Reviews in Brief: Youka Nitta's When a Man Loves a Man, Vol. 1

This one has been an adventure. If you've followed my reviews here and at Epinions, you know that Nitta is one of my favorites, although getting my hands on her earlier works has proven to be an undertaking. This series, which runs nine volumes in total, has never, as far as I can discover, been issued in English, so I am giving you a review based on my translation from the German edition.

The story is centered on Ryo Takaki (his "professional" name), a host at one of the clubs in Tokyo's Shinjuku district. Major players in this volume include Takaki Shinkawa, another host whose shared name leads to Ryo's first episode (and who is in love with Ryo); Kasunori Urushizaki, the "first episode," who comes into the club to tell Takaki to stop seeing his sister -- and gets the wrong Takaki. (It turns out that Urushizaki is OK having sex with men, as long as he gets his little bit of kink.); and Kyosuke Iwaki, who was Ryo's mentor when he first became a host and who now wants to compete with Ryo's club -- by opening a club next door and hiring Shinkawa as his star attraction.

I was surprised to learn, from Nitta's afterword, that this was her first BL manga. The drawing is already accomplished and immediately identifiable as "Nitta," although not as finished and rich as The Prime Minister's Secret Diplomacy (still one of the most beautifully drawn manga I've run across). Narrative flow is relatively straightforward -- Nitta doesn't take the liberties with page layouts and sequences here that others do, although there are some dramatic frames and pages in which Nitta brings in a high degree of abstraction for maximum impact.

What's compelling here are the stories and the characters. Subtitled "A Hunt for Passion," this volume introduces us to Ryo and his milieu -- Tokyo's nightlife and the men who make their livings as gigolos. And these are pretty tough men. Ryo is somewhat manipulative, and more than a little cynical in regard to his clients (Urushizaki, who starts off tough, gets eaten alive), while Shinkawa is more than a little distanced from everyone except Ryo. Iwaki is, if anything, even more cold-blooded. Yet each has his vulnerabilities and soft spots. And it all works -- not only are these guys believable, I think I've known some of them.

Of course, it's highly recommended. This one's from Carlsen Comics. (And another indication that it pays to check out the vendors at Amazon Marketplace. This volume came from Austria at quite a reasonable price; I've gotten the second from London at an equally reasonable price, including shipping in both cases.)