count D and the curious petshop he runs in Chinatown. The pets he sells have special powers that can fulfill the deepest desires of their owners, but often they find that they are betrayed by their own hearts. Even though I only read the last few vols., (I know, not the best way to start a series), I already adore it. The set up may be fairly standard, but the story is written with a great deal of charm and verve. After really burning out on the general blandness of yaoi manga, reading Petshop of Horror reminded me of what I loved so much about shoujo manga when I first started. (Mimi)
Honoo no Mirage/ Mirage of Blaze
Novel by Mizuna Kuwabara, partly mangafied by Hamada Shouko, now made into an anime series drawing swoons and raves from those that can see it. Summary of this long and complicated series is
here. Seishinja and Cherry's extremely informative fanpage is here.
Gravitation
MURAKAMI Maki
Appearances to the contrary, it's *not* about a guy and his kiddy popsinger lover. The boy's supposed to be 19. Sorry, shota fans. (Jeanne)
Gravitation the anime is mostly a yaoi fangirl dream. Anime series with actual yaoi in it are rare that no matter how cheesy or silly it gets most people who watch it seem love it and cherish it! (Minorka)
A silly love-comedy about a 19 year old Rock Singer, Shuuichi, (still a newcomer) and a best-selling writer, Yuki. Shuuichi falls in love with the writer, pursues him and finally gets himself accepted. (I wouldn't exactly call it a romantic love affair at this point) Shuuichi is shameless, throws himself all over Yuki, and is basically abused by the guy. There is an interesting cast of characters surrounding them that adds even more confusion to their relationship...
In the latest volumes, it's gotten even more silly and unrealistic - giant robots, secret weapons, etc. It's at a level of silliness rarely seen in Boy's Love - it's more like a 'gag' shounen manga. I usually don't like comedy, but this one was SO silly that I ended up buying the entire set. (I guess that means I actually liked it...) Murakami's art is skillful and pleasing to look at. As for why Shuuichi became so 'young' looking - I think it's partially due to the 'gag' content of the story getting stronger. Sort of a chibi-ization of the 'gag' character.
The commercial manga is very non-explicit, so Murakami wrote the Remix' doujinshi series. It's quite ingenious really - she takes her own characters, pairs them up in different ways (not necessarily the way
they are paired in the story) and wrote very explicit sex scenes. She's stopped writing them due to 'not enough time' but I also suspect she ran out of ideas. After the first few, most of the dj's featured VERY
minor characters and pairings, probably because of lack of ideas... (EmiA)
Gravitation has its charms. Shuuichi's about as shameless of an uke as you can get and that's what I found annoying after awhile, but the seme he's paired with, Yuki--is worth the reading. (Susan)
Saiyuuki
MINEKURA Kazuya
Minekura Kazuya took the Chinese classic novel Xi You Ji (The Journey to the West/ Monkey) and did unspeakable things with it. The unworldly monk Sanzou is now a heavy-smoking bad-tempered bastard with an itchy trigger finger. The clever and intrepid Son Gokuu is now a naïve young kid. The bratty demon prince Kougaiji is now a sad-faced biseinen. And everyone is drawn so hot and seductive the whole thing should be x-rated instead of being marketed to susceptible youth. Currently a nine volume manga plus one volume Gaiden, made into 50 ep TV series and somewhat cleaned up in the process. Second season (eps 27-50, mostly original story) features a god descended from heaven, Homura, and his two men. For plus factor, all the Saiyuuki guys were, as per the original novel, other people up in Heaven 500 years ago, before getting reincarnated down here. Their adventures are told in the manga Gaiden and interwoven into the second season action.(Jeanne)
See the review and the summary for more.
Trigun
NIGHTOW Yasuhiro
Postapocalypse far west, Vash the Stampede meets the itinerant preacher
Nicholas Wolfwood and history is made. Gets hunted by utterly gorgeous
walking junkyard of a killer (Legato Bluesummers) voiced by Seki Toshihiko. Legato has canon hots for his employer Knives, Vash's twin. Knives has a thing about Vash. Vash has a thing for Wolfwood, who's canonically getting it off with one of the two very likable female leads, who may yurically be getting it off together. Most people aren't what they seem to be, Vash and Knives are so not what they seem to be they're a major spoiler, and the manga is significantly different from the anime. Complicated, as you can see. Moral western, if you can imagine. RK done right. (Jeanne)
Weiss Kreuz
A quartet of pretty boys with problems plots terrorist attacks by day and
implements them by night. Another quartet of pretty boys with problems runs
a flower shop by day and thwarts the terrorists by night. In between, they
all angst over their problems. Note: This series was developed by a group
of seiyuu who figured this would be a great way to promote themselves. It
shows. (But the manga is much better than the anime.) (Nora)
Yami no Matsuei/ Descendants of Darkness
MATSUSHITA Yoko
Yoko Matsushita's supernatural shoujo series centering on Tsuzuki Asato and his partner Kurosaki Hisoka who work as government employees for JuOhCho, an agency in Meifu, the Land of the Dead. Their job is to guide souls from the land of the living to Meifu, as well as investigate other-wordly occurances. Matsushita's style and story-telling verges on the dark although her characters, especially her men, are very pretty and she often throws in gag to alleviate some of the darker tones. The manga is filled with shonen-ai hints and teasing at various possible pairings, but except for the occasional leer and fondling by the main villain, this is really a shoujo series. So far Yami no Matsuei has one complete 13 episode TV series, a drama CD, and is currently running in Hana to Yume magazine with already 11 volumes released. (TTG)
An all beautiful, all male team of spirit world investigators are charged with retrieving the souls of people who don't realize they are dead. Investigators work in pairs, and the new member of one pair comes with a mystery about his own death. That mystery draws them all into increasingly bloody, dangerous, and high tension situations. Between assignments, the team parties and squabbles, providing comic relief as they prepare for future assignments, go on vacation, and participate in
spirit world competitions. This shoujo action tale provides a nice blend of drama, action, horror, and comedy. It teems with yaoi teasers on every page but never actually shows or declares anything. (Lynda)
Hard-core manga
For fans of hard-core and graphic action, requiring little in the way of Japanese ability to understand, there are two webpages that list titles but without detailed information.
Venus Priestess' booklist can be viewed here.
Serena's recommendations are here.