Sakura Gari by Watase Yuu

[insaneneko]

Watase Yuu doing BL? Personally, I never thought it'd happen (she seemed so attached to her irritating female leads), but...it did. Her newest work, Sakura Gari, features a litany of cliches...But still managed to be kind of interesting to me. I wasn't ready to be charitable to her after being really pissed off at her earlier works, but...I'm intrigued. She manages to rise above the completely hokey set-up with the relationship between the two guys who I guess will end up together. The story is about a smart country boy come to Tokyo to study and make something of himself. He ends up working at the manor of a noble family whose head is laid up with illness, so the young master basically runs things. The noble family has kinds of shiny secrets great houses tend to have, and the young master (who is, btw, half-English) is a weary gorgeous gay young thing. Country boy is hard working and very, very innocent (and has a pretty face with a bad haircut). The nice thing about this manga is that Watase-sensei takes the time to develop the relationship between the young master and the country boy--there's no instant electric attraction. It's a slow growing mutual interest. While the young master has some sexual interest in the country boy, it seems like he's genuinely attracted to the boy's personality. The country boy is seriously innocent, in a way that doesn't seem contrived. I hope that Watase-sensei continues with the slow development that she's gone with so far--though I fear something drastic due to the way the first chapter ends (and the language used to advertise this manga--my god is it dramatic and angst-filled). I personally love the time period it's set in--Meiji, with the mix of the Western and Japanese, the rich and poor, the nobility and the socialists...Check it out here.