insaneneko

Koyoi, tenshi to sakazuki wo by Aida Saki and illustrated by Yamada Sakurako is a book that should have kicked ass but somehow didn't. The main character and the premise are so deliciously set up...And yet...*sighs*

Basically, there's a salaryman in his thirties who one day wakes up in a love hotel with a yakuza. The yakuza has a tattoo of an angel on his back, and he's one of those pure-hearted lovers. Salaryman has a drinking problem and gets rowdy and out of control when he drinks a lot. He also ends up getting laid off from his job AND has his wife walk out on him on the same day. Turns out he's sterile and impotent and she had been having an affair for a year and was pregnant with her lover's child. I mean, how can this not be good? And yet the book could not keep my attention at all. I was bored and ended up not finishing it. Talk about disappointing...

Wakagimisama no kiken na jouji by Asuma Risai and illustrated by Itsuki Kaname initially reminded me of the manga Yome ni konaika. It has a salaryman who ends up with a "wife" who is the president of his company. The difference is that the salaryman happens to be a scion of a rich and powerful family (formerly daimyo of the region). Unfortunately, this ended up totally sucking as well. Salaryman is on the wrong side of stupid and dense. His boss/"wife"/seme tends towards being rather mean to salaryman. I love the complex power dynamics of this kind of relationship, but not when the uke is just pathetically vulnerable (both physically and mentally) and the seme is a jerk. A pity, since the art is pretty (Check out the cover on the amazon site).