Manga Review: Weekend Lovers

[Jason]

Title: Weekend Lovers
Mangaka: Kiriki Fuwa
Serialized in: (Oakla Shuppan)
Genre: Yaoi, Drama, Romance
Licensed by: 801Media
Rating: Mature (18+)
Price: $15.95/US

This collection of yaoi stories is, unfortunately, uneven and unbalanced. It jumps from the light-hearted realistic romance of the first two tales—where Koutarou, a young chef-in-training, worries about his relationship with businessman Asahi, seven years his senior—to two dark pieces about possession and domination. It then goes back to light with the slightly wacky final two stories—one about a new, rich boy in school who meets a most unusual gang, and its adorable leader, and a story about a “maid” and a butler. The transition between light and dark, and back to light, is too abrupt and makes the collection hard to place appeal-wise.

Fuwa’s writing isn’t strong enough to pull off such disparate stories either. None of her characters are fully fleshed out enough to truly appeal to the reader. Koutarou and Asahi come the closest, but they are so different from one another that I wondered how they could ever have met and fallen for each other. Fuwa makes the most effort with their stories though, and they are the strongest of the lot. “Right of Passage, Road to Love,” the story about the rich boy, is a good attempt at wackiness, but still has a flatness to it that keeps it from being truly funny. The two darker tales are only for those who like their tales with an edge of almost meanness, though “Fragments of Glass and Dark Water,” the first one, succeeds because it doesn’t try to be anything other than what it is—a domination story. The second, “Cage,” tries to add a romantic element and fails.

The art is nothing out of the ordinary. Fuwa likes lots of dark screen tone for backgrounds and effect and 801 has worked hard to reproduce that, while still making the pages clear and readable. The final page of “Fragments of Glass and Dark Water” is creepy perfection, but other than that, Fuwa doesn’t try to push the envelope. Her boys are pretty and almost androgynous, though she does manage to make her “maid” look like a man in drag, which others have not always managed to do.

If you want to sample a variety of story types from the same author, then Weekend Lovers might be what you’re looking for. If you don’t like abrupt changes in tone between stories, however, then you might want to pass on this one. There are other smoother anthologies available and, while this isn’t a terrible read, it isn’t a terribly good one either.

Reviewer: Snow
Proofer/Editor: Lissa Pattillo