Manga Review: A Love Song for the Miserable

[Jason]

Title: A Love Song for the Miserable
Mangaka: Yukimura
Originally Serialized in: Be x Boy Magazine (Libre Shuppan)
Genre: Yaoi
Licensed by: Juné
Rating: Mature (18+)
Price: $12.95/US

Asada was at an especially low point in his life when he met the eager young pastry chef, Nao, and found a happiness he’d never known before. But before Asada could figure out what his feelings meant, Nao informed Asada that he was moving to France to study. Asada reacted badly, pushing Nao away, seemingly forever. Now, three years later, Asada’s life is back on track, when Nao crosses his path again. Can Asada mend the damage he did years ago and can two young men learn to sing a song of true love?

It’s almost impossible for me to read this title and not compare it with Fumi Yoshinaga’s fine, non-yaoi work, Antique Bakery, as unfair as that might be to Yukimura-sensei. I know that Yoshinaga doesn’t have the market on bakery stories featuring emotional young men, but the strength of her work casts a long shadow and Yukimura’s creation doesn’t manage to shine much of a light in that darkness.

It’s not that A Love Song for the Miserable is bad; more that it’s bland and flavorless. Her characters overact their parts, gasping desperately for breath at emotional points, sweating profusely, and doubling over with mental pain gone physical. I found myself longing to bang their heads together in an effort to knock some sense into them. Even if you’re afraid of what your feelings for another man might mean, how hard is it to say, “I’ll miss our friendship, that’s why I don’t want you to leave”? Of course, if Asada did that we wouldn’t have a story, but it still annoyed me.

Yukimura’s art is equally pallid, mostly large panels filled with gently attractive men. The subtle shading of the cover painting is lost in black-and-white, given over to plain lines and screen tone. There are two interior pages that were black-and-white reproductions of what had obviously been a color painting, and those reproductions have a depth and appeal, even in their more cartoonish style, that is missing in the regular art. I found myself wishing that the entire work had been done that way.

In the end, A Love Song for the Miserable isn’t badly done, so much as tasteless in the literal sense of the word. I wouldn’t mind giving Yukimura another shot in the future, to see if maybe my perceptions of her might change with a different work, but I don’t believe she’d be my first choice for purchase.

Reviewer: Snow Wildsmith
Proofer/Editor: Lissa Pattillo