it's so wrong it's right

Pooch Cafe by Paul Gilligan 7/15/08

in this deeply sinful night

Kono tsumi bukaki yoru ni by Izumi Katsura and illustrated by Enjin Yamimaru is a thoroughly unremarkable novel, but I wanted to mention it because it's part of the Seikanji family series about a prominent family in decline, helped out by the utter slutitude of the head of the family. He gets one book and the three sons get one each. I keep running into this series by accident because the Japanese publishing industry seems to love not putting a clear notice that a given novel is part of a series (or a sequel) and get exasperated each time. I think I liked one of the others, but I distinctly remember finding the one with the father totally worthless. This one is about the "responsible" oldest son who becomes a military officer and desperately wants to keep the family going. Of course, he gets involved with an old child of a family servant who turns out be a socialist. There are a lot of misunderstandings and desperate attempts to "save" each other, but in the end the "responsible" oldest son ditches his family and country and runs off to Shanghai with his socialist lover (after a really silly confrontation including another military officer and a socialist comrade). (Check out a more detailed summary of the story via the cd drama here). The best part of the novel was how they manage in Shanghai. The oldest son made a crappy military officer--I guess the author wanted the contrast with the socialist agitator but I wish she'd given him a bit more credibility as a military man. How the hell did he manage to get through officer school (or whatever the Japanese military did back then)?

Hm, I have no idea why I even bothered to mention this book. It's not particularly bad or good, but I can see people who like this kind of pointlessly indulgent "rich, privileged beauty in the Meiji/Taisho era learning to submit to pleasure (and, eventually, to love)" story line take to it and the other books in the series. Especially since at least two of them have totally gratuitous non-con and/or "you must submit or else" scenes.

Unfortunately, the art wasn't very interesting. Most of the illustrations were sex scenes of the most banal variety. Not even Enjin-sensei's lovely art saved them. My favorite was an omake pic at the very end:

( half-worn uniforms are yum )

why the heck is furniture so damn heavy?

I...feel so tired. I moved several pieces of furniture outside by myself because I got sick of having so much crap in the house. I think my muscles will ache tomorrow...I don't know how I'm going to move back some of the stuff I had to push out of the way to get the stuff I wanted outside out.

I'm happy to see that Attractive Fascinante has scanlated Yamada Yugi's manga Dare ga omae wo suki dato itta--available here. I love the title story about a willful screenwriter and the guy who'd been devoted to him forever, as well as the second story about two divorced guys in their thirties. I adore the second story in particular. Unrealized unrequited love left smoldering for years, divorced salarymen meeting each other at a class reunion, the sweetness that results. ♥

I am intrigued by a recommendation from Amazon Japan, a book coming out on the 23rd called Romantic wa uragiranai by Kouzuki Matsuri and illustrated by Kanae An. The main character is a manly and strong high school student who makes his classmates afraid loves cute and pink things. When a student who looks like he'd suit a pink school uniform transfers into the glass, the main character decides to get close to the transfer student and get him to dress up in the way he'd like...Judging from the cover it looks like a silly story where the manly student ends up being thoroughly fucked by the pretty boy. I'm not a big fan of the author, but I definitely do want to read it!