Manga Review: The First Stage of Love

[Jason]

Title: The First Stage of Love
Mangaka: Kazuhiko Mishima
Originally Serialized in: (Core Magazine Company, Ltd.)
Genre: Yaoi
Licensed by: Juné
Rating: Older Teen (16+)
Price: $12.95/US

What is the first stage of love? Is it that time when you’re on pins and needles, waiting eagerly for a glimpse of the object of your devotion? Mishima explores those feelings in this collection of short stories. Here a bookshop worker discovers his true feelings about a regular customer, a chubby high school boy gets a shocking confession from a classmate, a young man tries to handle the first signs of getting older, and a teacher looks for a new way to get a student to quit smoking.

Mishima’s collection is gentle and cute and seems very obviously aimed at young women, more so than even your average yaoi. Her young men worry over their looks, whether they’re too fat or not cute enough, with feelings I know men have, but which they probably won’t be exploring in manga. But that light amount of angst is just enough to keep the plots of the stories moving along without being too overwhelming.

The stories themselves are nicely put together. As they are short, Mishima doesn’t try to stick too much into them. Many of the tales start later in the relationship of the main characters, necessarily sacrificing some of the character development in favor of making the story quick and easy to follow, though brief flashbacks are provided where needed.

My favorite part of the story is Mishima’s drawings of her characters. They have sharp features that make them seem more intelligent and sensitive. She mostly avoids the giant-manga-eyes phenomenon, except in one character, and that makes her young men, especially the ones in their 20s, believable. Backgrounds are not important to these stories, so only the barest minimum of detail is expended on them, just enough to give us the setting.

Juné’s done a nice job with both translation and production of this volume. The color pictures on the front and back of the cover make me long to see an art book of Mishima’s work. They are beautifully colored and shaded, especially the more fantasy/historical looking image on the back, which is not tied to any of the interior stories.

This volume is rated 16+, so those looking for smut will want to look elsewhere. If you want a sweet, light yaoi way to pass the time, however, The First Stage of Love is a decent choice. I, for one, would be interested in seeing more of Mishima’s works in the future.

Reviewer: Snow
Proofed and Edited by Lissa Pattillo