Reviews in Brief: Jazz by Tamotsu Takamure and Sakae Maeda

Jazz is another work I can't believe I haven't commented on here. I did do a major, four-part review with commentary at Epinions, which you can look over for more detail, although I warn you, it's riddled with spoilers.

The story in its bare basics follows the courtship of Koichi Narusawa, an internist specializing in respiratory medicine, and Naoki Segawa, one of his patients. Narusawa is in his late twenties, always pleasant and well-liked because he never offends anyone -- he simply doesn't care enough about anyone or anything. He's empty inside, pretty much spineless, and more than a little self-destructive. Naoki is ten years younger, a high-school senior when they meet, spoiled, immature, and selfish. He falls in love with "Doc," as he calls him, and begins their relationship by inviting him to dinner to celebrate his high-school graduation. He then proceeds to drug and rape him. Doc has a poor enough opinion of himself that he not only puts up with it, but comes back for more.

I first read Jazz when I was just starting my explorations of yaoi, and wasn't terribly impressed. On rereading more recently, I'm considerably more impressed, because I think that, as unpleasant as much of the story is -- and these are not, when it comes down to it, nice people -- Saeda's story, and Takemure's treatment of it, offer a great deal more than is usual in the typical school-boy romance, or even most of the BL manga focusing on older men.

As is so often true in this genre, this is a character-driven piece, and the characters are enough to drive the whole series. (It could have been tighter in places, but that's not an overwhelming fault.) There is, ultimately, something hopeful about it, crystallized in two scenes near the end of the story. In one, Doc and Naoki, after separating, run into each other in the grocery store and wind up playing with fireworks in the park. As expected, they wind up making love, but this time it really is "making love" -- Doc is willing, even eager, and Naoki is gentle as well as passionate. And the critical scene, when Doc finally realizes what he wants -- really, what he needs -- and makes his choice, is not only affecting but beautifully drawn: there is a half-page frame of the two trying to kiss through a plate-glass window that boils their relationship thus far down to its essence. The interest -- and the hope -- was in watching these two terribly damaged men struggling to make something beautiful between them.


A further note on the drawing: Takemure's graphic work seemed, at first reading, fairly typical, although distinctive in character design and style, but it's grown on me. Doc and Naoki really are two supremely beautiful men, even in a genre that specializes in that, and the narrative flow makes good use of ambiguity in several places to build depth into the story.

So yes, I recommend it. It's from Juné.