First up is Michelle’s look at Desire: Dangerous Feelings (DMP), the novelization of the boys’ love manga, Desire. Melinda’s review of moving memoir North Korea Kidnapped My Daughter (Vertical) follows. Lastly, Ken wraps things up with his take on The Poison Ape (Vertical), the latest entry in the Shinjuku Shark novel series.

Desire: Dangerous Feelings

Written by Maki Kazumi, Illustrated by Yukine Honami
Digital Manga Publishing, 160 pp.

The boys’ love manga Desire, published by DMP in 2004, was one of the first titles I read in that genre and remains one of my favorites. The story’s original creators team up once again for Desire: Dangerous Feelings, a novelization of the manga’s events that also includes some new material continuing where the original left off.

Timid high school student Toru Maiki has secretly loved his popular friend Ryoji for a long time. One day at lunch, Ryoji unexpectedly and shamelessly tells Toru, “When I look at you, I get turned on.” Toru, paranoid about his feelings being discovered, reacts angrily. Later, however, when Ryoji insists they sleep together so he can see what it’s like, Toru goes along with it with the hope that doing so will get thoughts of Ryoji out of his system. This, of course, does not happen, and as the boys continue their purely physical relationship, Toru suffers a great deal of heartache from sleeping with someone he loves who does not feel the same way about him.

Because I am familiar with the original story, it’s hard to know how well the text-only version would work for someone who can’t bring Yukine Honami’s expressive artwork to mind to accompany the action (the sporadic illustrations don’t add much). The language used is very simple and, though the smattering of new details is welcome, some poignancy is lost in this format. In the manga, we’re able to see Toru’s face as he struggles with his thoughts and feelings. In the novelization, those same moments are presented in an almost clinical fashion. Here’s an example:

Toru felt like he was going to have a breakdown just thinking about it. He thought if every day would be this stressful then he would die.

The novel also fares poorly in regards to Desire’s one serious flaw: non-consensual scenes. Ryoji basically forces Toru to have sex with him a couple of times and though Toru eventually relents, I doubt that Ryoji would’ve stopped even if he hadn’t. Though unpleasant in any format, these scenes are worse to read in the novel because it’s more clear how much discomfort and pain Toru is experiencing.

At this point, it may seem like the novel is at a complete disadvantage to the manga, but it has an ace up its sleeve: a second half comprised entirely of new material. It’s not much of an ace, though, as the continuation of Toru and Ryoji’s story relies heavily on misunderstandings and each boy doubting the other’s feelings for its plot. It also seems like all they ever do is have sex. They don’t hang out outside of school or go on dates or anything. They just boff, and when they aren’t boffing, they’re talking about boffing.

Ultimately, I must conclude that the novelization doesn’t add much to the original story. Completists might appreciate knowing what happened next, but really, it’s nothing to get excited about.

Desire: Dangerous Feelings is available now.

–Reviewed by Michelle Smith

North Korea Kidnapped My Daughter

By Sakie Yokota
Vertical, 192 pp.

In 1977, middle school student Megumi Yokota disappeared on her way home from school in the coastal city of Niigata, Japan. Despite massive efforts on the part of the community and the local police, Megumi’s disappearance was never solved. It was years later that Megumi’s parents finally received information leading them to believe that she, like several other Japanese citizens known of at the time, had been abducted by North Korean agents. It was not until 2002 that North Korea officially admitted to the abductions, but question remains over whether or not Megumi is still alive, leaving her family without resolution or relief.

Written by Megumi’s mother, Sakie Yokota, North Korea Kidnapped My Daughter is by no means a highly polished work of nonfiction. As a writer, Yokota tends to dwell too much on details while letting some of the larger questions out of her grasp, and the last few chapters start to feel repetitive as she reaches for an ending that does not exist. What this book definitely is, however, is a stunningly moving story of loss and a life lived in perpetual uncertainty.

The book begins with the Yokota family’s move from Hiroshima to Niigata, chronicling Megumi’s disappearance and its aftermath, and ending with a heartwrenching appeal to the Japanese government for help. Interestingly, what is most touching about this story is not how Megumi’s fate was tragically altered at the hands of North Korean agents, but rather how her disappearance affected her mother’s life and the life of her family. Stories of missing children are shockingly common in the news today, and of course they capture the hearts of all who hear about them. What it is easy to forget, however, when the trails of evidence have gone cold and the stories have faded from the headlines, is how every day forward is forever changed for those left behind. That Megumi’s life was ruthlessly hijacked is undeniable, but so, too, was her mother’s, whose years since the abduction have been under the control of the North Korean government just as surely as Megumi’s.

