Showing posts with label Wild Rock. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Wild Rock. Show all posts

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Wild Rock (manga) by Kazusa Takashima

In case you're not familiar with Blu, it was the imprint under which Tokyopop published BL manga (or boys' love, yaoi, or whatever the most commonly used fan term is now - trying to look up the proper terminology just made me more confused). The back of this manga indicates that it is rated "Mature."

I did a bit of searching, and it looks like there's an extra, involving a slightly older Nava, that was never included in Blu's release of Wild Rock. Or at least it's not in my volume.

Synopsis:

This manga is set in prehistoric times and is composed of three stories.

"Wild Rock"

This is the longest of the stories. Yuuen is the heir to one clan, while Emba is the heir to another. Both clans have been warring for some time, and Yuuen's clan keeps losing game to Emba's clan. Knowing that something must be done, Yuuen's father comes up with a plan. He instructs Yuuen to dress and act like a girl, seduce Emba, and, er, somehow use this to the clan's advantage. I'm not entirely clear on the details of this "plan." Anyway, it seems to work, and the two young men fall for each other. Yuuen, however, believes Emba has only fallen for him because he thinks he's a girl. Feeling guilty about lying to Emba, Yuuen calls off his father's plan...but then Emba visits Yuuen's clan and reveals the things he had been hiding from Yuuen. This story has a happy ending.

"Innocent Lies"

This story takes place further in the past and stars Yuuen and Emba's fathers (oh yes, the two have a history together). Yuni (Yuuen's father) gets angry after some of his clan members complain about having to put up with him just because he's heir to the clan. For some reason, this prompts him to try to find an oath flower (a difficult-to-find flower that young men give to women they'd like to propose to). Unfortunately, he gets injured by a trap set by Selem (Emba's father). Yuni doesn't know, at first, that Selem is the heir to an enemy clan. As Selem takes care of Yuni's injury, the two young men gradually grow more attracted to each other. Unfortunately, their respective positions mean that they can never be together. This story has a bittersweet ending.

"Child Rock"

This story is a bit of fluff for those who want to see how Emba and Yuuen's relationship has worked out. Emba's brother now has a child named Nava, and Emba and Yuuen are bathing him before taking him back to Yuuen's brother and his wife. Yuuen's brother is apparently clueless and has no idea that Yuuen and Emba's relationship is anything other than symbolic.

Review:

I originally wrote up a longer, more detailed explanation of what prompted me to buy, read, and review this, but it morphed into a giant rant about libraries, collection development policies, and the dangers of saying "we don't collect porn" without bothering to define the word "porn." So I'll just move on to the review.

Before rereading this, I vaguely remembered it as being little more than an excuse for hot caveman sex. Now...well, I was kind of right, although there wasn't as much sex as I remembered (a grand total of two sex scenes, which take up a fairly small percentage of the volume). There isn't much plot, and what there is doesn't quite make sense. But still. The result is kind of sweet, and, while I think I'm a little more critical of it than I was when I first read it back in grad school, I liked it overall.