Reviews in Brief: Ritsu Natsumizu's Crushing Love

Ritsu Natsumizu's Crushing Love is sort of problematical for me, but illustrates a type of BL manga that seems to have some popularity: one of the protagonists is not a very nice person at all, and in fact is manipulative, aggressive, and given to deception. He may or may not be a reformed character by the end of the story.

The title story and its sequel, "Love Life," are about Keiichiro Kuroda, betrayed by his lover who ran off with his money and another man. Said lover has the cheek to come back and ask for a loan to help his new boyfriend's business, and Kuroda, out for some revenge, makes a bet: he will put five million yen in a bag on a park bench and if the money is turned into the police within three days, the boyfriend can have his loan. The first person to happen along, while Kuroda is still standing there watching, is a young man who looks at the bag of money indecisively for a few moments and than picks it up and approaches Kuroda, asking to borrow money for transportation. Kuroda is flabbergasted, but intrigued: the young man, Kaoru Otomo, explains that he has to pay off a debt that day, but his creditor is in Kyoto. So, Kuroda, to see this little drama play out and to have his revenge on his ex, takes Otomo to Kyoto.

The second pair of stories, "Purity and Tyranny of Love" and "Love of a Tyrant King," are about Yukihiko Shingyoji, Otomo's "creditor" from the first set, and his childhood friend and the son of a family in service to his own, Sei Aoyama. Yuki is not a nice person at all: lecherous, tyrannical, snide, but nevertheless, Sei loves him, although he's kept it a deep, dark secret for years. Yuki, in spite of being a piece of human trash, is not completely insensitive, and has it figured out -- but he doesn't want to be told that Sei is just doing his duty.

"My Throbbing Heart" takes us back to school with Kimijima and Nakahara, sex buddies. Nakahara discovers a love letter from Kimijima to someone; although tempted, he doesn't read it, but it preys on his mind until he finally confronts Kimijima, who tells him who the letter was for. Wanna guess?

Finally, "Love Love Me" is another schoolboy story, about Adachi and Himura, another pair of sex friends. Adachi, needless to say, has feelings for Himura, who is his opposite: a top student, from a wealthy family, athletic and popular, although he tends to be a bit aggressive about sex. Then Adachi learns that his father has been transferred and they are going to move to another town within a month. But he can't bring himself to tell Himura, having missed all the little clues that Himura thinks of him as something more than release.

In the two main groups of stories, Natsumizu has given us characters who are not people we would want to know, most likely. Kuroda is bitter and driven by anger, although Otoma manages to find his better parts. Yuki, on the other hand, seems to be irredeemable. Nakahara describes himself as "a bit of a bully," but turns out not to be all that bad, while Himura is, in a lot of respects, clueless -- but no more than Adachi.

As I noted, this collection was a bit problematical for me, mostly because I'm not looking for stories about nasty people, although there is a strong current of such stories in BL manga, some of which are excellent. (I'm still looking forward to jumping into Let Dai by Sooyeon Won, which from the images I've seen is beautiful, but a tough story. It's also 15 volumes.) Graphics are fairly standard, although characterizations are appealing. Kuroda is the winner in that regard -- not only is he attractive visually, but his moods -- including some unsuspected vulnerabilities -- are apparent from his face.

Another from Juné.