Kimi ni yorinishi by Kinoshita Keiko

[insaneneko]

I was faintly disappointed when I read Kimi ni yorinishi by Kinoshita Keiko. It is made up of two stories, the title story and another one called "Slow Ballad." It is mainly the title story that is the problem. It's about a son who meets his recently deceased father's assistant and ends up sleeping with him. There's baggage, and untold secrets, and all that jazz to spice it up. Unfortunately, it left me completely cold. I didn't care about the characters AT ALL. :P

The other story, "Slow Ballad," is better. It is about friends from high school who meet at another friend's wedding many years later. They'd actually been more than friends, but things hadn't ended well because one hadn't actually been into the "more than friends" part. The awkwardness between them and the inevitability of what happens is delicious. I eat this kind of stuff up. I wish the entire manga volume was about these two!

Comments

[cstoplurking.livejournal.com]

I downloaded the scanlation of this and gotta agree, I loved Slow Ballad but felt "meh" about the other story. I didn't start out liking her art, but stories like Slow Ballad pulled me in. She does really well when she's doing stories about repressed people and seemingly unrequited love.

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

Yeah, she does excel at repressed people and unrequited love. It's not like "Kimi ni yorinishi" doesn't share similar themes and characters with her other works. It just lacked soul to me, and I can't put my finger on exactly what the problem is.