Two Titles from Deux Press

Spring Fever and I Shall Never Return are the first two titles I have read from Deux Press, an imprint of Aurora publishing, child of the Japanese parent company Ohzora. The paper quality of these books is quite high; much like my experience reading Broccoli’s super-stiff prints, I could not get Deux Press titles to bend in my hands. Viz books may be more flexible as well as an appealing $8 to the standard yaoi price of $13, standard set by DMP (this reviewer’s conjecture, and not an actual fact).

Two or three years ago I gave up on reading back cover text, largely thanks to Tokyopop. As a woman in my twenties enjoying shojo I was not the target demographic for TP’s flighty ad copy, which made me want to put their books down, and reconsider literacy in general. These are strong words, yet none of the TP titles I own have an example of what I’m talking about. I’ll research this further…

I read the back covers of these Deux Press titles almost by accident and I was shocked, shocked I tell you - the copy not only accurately described the plot (unlike Hikkatsu!) but I learned more about yaoi from reading it! “This is a classic oyaji-uke (passive-older-guy story) of unexpected love…” the back cover tells us. My god! The terminology! Seriously, forget about the actual content. This knocked my socks off. I started reading back cover text again after Spring Fever.

There are lots of uke types, something I did not know about before (I’ve never been to Yaoi Con). The terminology opened doors to whole new worlds for me… terrifying worlds of man-sex…

Spring Fever

By Yugi Yamada
Deux Press, 192 pp.
Rating: 18+ (Mature)

Spring Fever contains two yaoi short stories, neither of which are particularly explicit. There are three significant things about this book; the back cover text (see above), the fact that characters must come out to their parents because they are actually gay, and this is by the author of Picnic, an excellent yaoi read I previously reviewed here.

In the first story, “Spring Fever,” Yusuke, a young calligraphy teacher, falls for the much older Hirokazu, a single father who recent moved in next door. Yamada does a great job of portraying Yusuke as a young man who would fall in love with anyone at the drop of a hat. Yusuke was not a homosexual before meeting Hirokazu, but apparently he’s gay for Hirokazu.

Hirokazu had a homosexual relationship which ended his marriage Brokeback Mountain style, and his wife died dramatically shortly thereafter. The story borderlines melodrama as Hirokazu faints from working too hard and is hospitalized. Characters faint so often in anime and manga I have frequently wondered if Japan has a national fainting problem.

The second story in the volume, titled “Wildman Blues” is even more dramatic, but it is more satisfying and more realistic than the May-December romance in “Spring Fever”. In “Wildman Blues” the otherwise heterosexual Ayu is reunited with his childhood friend Naoki. The story kicks off with a flashback, as Ayu recalls his junior high experience with Naoki, then we return to the present as Ayu and Naoki consummate a passionate relationship.

Naoki is a somewhat unique yaoi character as he is an out-of-the-closet homosexual. He has bleach blonde hair, an earring, and dresses fashionably. Persecuted for being a weirdo in junior high, Naoki ends up in dangerous and abusive relationships. Naoki lives with Ayu’s family when his workaholic single mother is absent for long periods of time. Ayu witnesses the men entering and leaving Naoki’s bedroom and is traumatized, yet concerned about his friend.

It seems rare in yaoi for characters to come out of the closet to their parents (I’ve only seen it in Moon and Sandals), yet both Naoki and Ayu have to come out, so I found “Wildman Blues” to be a refreshing and compelling story.

Yamada’s art is competent and attractive. Her men have long, almost rectangular eyes and wide mouths, a style which I have heard was influenced by Korean artists. Yamada’s uke and seme are blondes and brunettes, which is typical in yaoi, but in “Wildman Blues” Ayu is a brunette who has bleached his hair red, perhaps symbolic of his recent change in teams.

Spring Fever contains one good story of a possible two, it’s not great, but if you liked Picnic and want to see more by Yamada, it’s worth picking up.

I Shall Never Return, Vol. 1

By Kazuna Uchida
Deux Press, 190 pp.
Rating: 18+ (Mature)

According to the back cover, I Shall Never Return is: “A true masterpiece of early Yaoi!” It was originally published in 1992. At first, I was skeptical… read these clichés for the first time! However, two chapters in I was reading text to my friends. This is an amazingly dramatic read, in that way that livejournal is sometimes very dramatic. I Shall Never Return is the kind of infectious book you loan to your friends just so you can have someone to talk to about it. It elicits a reaction from the reader, and has more story per chapter than some manga has in four volumes.

Ritsuro is a blonde neat freak who lives next door to Ken, a leather-jacket wearing bad boy bent on self-destruction. They’re like the odd couple - if Felix were totally doing it with Oscar. As the story opens we learn that Ritsuro has tried to comfort Ken since his parents divorced when he was 13. Coming from a broken home has lead Ken into being a teen prostitute, and a high school drop-out (results not typical). Ritsuro tries to take care of Ken so much that Ken explodes in one scene:

“Cleaning up after me, making me dinner… that’s what a mother does, right?! Who asked you to be my mother?”

Ken has all the charm of a problem teen from the original Degrassi Junior High.

Complicating matters is Ritsuro’s on-again off-again girlfriend Moeko, who cheats on Ritsuro with Ken by the end of chapter one. Moeko creates a lopsided love triangle that makes I Shall Never Return more compelling to read than modern yaoi titles, which sometimes lack female characters. Although she starts off passive, Moeko becomes a scorned woman by the end of the book. She cuts off her long hair and swears revenge on Ritsuro, going so far as to become class representative just to make his life harder.

High on drama, at one point two of our three protagonists are hospitalized. Someone landing in the hospital is a shojo standard (Marmalade Boy, Peach Girl), but two characters at once is beyond the pale.

Volume one is infinitely quotable. In one scene, Ken has dragged Ritsuro into a nightclub among former escort clients to make Ritsuro jealous. Risturo, looking at Ken’s hotness, thinks:

“You’re like a tropical fish swimming in that ocean… swaying, shimmering… floating back and forth… No one can catch you.” I think it should end on an exclamation: No one can catch you! This astounding extended metaphor is laid out over a two-page spread with a lot of fish in it. It’s pretty amazing. I didn’t think they’d go for that third verb, but Gatou totally nails it.

Shikidouji’s art is a bit uneven early on. The first chapter is incredible, but a few scenes later in the book look off-model. Nevertheless, the guys are hot enough, even if it is the early ’90’s version of hot. A few of the panel layouts (like the fish metaphor spread above) border on the experimental but work well in the context of the book.

Speaking of the early ’90’s, I Shall Never Return is an amusing send-back to the days when even guys pulled up scrunchy socks over the top of their tapered jeans.

Perhaps the best part of I Shall Never Return will be lost on reader unfamiliar with modern yaoi. Typically the uke and seme never switch positions - one character takes on the “female” role in the bedroom and maintains it for the entire story. In I Shall Never Return uke and seme switch several times! Even though Ritsuro is blonde, he’s totally the seme on occasion. The switching might be more symbolic of power in the relationship than a sign of a normal homosexual relationship, however, because this is yaoi, after all, and not bara (which is probably not normal either).

I Shall Never Return is five volumes long in total, and I’m looking forward to reading the rest of it. I’m glad Deux Press picked this title, and I’m interested to find out what other classics they intend to import.