By Lily Hoshino
Digital Manga Publishing, 165 pp.
Rating: Young Adults 16+

I’m not much of a yaoi reader, but I found writer/artist Lily Hoshino’s Mr. Flower Bride fascinating simply as a mathematical exercise. Although it was a compilation of different stories, Mr. Flower Bride seemed interested in exploring all the possible permutations of ukes, semes, flower brides and flower grooms. The various chapters yielded a hyper-masculine flower bride, a feminine flower groom, a uke-looking protagonist with seme personality traits, etc.

My Only King is another Hoshino compilation, and this time the common thread is characters—potential ukes and semes alike—who don’t realize they can love someone of the same gender until the right person comes along. Of course, that seems to be a feature of much yaoi I’ve read, so I’m not sure it was a conscious decision on Hoshino’s part. Perhaps arranging the relatively-down-to-earth “Twinkle Twinkle Horoscope” and “Mix Mix Chocolate” with more fantasy-related features was simply to pad the volume. But even then, at least most of the stories share the same light-hearted tone.

In the main feature, a young sorcerer named Mewt arrives in our world to protect Kazuomi, who bears a royal crest. “Villains who lust after the crest will surely come after you,” he says. However, what transpires between Kazuomi and Mewt emphasizes lust over villainy, with the latter’s gender status barely getting in the way at first. Naturally, obstacles emerge that threaten to derail the pair’s burgeoning romance, but they mostly come from Mewt, who like many of the ukes in Hoshino’s My Only King and Mr. Flower Bride, is uncomfortable with the idea of love and sex, as well as with his own body.

If the quality of yaoi can be judged on whether it provides effective stand-ins for its audience—which is generally said to consist of young girls and teenagers, many of whom could be working through identity and sexuality-related issues of their own—then My Only King deserves positive marks. Throughout the volume, there are uke who doubt their own attractiveness, and have difficulty believing anyone could want them. “Even though I’m dressed like this, I’m a male too. Am I that unappealing?” Mewt asks Kazuomi at one point. Meanwhile, in “The Ghost in the Bath,” the androgynous-looking spirit of a bathtub breaks into tears of joy when a businessman invites him to “possess” his body.

Finally, in “The King and Rune,” which centers on a fairy tale monarch who sells orphans and the angry young boy who keeps getting sent back, Rune hides his attraction toward the king behind a bad attitude and insults. Here is an instance wherein Hoshino ventures into potentially dark territory; even her art looks uglier and sketchier than elsewhere. But thanks to the compilation format, we never suspect things are headed down the road of rape and child abuse, even after His Highness practically blackmails the youth into sleeping with him. Indeed, because it’s the last feature in the book, and its siblings have heretofore been the stuff of fluffy, harmless romances, we just know the suspect monarch will prove himself to have a heart of gold, true love will bloom, etc.

My Only King is occasionally ridiculous stuff that’s somewhat thin on story, but provides a safe outlet for fantastical yaoi-style escape, and may please those looking for exactly that.

My Only King is available now.