Thursday Three: Shoujo-ai (unlicensed)

Last week I covered shoujo-ai/girls' love manga that could be bought in official English translations. This week, I'm focusing on shoujo-ai titles that haven't been licensed (yet -- if there's any justice, they will be licensed one day). All of these are available as scanlations from Lililicious, a scanlation group with impeccable taste who apply great skill and care to their translations.

Thursday Three: Girls' Love (Unlicensed)

1) Maka Maka by Kishi Torajiro
The sexual adventures of two art students, Jun and Nene. Most shoujo-ai series, even the explicit ones (and most of the ones I've read weren't sexually explicit) start off with the characters and the relationship and build gradually towards emotional and physical consummation. Maka Maka, by contrast, starts off with the sex and uses the sexual interaction between Jun and Nene to show us who they are and how they relate to each other. I found this off-putting at first, because it was so far outside my normal range of expectations, but on a second look I got what Kishi Torajiro was aiming for, and it was terribly refreshing. Jun and Nene have sex as an extension and deepening of their friendship, without getting tied up in knots about it or worrying too much about what it means; they have sex with other people, which is mostly pretty unsatisfactory, but doesn't impact on their relationship. The subtitle of Maka Maka is Sex, Life and Communication, which sums it up: Jun and Nene have sex as a form of communication that enhances their lives.

Maka Maka lacks drama, and has little in the way of plot (a typical chapter involves Jun and Nene having a conversation which leads to sex, or having sex which leads to a conversation); its strengths lie in the slow build of character, the warmth of the bond between Jun and Nene, and the strong and genuine eroticism. Make no mistake: Maka Maka is not something you want to get caught reading at work. I hesitate to use the word "porn" for something so luscious (the art is full colour throughout, and Kishi Torajiro lingers lovingly on every curve, every square inch of skin, every sweat-plastered hair and crumpled garment); if any manga deserves the dignified title "erotica", Maka Maka is it.

2) Pieta by Haruno Nanane
This is another title that took me aback when I first started reading it, because Haruno Nanane's art style and storytelling techniques felt oddly un-Japanese -- not that it felt American, and I'm not really familiar enough with European comics to say that it felt European. There's a density to the pages and an understatedness to the art that's uncommon in any style, and uncommonly effective. The story concerns two high school students (quelle surprise), Sahoko and Rio, who share a preternatural sensitivity and a near-psychic bond with each other. Rio suffers from depression and has a history of self-harm; her family are cold to her and prefer not to see her, for reasons that become clear as the story unfolds. Sahoko is more stable, but she, too, has troubles in her past. So two damaged people, each recognising both her own damage and the other's, come together, support each other, carry each other through a process of recovery, walk each other back from the brink of destruction.

Pieta is startling in its emotional intensity. As is often the case with romances, the story is slight, but it doesn't matter: Sahoko and Rio's relationship is compelling even when nothing much is happening.

3) Shiroi Heya no Futari ("Couple of the White Room") by Yamagishi Ryouko
Dating from 1971, Shiroi Heya no Futari was the first ever shoujo-ai manga to be published, and it bears the hallmarks of classic 1970s shoujo manga: swirly, curvy art, a spunky heroine, a tragic storyline, melodramatic emotional arcs -- it's even set in France for no very good reason. The fragile Resine, recently orphaned, comes to boarding school and finds herself sharing a white bedroom with a wild girl named Simone. The other girls at the school are half-suspicious, half-admiring of Simone, who sneaks out at night to hang out in bars and initially treats Resine with contempt -- but Resine soon learns that underneath her harsh exterior, Simone is in pain and in need of love. Simone tries to get that love from Resine, who loves her back by moonlight, but gets cold feet in the light of day. And it all goes horribly wrong and there is weeping and gnashing of teeth and stapling of hands to foreheads.

Shiroi Heya no Futari is lush, both visually and emotionally. It's so overblown, so unabashedly melodramatic, that it probably won't be to many people's taste -- but I love this stuff: pure emoporn, the manga equivalent of the three-hanky chick flick. For people who like this sort of thing, this is definitely the sort of thing they'll like.

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Next week's Thursday Three will focus on Paul Pope. Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!