insaneneko

Kowareruhodo ni ubaitai by Asuma Risai and illustrated by Akasaka RAM is as stupid as the title, which can be translated to something like "I want to take almost to the point where you break." Basically it is about a boy who is lovely and fresh but doesn't realize it, who is in love with his best friend. Unfortunately his best friend is dating another guy. The other guy knows our main character likes best friend and decides to make sure the main character doesn't try anything in the patented seme method to fix everything--he rapes main character. Main character is devastated and traumatized, and is even more devastated and traumatized when the other guy keeps fucking him. I can't remember if they ever had sex at school, but I'd bet that they did. It's that kind of book.

What main character doesn't realize (because he's pretty damn dense) is that the other guy likes HIM, not best friend. It was pretty obvious from early on that main character had misunderstood his best friend's relationship with the other guy, who is best friend's childhood friend. Of course main character doesn't find out until the end of the book, after he suffers and angsts and weeps. He is afraid to interact with his best friend because other guy reacts badly, and he feels guilty that he's betraying his best friend even though the other guy is the one who initiates all the sex.

The most irritating thing about this book, and why I wish I hadn't bothered reading to the end, was that not only were best friend and other guy not a couple, but the best friend had actually been in love with main character. So the main character and his best friend had actually liked each other but had been hiding their feelings from each other. Other guy had realized that they'd eventually hook up and had taken action to make main character his, by fucking him over and over and over again. And insulting him, belittling him, all the wonderful things semes do to brainwash their ukes into falling in love with them. God, what a completely unromantic and unimaginative book with a stupid main character. Even the art was only so-so. The artist likes to draw her uke types too roundly for my tastes. It's horrifying that the only two reviews on amazon gave five stars to this book! I guess they like their semes as assholes. :P

Hakushaku wa yoru no hanayome by Asuma Risai and illustrated by Asato Eiri is in a "xx is the bride of the night" series, this one with "Earl" as the "xx." The other two were priest and butler. There had been a group translating the priest one, I'm not sure if that's still going on. In any case, this series is pretty damn bad. I read them all because I like Asato Eiri's art and am a sucker for vampires. I have to admit, though, that I enjoyed this one the most because it was the worst. I expect logical inconsistencies in these kinds of stories because the author never seems to bother making the characters act in some semblance of consistency. They always jerk the characters from one action to another, one motivation to another, so that some moe point can be hit. This one just decided that consistency is for sillies and ran long and hard in random directions. I still don't quite understand the story because both guys in the pairing were acting out parts in three or four different conventions, but I will try to condense the story down to something approaching logical.

The Earl is a vampire. He's gorgeous. He has a butler, who is also gorgeous. The Earl has an uncle (his mother's brother) who hates his guts because a) uncle thinks Earl's father killed Earl's mother by forcing her to marry him (which he did), b) uncle hate vampires and Earl is a vampire, and c) uncle is jealous of Earl's wealth. Earl has to marry to inherit a lot of money that otherwise would go to the uncle. As he can't have that, he decides to marry his loyal and obedient butler. They have a secret rite in a secret underground chamber with the Earl's friend as witness, which apparently is enough to fulfill the requirements of the will (I don't understand how that could be legally allowable, but who am I to question such things?). Nothing much changes between the Earl and butler besides one kiss in the middle of the street to "prove" to the uncle that their marriage isn't a sham, after which the Earl slaps the butler for his insolence.

Then we have the big betrayal. The butler is working for the uncle! Butler's brother had been killed by a vampire, thus he hates vampires! He will get his revenge on Earl by helping the uncle steal the Earl's fortune! And use Earl sexually! Earl is drugged out and fucked for quite a while. He angsts, naturally, and we learn lots of contradictory "facts" from the past as well as some of his "true" feelings. This includes the fact that the Earl had been whored out by his mother as a child because she hated him so much, including to the servants. He'd never been loved by anyone! He had become attached to butler because the butler never knew about his dirty secret and didn't treat him like dirt. But he could never show his attachment a) because his mother would use it against him and b) he has no people skills. So the betrayal was that much worse for him! The butler even reveals that he knew about the Earl's prostitution! The Earl is aloooone!!