Yokota’s memories of her daughter contain the kind of intense detail that can only exist when something has been thought through and examined thousands of times over, and it is easy to imagine her determination to hang on to each tiny bit of memory, knowing that there may be no more. Yokota’s carefully kind tone toward anyone who has ever been involved in Megumi’s case is both moving and somehow painful, as is her painstaking effort to thank every person who has ever helped her or sent her hopeful wishes for Megumi’s return. Her campaign to retrieve her daughter, unwavering even in the face of government resistance, is truly inspirational. Still, what inspires the deepest heartache and outrage in the reader is the loss of Yokota’s own life to a potentially hopeless search. That neither the Japanese government nor anyone else has been able to bring about the return of Megumi or at least determine some clear resolution regarding her fate is maddening, as is Yokota’s powerlessness in the situation.

If there is one unfortunate thing about this memoir, it is that it was originally published in 1999, before North Korea’s admission to the kidnapping, which means much of the information now known about Megumi’s case was not addressed in her mother’s writings. To help bring things up-to-date, Vertical has added a brief note and a multi-page timeline at the end of the book, which includes things like the discovery of Megumi’s marriage in North Korea, and the North Korean government’s claim regarding her supposed death, but the timeline is awkward to follow, and without Yokota’s voice, the information feels empty.

Regardless of its few shortcomings as a written work, North Korea Kidnapped My Daughter is an extremely moving and heartbreaking story that deserves great attention from readers.

North Korea Kidnapped My Daughter is available now.

–Reviewed by Melinda Beasi

The Poison Ape: A Shinjuku Shark Novel

Written by Arimasa Osawa, Translated by Deborah Iwabuchi
Vertical Inc., 320 pp

The Poison Ape is the second installment from Osawa’s long running Shinjuku Shark novel series. This time around Detective Samejima must contend with international crime as a grudge born amongst the Taiwanese mafia spills over onto the streets of Shinjuku threatening to ignite a gang war of epic proportions. The mysterious Taiwanese assassin known only as Du Yuan, the Poison Ape, is stalking the streets but what brings this near mythic killer to Japan and can Samejima unravel the mystery and prevent chaos from enveloping an already chaotic town?

The structure of the book is very similar to that of the original Shinjuku Shark novel, with the point of view shifting from Det. Samejima to another character as the story unfolds. In this case the second character is Nami, a woman of mixed Chinese-Japanese descent who works at a host bar in Shinjuku. Her story and exploits are interwoven with Det. Samejima’s to much better affect than in the original novel. In the original Shinjuku Shark, the secondary story didn’t really affect the main plot in any major way; it served almost as a massive red herring. Here that’s not the case. Ultimately, just about everything ties back into the main plot of Samejima’s attempts to track down and arrest Du Yuan before he ignites the simmering powder keg that is Shinjuku. It’s fairly straightforward its telling; there are no major twists or last minute reveals and that does make for a rather refreshing read. There’s almost a hard-boiled feel to the story that brings to mind things like The French Connection. In fact, at times Samejima does feel like a friendlier version of “Popeye” Doyle from that movie. Both are incredibly driven in their duties, and both aren’t above the occasional bending of the rules to solve a case.

In addition to Samejima and a few returning characters from the previous book, including his would-be rock star girlfriend, several new characters are introduced to Samejima’s world. Like the previous novel, Samejima is mostly on his own aside from the occasional sympathetic officer or higher up, at least at first. Part way through the novel we’re introduced to Inspector Guo, a Taiwanese office who has stepped way outside his jurisdiction to pursue Du Yuan for a number of reasons, some of them personal. He and Samejima, despite cultural differences and even a few language issues, quickly bond as they both share a similar unrelenting drive to bring criminals to justice, regardless of who or what they may upset in the process. It’s interesting to see Samejima bonding with a coworker as his relationships with them are usually portrayed as tolerant to chilly.

Meanwhile, Nami is a crucial piece to overall tale, as her story brings her into direct contact with Du Yuan himself. She’s also a fairly sympathetic character, suffering from an odd case of self-loathing due to her mixed heritage. On one hand she yearns for the simplicity of her childhood in China, loathing her parents for bringing her to Japan and for their failure to follow up on the promise that starting a new life brings with it. On the other hand she despises her Chinese countryside background and heritage as it’s tagged her as an outsider and led to all sorts of problems acclimating to modern Japanese society. This is all in addition to the prejudice she’s faced from native, full-blooded Japanese, some of which manifests in a rather nasty manner that directly impacts the plot. Du Yuan, for his part, is shown to be a stoic killer of almost superhuman skill. His reasons for being in Japan reveal an intensely human and passionate side to him, but for the most part he falls smack dab into the unshakeable and unstoppable killing machine category.

Also, my review wouldn’t be complete without mentioning something that was absent from first Shinjuku Shark novel: maps! There are two little maps at the beginning of the book, one of the part of Shinjuku were most of the action takes place, and the other of a park that turns up repeatedly in the story. It may not sound like much but I really felt that it helped to ground the story and give me a better sense of the location in which it takes place.

When it’s all said and done the The Poison Ape may not be ground breaking revolutionary work, but it’s a good follow-up the original novel and one that topped the original in several areas.

The Poison Ape: A Shinjuku Shark Novel is available now.

–Reviewed by Ken Haley