Creator: Aoi Kujyou
Publishing Information: June Manga, paperback, 198 pages, $12.95 (US)
Ordering Numbers: ISBN: 978-1-56970-759-3 (ISBN-13); 1-56970-759-6 (ISBN-10)
Boys’ love (or “BL”) is a genre of manga for women, although some stories are appropriate for teen readers. BL depicts love between two male characters. Boys’ love has two subsets: shounen-ai stories depict romantic love; yaoi also portrays romantic love between males, but is generally graphic in its depiction of sexuality.
Love Share is a yaoi manga from creator Aoi Kujyou. This story of ex-lovers does feature depictions of both romance and sexuality, but I’d call those depictions more rowdy than graphic. The two leads seem caught in a storm of passions, and like a passing storm, Love Share ebbs and flows in its powers to be engaging and gripping.
Love Share is the story of Matsuyama Kazushi and his on-again, off-again love Izumi Ogiwara. Kazushi has always been level-headed and hard-working. Izumi came into Kazushi’s life when he was still in high school, and while Kazushi may never have wanted his life to be taken over by the carefree rogue, he couldn’t resist Izumi. However, Izumi likes to run away when things get serious.
As the first chapter begins, one of Izumi’s lovers has confronted him, which Kazushi, now Izumi’s ex, witnesses. Suddenly, Izumi seizes the opportunity to be back in Kazushi’s life, and Kazushi reluctantly, at first, allows the fires of their passion to burn again. After a strange phone call, Izumi disappears again, but this time there seems to be more to it than just Izumi’s need to leave before a relationship turns serious. Kazushi is determined to solve the mystery, because if he doesn’t, he believes that whatever is troubling Izumi might make him leave for good.
It’s nice that Aoi Kujyou is willing to take a basic plot – a young man restarts a relationship with his ex-lover – and turn it into something more – the reason for the lover’s failure to commit are not shallow. The problem is that Kujyou isn’t willing to engage the potential in her story. She might establish motivation, but she executes the story in a way that conveys impressions rather than character and drama.
It’s even in the graphix (sequential art as storytelling). Kujyou draws vistas in which figures morph into cityscapes into sketchy close-ups of the characters. There are pages in which the individual panels look like stills from a flashy music video, depicting a torrid love scene. Love Share features elegant graphic design and the compositions emphasize style over drama. Love Story is as pretty as it could be, but it is not all it can be.
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