In the end, the Earl manages to lessen his drugged food and water intake enough to be able to move. He staggers around to try to find the butler and kill him (or die trying). He gets into an altercation with the uncle instead, with the uncle falling out a window or something and dying. He's saved by butler, and we learn butler's "true" feelings. He initially hated the Earl for being a vampire, but then became attached to the Earl over time. He also resented the fact that the Earl treated him like a piece of furniture. Thus he had jumped at the chance to make the Earl his. He had rejoiced at the fact that the Earl saw him clearly enough to hate his guts and want to kill him. But now they had no reason to act like jerks to each other! True love prevails!

Turns out, btw, that the Earl had awakened to his vampiric nature while entertaining a customer and had killed him. Earl's mother, frightened by him, had fallen down the stairs and had died. Earl had been traumatized, so when he was found by butler (naturally) he was made to forget it all by butler (magical repeat the "it never happened" mantra to a shocked little child and they actually do forget!).

I think I made the story sound much more logical than it actually was. I guess cutting out all the extraneous description that only serve to muddy the picture really helps. ^^;

I love butler betrayal. And kids being pimped by their parents. And "I love you so much I hate you and need to drug you and fuck you into the mattress!" done with such single-minded retardedness. There's just something so delightfully over-the-top about these kinds of situations. XD The only big disappointment was how unimportant the vampire thing was except as a reason for people to hate the Earl.

( pretty pics! )

I was highly amused to find out that Storm in Heaven is translating the BL novel Shinpu wa yoru no hanayome by Asuma Risai and illustrated by by Asato Eiri. The summary from SiH's website: "The innocent and beautiful priest Sera secretly loves his good friend, who will be married soon, even though he devoted himself to God. One stormy night Jin, a vampire in black, makes his appearance, as if he feels drawn towards this impure and polluted blood... With sweet words he seduces Sera into sin, but what is he really driving at?"

Yes, it is as cliched as you can get. Vampire + priest = angst and rejection and lots of "I want to say no and I am saying no but it just feels so good" sex. The art's very pretty.

Talking about cliched storylines, I just read Youma-sama ni daimeiwaku by Wakatsui Kyoko and illustrated by Umezawa Hana. This one's about a young boy who finds out that he is destined to be the key that keeps the door between the demon and human worlds locked. His duty? To touch the door every three days. Yes, that's it. But to the cowardly uke this is torture beyond words, because he has to see the hordes of scary demons on the other side of the door each time. So...he decides to run away like his father did. He's quickly found and brought back, but because he didn't lock the door that one night some demons escape. One of the demon kings comes over to find and either destroy or send back the demons. He pairs up with uke and, well, the usual happens. It's a completely silly story, mainly because there's almost no danger. The male members of the uke's family are the ones that can become keys, and they seem to always be cowardly and pathetic. But demons just find them adorable. Like, really adorable. The female members of uke's family are sharp and in control, and are the only ones that can really destroy demons. In any case, the uke is of course devoured by demon king despite his objections. He is sort of used as bait for the escaped demons because they'd be attracted to him like moths to a flame, and two of the three are sent back when they approach uke. The third one? They find him when they find uke's father. Demon king had known that that particular demon had always been pretty hot for uke's dad so he figured demon would go look for runaway dad. The authorities (who are helping the family out because not having the world overrun by demons is totally something they are for) find the dad by tracing his ATM withdrawals (the dad had never worked a day in his life and had no employable skills whatsoever). And when they go to him they do find him with the demon. The demon turns out to be nearly as powerful as the demon king, and he says he'll go back without a fight if he can have uke's dad. Uke's dad is taken to the demon world with the demon (the demon king assures uke that his dad will be well cared for, because the demon would indulge and treasure him dearly and never let anyone touch him), while demon king remains to quell the demons that had been sleeping in the human world but that had been awakened when the door between the worlds had opened...

Totally cliched, yes, but still kind of fun. I love how the demons on the other side of the door had gathered because they were celebrating how adorable they found the uke, the new key. ^^;