art of loving by eiki eiki, pub. shinshokan 2001/digital manga 2006
art: nice
rape scene: no
general comments: i enjoyed this title for its breaking of the mold most yaoi is made from. the story is somewhat dark and a little less mindless than most writing for yaoi. no negative judgment is applied to homosexuality.
rating: positive
gravitation by maki murakami, pub. gentosha comics 1996/tokyopop 2003
art: rough
rape scene: sort of
general comments: i thought this series started off very sincerely. the characters were interesting and likeable. however, i was put off by the painful first sexual encounter, and the weird hedging around calling oneself gay just because one HAPPENS to be in love with/sexually attracted to someone of the same sex.
rating: positive (with a note: the series becomes increasingly chaotic and nonsensical after about book 5)
loveless by yun kouga, pub. 2002
art: okay
rape scene: no
general comments: i found this title very dopey, with an icky man-boy edge. the combat scenes were unoriginal and the characters uninteresting.
rating: negative
legal drug by CLAMP, pub. 2001
art: okay
rape scene: no
general comments: i found something very lazy about the set-up and character development in this series. plus one of the characters looks and acts just like a character from xxxHolic, and there's even a cross-over episode to re-enforce that. all the main characters are gay (or obviously soon to find out they're gay) men, and no negative judgment on homos is passed out. i liked the psychic angle, although i'll say once again that i thought it was lazily sketched out. for some reason, i'd probably get the next book if it was out, though.
rating: positive
selfish love by naduki koujima, pub. 2001
art: okay
rape scene: sort of
general comments: i found a lot of problems with this title. it's kind of a shallow "boys in school" story, that feels like a high school story but is supposed to be in college. there's a stupid, repeating motif of the "seme" making aggressive advances, the "uke" fighting desperately to get away, and then later the uke thinks about how he really loves the seme and so technically it's all okay the he's being an aggressive, rape-y asshole. pretty standard yaoi stuff, and the characters are kind of flat and boring.
rating: negative
gerard & jaques by fumi yoshinaga, pub. 2000
art: okay
rape scene: yes
general comments: i had a feeling i wouldn't like this book, because the front cover depicts an older man manhandling a younger boy who looks angry and frustrated. unsurprisingly, in their first scene together, the older man (gerard) basically sexually assaults the younger boy (jacques), while insulting him for not being a good enough whore. the story actually gets better in some ways when it gets into the gerard's history, but then it starts adding on some misogyny, which then takes away from the story again. worst of all, jacques falls in love with his former rapist.
rating: negative
shout out loud by satosumi takaguchi, pub. 1996
art: nice
rape scene: not quite
general comments: i liked this series enough that instead of waiting for the fifth volume to finally come out in english, i bought it in japanese and struggled through it with a dictionary in one hand. i liked the natural, expressive art, and the departure from most depictions of male-on-male love, whether they be shonen-ai or yaoi. the characters aren't paired up in a weird older/younger thing, they're pretty well-defined, and the story is set in an interesting world combining voice-acting and professional hockey (somehow). i liked that there was no pronounced misogyny, and there's even an interesting older single woman (she's evil, but in a likeable way). there's was some annoying hedging around being gay by many of the characters, and the sexual aggression of one character and constant crying of another got to me. however, all in all, i found it enjoyable.
rating: positive
works by eriko tadeno, pub. 1998
art: okay
rape scene:no
general comments: i actually am not sure i've ever read a yuri title before this one, so i don't have anything else to compare it to in the same category. the stories in this volume were fairly short, so they didn't get into a lot. some of them were a little more naive about lesbian life, but i felt most of them were fairly believable (the artist is a lesbian herself). the sex scenes weren't the hottest ever, but they were pretty good. i felt all the women involved in the stories were interesting and well-characterized.
rating: positive
