The 2-chapter story about the Emperor's official -and trapped- singer or Utaibou and the brother-by-mistress of the Emperor was the best. The art was detailed and beautiful, capturing the elegance of the clothing and time period. The story line was tense and frightening (potential eunuch-hood threatened our uke!)The singer himself was a -slightly too- bishounen, but amazingly devoted and trusting in his seme, almost-16-year-old boy. The seme was a masculine, strong and caring seme who was his own worst enemy because he created, indirectly, the torturous situation their illegal love had now become. The Emperor was a suitably beautifully evil and surprisingly motivated antagonist. It was just an overall classic thwarted love story that I enjoyed like a rich, sinful chocolate bar. The story had enough meaning and poetry in the words to make the love scenes very touching and the art and pacing had enough tension to keep me flipping (and going back) and melllllting. Oh my the sex scenes were most exciting, heart breaking and beautiful all at once!
The Sheikh story was beautifully illustrated (the Sheikh -oh my!) but the story fell flat for me. I did like the whole concept of the uke not believing that he was loved for himself, that he was only a substitute for Q. I did like the depth of potential personality Ashraf (the Sheikh) could have had with his dark and ruler-required personality, but it was largely unexplored. I think I was also expecting a little more anger on seme and/or uke's part, a little more conflict, a little more violence only because it was all aggressive 'ownership' at the beginning. And I like that sort of stuff. I just had my expectations up for something darker because of the whole angsty and shocking branding! C'mon! Branding?! And then no more pseudo-BDSM or kink? And the uke hated the seme. There needed to be resolution to that before his emotions changed. It did have it's beautiful moments - in words and illustrations though. (The sand dune scene about how he came from the sand - very pretty and soft.) Regardless of my issues with it, I don't regret reading it and would possibly read it again.
Chapter 3, Ashraf servant, Q was really not very interesting to me at all. There was nothing that held me to that story. I think after reading Ashraf's story and the Singer story, I was so high that this one didn't have enough angst and passion to get me going. (Perhaps it is important to read them in order!)
I do so enjoy the format of taking a bunch of characters and then writing an anthology of sorts by compiling the character's individual stories together into a series of oneshots in the same volume. (Shin Mizukami's Love's Pressure Points is the best example.) By doing so, it helps in making me feel connected to all the characters throughout every story' therefore, giving each individual story more power. The well-developed parts become so so much more as a whole. It gives me a more complete and overall satisfied feeling at the end of a collection. Every secondary character has depth to because I know they have their own poignant story, when it is their turn as the main character. The whole 'world' becomes memorable in talented mangaka's hands.
The diaries were humourous. I liked them. Especially the dirty, dirty one Ashraf wrote and Haine's embarrassed and indignant response! giggle I didn't like the strange little emperor's son story. THank god it was extremely short. It didn't fit in with the rest of the stories and was too shota for me and too wtf? for my beautiful singer boy. I'm going to pretend it wasn't included.
Little note: The chapters were out of order in the scanlation I had. Be careful you are reading it in order - it makes a difference! LOL!)