Idk looking at it was kind of painful for me to read and its very manly looking and not super femme even if ifs by a BL mangaka.

A stunning, rare treat in the genre! The story line and the art are refreshingly real. The emotional connection, the "family" that existed between the men really stood out.

I read this one ages ago and it is still with me--which means it stands out from the other hundreds of manga I've read before and after and promptly forgotten.

Yura-sensei's style has its learning curves, but the art, story, and manga format delivery are still outstanding.

Painful to look at, at first. Even if the cover is nice (ingenius, even--with the sun and moon).
The muscles aren't always properly defined until the last chapter. The fingers were messed up. The shading didn't use enough midtones. The face art starts out incredibly repulsive. Charlie's eyes remain quite bad, actually. With how round and feminine they are. Actually, why do Doug's eyes sparkle like a maiden's, anyway? That cheerleader looks like a man. That Marlon pin-up in the first chapter--what's with the duck hair?

The psychological aspect of it is alright. Only the first chapter had readable story. The interactions are realistic enough, which is good. But all of the characters except the doctor are quite repulsive, really. Also, "committed, full-time relationships" my ass. You don't just stand there and watch your lover get f'd by your f-buddies. If you ignore your lover to protect your social status, there's no excuse--you're a d*bag. Also, the end of chapter 4 is stupid. Heck, all the "game" talk is stupid. "A game is like sex"--I will slap you. Also, you can't write.

...No thanks, for SxM, I'll stick with Double Mints. (For BDSM, I'll stick with Shizaya.) For buff bodies, Crimson Spell and Takanaga Hinako is the best of the most I can handle. The scanlation group ridicules typical yaoi so much, and in the end this had just as little substance. The couples were neither interesting nor compatible. Just exchanging "ilu"s isn't nearly enough to create chemistry, kaethx. Why do they love each other, anyway? In the first chapter, it's because they know how to pleasure each other through pain, which isn't nearly good enough. I read more and it turns out that's not even really the case? Dafuq.

Go home and read some Yoneda Kou.

... Last updated on October 2nd, 2012, 4:23pm

i dunno... i love S&M! i do! love the leader, the ropes, and the hardcore till the tip of my toes!!
but i dunno... this just was a little to... i dunno..
i mean don't get me wrong the plot it's deep and it's really realistic but, maibe was the art, or the too realistic kind of way all things were showed?, i really thought i was going to love this... but maybe was the "group love" that was a turn off 4 me... ( im a really jealous person, i don't believe u have to share the person u love with ANYBODY else) i really don't agree, that's just cheeting 4 me.. yeah maybe was that..

I'm not sure mangafan321 is getting the point of this manga, no disrespect, but I don't think s/he is. This is a very realistic manga depicting the gay leather scene in 80s' New York, so it's definitely not what you might expect from an average yaoi romance, but I felt more love here - real love - than I did in many of the sugar-candy, laminated, callow yaoi mangas. There is serious stuff going on here, psychologically and emotionally, but these couples are in it for the long haul and their devotion to each other is unmistakable.

Yes, there are some unusual circumstances that might border on squicky (like the, uh, consensual gangbang that mangafan321 mentioned)... But those scenes are unavoidable in a manga that wants to seriously engage with the BDSM lifestyle in eighties' America, before the whole AIDS thing really started having an effect. Stuff like this actually happened (and sometimes still happens) in the BDSM community, but that alone isn't what makes this manga rare. What makes this manga amazing is that it is all psychologically explained. The BDSM isn't superfluous or just smutty - it has a deeper meaning to the characters involved, a meaning that is explored with unusual and unerring delicacy. This is truly a gifted mangaka, who did her research and bravely confronted a very difficult issue. The art is INCREDIBLE, so realistic that it's kind of like watching a series of photographs, the textures and the way light hits the different objects and materials is so uncannily real. That makes the sex scenes and BDSM scenes ten times more affecting/powerful, since you can feel them. Uh. And somehow, you don't get squicked by them. Or I didn't, anyway. Because there was love in those scenes, and it was so deep that you immediately understood that these scenes signified near-sacred rituals that were being practiced for complex, personal reasons - not just for mere carnality.

Consequently, I would like to note that despite the constant sex, none of it is meant to titillate readers in the usual way, and I wouldn't call it pornography. Not at all. I mean, this isn't smut. PLEASE don't confuse it with smut. Each sex scene is actually a character study through sex, as in, it's more about the characters and their issues/feelings than it is about the sex, and it shows. The psychology is really the centerpiece, and the sex is simply the pedestal it stands on.

I hope that explains things! Please don't turn away from this manga because it's unusual; in fact, you should read it because it IS unusual - in fact there is no single manga out there like this, about this very theme portrayed in such a stunningly realistic and honest way. It's practically seinen, I mean, neither the art nor the theme are stereotypically "yaoi". I'm not even sure I should call it yaoi... It somehow gives off a seinen feel to me. Don't pigeonhole this manga as per standard yaoi expectations... It has so much more to it. So much more.

... Last updated on January 31st, 2010, 9:42am

basically a manga about a bunch of older gay men having sex with eachother. the one scene that bugged me was the one where this guy let a bunch of other guys do things to his partner and he did nothing to stop them...

to the other commenter, so just because a person is gay it means they are okay with their partners sleeping around? gay people also want faithful partners you know.

... Last updated on July 28th, 2011, 11:43am