Reviews in Brief: Ken Nambara's Papa to Kiss in the Dark, Anime

Papa to Kiss in the Dark is one of those yaoi anime I stumbled across online and found charming, in spite of some elements that put Westerners on red alert.

Mira Munakata is beginning his first day in high school, and is running late. His papa, the well-known actor Kyousuke Munakata, is still in bed, although he promised to be up and ready to go early. When Mira goes to wake him, Kyousuke pulls him into bed for some love-making.

Needless to say, Mira is very late, and as he's trying to get into the school he meets Takayuki, a third-year student who's obviously attracted to him -- Takayuki remarks that school life looks like it's going to be much more interesting now. And when Mira finally makes it to his classroom, his childhood friend Kazuki is waiting for him -- they've made it into the same school and the same class.

However, things with Papa are not going well in Mira's mind: there are rumors that he's going to marry a famous actress, Mitsuki Utsonomiya, and his attitude toward Mira seems to be pretty casual -- he's always out and doesn't seem to be very communicative. Mira begins to wonder seriously about their relationship, but when Kyousuke is involved in an accident, Mira realizes that he truly loves him. And then he discovers he's adopted. Kazu, who's with him when this news comes down, soon declares his love, complicating matters for Mira even further.

There are a number of issues with this one, although as I said, I did enjoy watching it. First, just in formal terms, there are too many loose ends: Kazuki just gets dropped by the wayside, and there's no development of anything with Takayuki. The whole question of the relationship is murky -- Mira has grown up thinking this is a father/son thing, which is why being adopted is such a trauma to him, but that relationship just opens a can of worms for the viewer, as far as I can see. Basically, the story is full of holes.

What bothers me most about this one is not the question of incest so much as Mira's age. When the story opens, he's fifteen, which I can consider an appropriate age for a romantic/sexual relationship, but just barely. (There are states in this country in which the age of consent is fourteen, or there were until very recently; here in Illinois it's seventeen.) It's pointed up in the story that Kyousuke claims to be twenty-nine -- which, as events turn out, is probably true, but Kazu and Mira just assume that he's lying about his age. It does, however, make a relationship with a fifteen-year-old just barely credible, outside the realm of pathology. What bothers me is the next question, "When did this all start?" It has obviously been going on for a while, and I have to wonder just how together Kyousuke is, although he professes that Mira is everything to him. I guess it's a matter of willing suspension of disbelief, which in this case I have some trouble with.

I'm not going to be the one to say that no fifteen-year-old is capable of a relationship with an older man, because I'm sure there are some who can do it. (I have a history of dating much younger men -- but not that young -- so I'm likely to be more sympathetic than others might be -- I don't necessarily see such relationships as always predatory and always abusive.) I think what bothers me most is that the relationship can be presented without question, which to all intents and purposes it is (although Mira remarks to Kazu, after learning of his adoption, that they can at least drop one part of the homosexuality-shota-incest combination).

Needless to say, there is a happy ending, give or take all the ends that are still loose. It's an entertaining bit of fluff, worth spending an hour watching if you've got some free time.

The animation is good, but not exceptional, with a character template firmly in place for the semes (Kyousuke, Takayuki, and Kazuki). The boys are all bishonen, and, something that seldom seems to happen in anime, they are slender but visibly muscular, which is refreshing change. The music is good, but again, not exceptional. Hikaru Midorikawa as Mira is exceptional -- very well done, and well supported by the rest of the cast.

It's recently been licensed in English by Media Blasters, and will be released by Kitty Media, but no date seems to have been announced. I watched a fansub online.

Cast:

Mira Munakata: Hikaru Midorikawa
Kyousuke Munakata: Shinichiro Miki
Kazuki Hino: Susumu Chiba
Mitsuki Utsunomiya: Masako Katsuki
Takayuki Utsunomiya: Takehito Koyasu