Reviews in Brief: Yukimura's Love Song for the Miserable

Asada is a young executive who desperately wants to move into event planning, but all his efforts are stymied. After a night of drinking, he passes out in the shrubbery and is discovered by Nao Iwasaki, a young pastry chef who has gotten lost while out for a run -- Nao runs to think. Asada gives Nao instructions to find his way home, and Nao invites him to visit his family's cake shop, which Asada eventually does. The two form a close relationship, with Asada acting as Nao's "taster" and mentor while Nao polishes his skills as a patissiere. Nao eventually decides that he must study in France; Asada vehemently rejects the idea, fearful of losing his contact with the one person who seems to value his talents. Thus begins a series of misunderstandings and miscommunications that mark the relationship on Nao's return, when he becomes the chef at a new cake shop, Northern Star, which Asada, who has finally made it into the events planning division of his department store, insists must be included in the store's upcoming Bake Fair There's one problem: Nao is very cold toward Asada and wants nothing to do with him or the fair.

This is an interesting variation on a theme that seems to crop up again and again in BL manga: one partner, who is inevitably the uke, must overcome very strong feelings of inadequacy in order to accept the love offered by his partner, who, after all, values him above all others. In this one, Nao (who is, reflecting another frequent variation in the conventions, a younger seme) proves himself, once he has mastered his anger toward Asada, the prime mover: it is he who finally beats down Asada's self-pity and makes him confront his own value in Nao's eyes, the first step toward Asada learning to value himself.

The graphic style is very clean and spare, and page layouts are relatively consistent: Yukimura has not taken too many liberties with design in this one, which makes the narrative flow very steady and easy to follow. Visually, the characterizations are very good -- Nao is a complete charmer, the picture of the earnest, serious young man, while Asada's vulnerability is readily apparent.

Another one from Juné. I think I picked this one up at Borders.