Yugi Yamada

***being an old fart***
Back when I read scanlations this mangaka was one whose work I read so many times. It's strange to be collecting all these old titles that were sorta new when I started reading manga. Back then you could just not get any manga in my country. Belgium had some titles that got sold in the Netherlands but it was very much a niche thing. France always got the best stuff but I dropped that class as fast as I could. Also I already got weird looks for reading as many novels as I did. But that was sorta also seen as 'intellectual'. Being the only kid at home, school, city (?) who admitted to reading comics? And 'weird' ones from Japan and America in another language? No sirree.

Still sometimes I want to kick Past-Me because it's so much harder to find the ones I love! Or is it? Because back then you couldn't just hop onto the internet and order something. In fact I think I complained about that on a review once...… (altro)

(I've waited too long and let my memory deteriorate too much to review with any detail, but...) This volume contians two stories, one about an impulsive young man who falls easily in love with girls and the older (and father of a young child) man he suddenly finds himself falling for, and then another about childhood friends with a mysterious rocky past. It was definitely one of my least favorite of Yugi Yamada's works. In the first story the main character seems more randomly infatuated than in love with a person he has actual chemistry or reason to be with, and the older man/uke just seems to be wimpy and going along with it. I remember the second story less, though I recall thinking the relationship more complicated but not exactly romantic either.… (altro)

Nagai has always been attracted to his former classmate and now coworker Saitou. When Saitou gets married, Nagai begins to more fully realize the depth of his attachment, sending him into a depression from which he is comforted by Honda, a coworker of Saitou's bride. When Saitou's bride leaves him a day after the wedding, Nagai is put in the uncomfortable situation of needing to comfort his friend whilst not only feeling attracted to him, but being unable to push Honda from his mind as well.

There are things to like here similar to strengths seen in other Yugi Yamada manga. There's a bit of a sense of humor, the characters' actions are more believable than in many yaoi, and there are actually reoccurring characters with real personalities outside the romantic couple/trio, this one even something I'm not sure I've ever seen in a yaoi before--a female that is romantically interested in one of the mains, but is neither villainized nor portrayed as a sweet self-sacrificing mouse who has a good cry but then tells him she doesn't matter and to follow his heart.

On the other hand, this title does have some weaknesses that make it less recommendable than many other Yamada manga. The root of most of them seem to be the character Saitou, the newleywed coworker/friend of the main character. He is immature, weepy, and little else, and while this "cuteness" is supposedly what the main character finds attractive about him, I didn't find it convincing. Thus any scene centering around Nagai comforting Saitou was unappealing to me, and Nagai's inability to give up Saitou for the character he had more real chemistry with became irritating. It made the manga feel strung out, especially in the latter half where Nagai's attachment to Saitou provides the main conflict.

I appreciate Yamada's attempt to look at the difference between loving someone as a person rather than as someone to take care of/idolize/be infatuated with, but Saitou's character made the attempt fall a bit flat. Honda's character also could have been a stronger contrast to Saitou, as while he certainly isn't weepy and in need of caring for, it was hard to tell what he and Nagai DID love one another for. Still, Yamada was able to convey a real sense of emotional and physical attraction between them (which is a lot more than I can say for a lot of couples in yaoi), even if I'm unclear what it was based on, thus the read was engaging overall, even if the quality of the scenes was spotty throughout.… (altro)

Yugi Yamada was one of the few BL mangaka that had consistently entertained, if not impressed me with her work, so I was very excited to see a new title by her translated here. Unfortunately, it seems Dry Heat has broken the streak. It's got a lot of the usual yaoi tropes, which actually isn't unusual for Yamada's manga, but it doesn't have the things that usually help her stories rise above the others like it.

In particular, psychological believability took a big hit on this one for me. The main character is frequently and spontaneously nearly raped by his love interest, in a way that seems is supposed to show he cares about him. It's practically the only thing he does to the main whenever he comes around him. No scenes showing them interacting and hinting to us how deeply he cares or showing us why they make a good couple—just lots and lots of nonconsensual almost-sex. I've never been able to buy the common yaoi logic of rape=obsession/need=love, and this story really didn't do anything to make it work better for me than it ever has before.

Worse yet, the main character doesn't even react to these incidents. Whether it be from his love interest or from another male side character he doesn't even have an interest in, when they force themselves upon him he protests, but after he goes about his business as usual, neither holding his attackers' actions particularly against them in later interactions, or questioning much his own sexuality. Even by the end when the sex was clearly consensual, it still felt more like the main character was going along with what his love interest wanted just to please someone he cared about and felt responsible for, rather than like he had any actual passion himself. His psychological movement from thinking of the other character as a kid and old friend to someone he loves romantically and has sexual feelings for is glossed over entirely.

Instead of showing that, there's a lot of business with story about the love interest dropping out of school and why and learning about his life situation and a side plot involving another character that sort of mirrors the mains' situation. But when the characters never act in a convincing way in their relationship, it's hard to care about all that anyway. Compared to other yaoi, this manga is perhaps a bit above average with the amount of plot and back story and characters it juggles. But I don't really enjoy the average yaoi manga, and compared to other works by Yamada I've read, this really doesn't compare.… (altro)