Continuing my tour of the works of Youka Nitta, I recently got hold of her collection White Brand a group of stories first published in 1998. It's a bit of a mixed bag.One problem with this collection is that there's not much to tie it together, except the various neuroses on prominent display. The two parts of the title story involve Keshiki and Izuru, cousins who were best friends as children, until a tragic accident took Keshiki's father and ruined their friendship. Keshiki came away from the trauma with an aversion to dark things, and Izuru is dark: dark hair, dark eyes, and brown skin. Now they're attending the same high school, and Izuru has decided enough is enough.
White skin figures in "Teal End," about Keith, an American who has come to Japan to learn lacquer painting. Keith really wishes he were Japanese -- although his talent is remarkable, he's not truly accepted by his fellows, except for Takeshi, the master's son, who himself has no aptitude for his father's trade. Even though all obstacles are eventually overcome, this one has a funny little coda that throws the issue into sharp focus.
The remaining three stories are all quite strange and not so satisfying as the first two. I think, however, this is largely because they're as much sketches as anything else: more development would have solved most of the problems here: they're all kind of bare bones and elliptical, and all could use more development.
The graphic style is gorgeous -- not so finished nor as rich as later works such as The Prime Minister's Secret Diplomacy -- at this point, in a class by itself -- but still tremendously appealing. Nitta's characters have smiles that light up their entire faces. And of course, they're all gorgeous. Her sex scenes tend to be fairly explicit, but that's not much of an issue here -- there's very little sex.
I'd recommend this one simply because it's Youka Nitta. It is very interesting to see earlier work by an acknowledged master of BL manga. From Juné.
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