Product Description

Discover new and veteran authors and artists whose work are not often seen in English, and enjoy others from popular yaoi creators including Naduki Koujima (Our Kingdom), Ken Homerun (Clan of the Nakagimis), Haruka Minami, Kana Mizuki, Kyushu Danji, Natsuho Shino and many more!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #754420 in Books
• Published on: 2006-12-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

Customer Reviews

Well Worth The Price!
I initially thought this monstrosity was actually two books, but discovered it was, instead, one very large `anthology'. Another difference between this and other manga was the paper quality and the ink used. The paper felt rougher and they used different shades of ink to differentiate between each story. I rather liked that it felt as if I had picked it up at a convenience store in Japan.

The positives:
The sheer number of contributions! The gems found within! Many, many artists contributed to this book. - so many, that there is a story for everyone.

The stories that I most enjoyed mainly lie within the first section of the book. The first involves a young high school student who meets an older classmate who has a...nipple fetish. Our young student seems to have extremely sensitive nipples, so I'm sure you can see where this goes. The story was hilarious, there were some very nice sex scenes and the artwork itself was top rate. Another story which sticks out in my mind involved a young artist who returns to visit his old instructor, but finds only the instructors oldest son. This story had a soft and melancholy feel, the yearning the oldest son felt was very palpable, and it had a very satisfying conclusion.

Even the stories done in a slightly different art style were memorable, such as a well done tale involving ghost busters, a wimpy class president and secret true love. It read rather bizarrely and yet was very fun and cute.

The are actually two stories within from Naduki Koujima (the artist of `Out Kingdom;), one stand alone done in her usual manner and the other giving us insights into the `big secret' between Tamaki and Hiyori. I admit it, I laughed at this one even while feeling sorry for Hiyori!

If you've read `Clan of the Nakagima's', which is a great comedy, you'll be familiar with the story `Bat Baron and Robin' within, but hey, never before have you read it in pastels!

With a few of the stories I felt as if we had missed the first part of the tale, the butler story most notably, but I enjoyed them nonetheless.

And now onto the negatives:
There were a few stories which I felt weren't `Boys Love' at all. Most notably, the short shot of the man who picks up a cat who turns into a young, young boy. There wasn't any romance between them, and truthfully I didn't want there to be.

Some of the art styles and story layouts were not appealing, most notably the stories which relied upon little box after box with basically talking heads. I truthfully didn't bother reading those beyond the first few pages.

On the whole, this anthology felt like a bag of candy and left a sweet, satisfied feeling, but then I am a fan of romantic fluff, comedy and happy endings, so please take this with a grain of salt!

A great bargain!
At $11.50 and over 300 pages, this collection is certainly a great bargain. Ranging from light BL to some kinky sex and soft Yaois, I find most of the stories pretty enjoyable. And such a wide variety too - nipples fetish, love through a portrait, childhood friends finding love in a small town amidst sadness, a wimpy president and his ghostbuster knight, lonely men with their cats pets, 2 butler brothers finding love, rabbits, a sexy one on 2 "dojos" struggling for dominance, tension release in an all boys boarding school, a training diary on the wizard and his apprentice from a cat clan. There are also some short stories from the better known DMP releases like "Our Kingdom", "Clan of Nakagamike" and "Kurashina Sensei's Passion", which gives one the chance to sample these mangakas' works.
There are a few which I wish for more like the touchingly sweet one on a lonely man with his cat pet in a house by a small lake surrounded by a forest.., the butler brothers' romance, the 2 childhood friends turn lovers and the bizzare diary of the wizard and his cat-boy apprentice.
As I am quite a "sap", I find this overall a good read.

Disappointing and Boring....
I picked up this manga anthology over the weekend at my local borders intrigued because I love oneshots. However when I finally cracked this bad boy open I was sorely disappointed. Don't get me wrong there was a variety of oneshots, but I just found the stories to be lacking in general. The only story I liked was the first one written by Haruka Minami. They lacked depth, and don't get me wrong I know one shots aren't supposed to be really plot driven, but still I have read much better one shots. Overall I gave it two stars because some of the stories were mildly interesting. In the meantime your better off looking elsewhere for your Yaoi fix.