Creator: Hanae Sakazaki (cartoonist) with Translation by Design (translator)
Publishing Information: Juné Manga/DMP, paperback, 184 pages, $12.95 (US)
Ordering Numbers: ISBN: 978-1-56970-737-1 (ISBN-13); 1-56970-737-5 (ISBN-10)
Rating: “M” for “Mature Audiences 18+”
Love Lesson is a collection of yaoi manga short stories from Hanae Sakazuki. Six short stories follow six couples and sometimes their friends, associates, and former lovers as they deal with the very painful first steps of new romance.
The title story finds mild-mannered math teacher, Haruto Shirai, fending off the aggressive advances of Akira Akagi, who is also a popular actor. Akira needs after school help because he is behind on his homework assignments, and Haruto begins to care deeply about his new pupil’s academic success. Or is there more to his concern than just being a good and caring teacher?
In “Uncle and Me,” Tohma discovers that he and his granduncle, Kiyomi, get along better with each other than they do with the rest of the family. The truth is, however, that Tohma loves his uncle – really, really loves him!
In this collection’s longest story, “Don’t Love Me Tender,” we meet the bed-hopping Tomo Miyazawa, the young man known by his many of his one-night stands as the “manslut.” Now, Ryo Harada, a saucy bartender and fellow college student, starts romancing Tomo. Although Tomo is ready to sleep with him right away, Harada insists that there be no sex until Tomo falls in love with him. That infuriates Tomo, but it also causes him to examine why he acts the way he does.
Some of the stories in Love Lesson are merely typical yaoi in which male characters take on the traditional roles of a heterosexual romance. That pretty much describes “Love Lesson” and “Blame it on Spring.” Other stories, such as “Uncle and Me” and “Don’t Love Me Tender,” address the personal and, to a lesser extent, social issues facing a gay couple. In fact, these gay romances are more complex in dealing with romance, self-doubt, and matters of the heart than a story like “Love Lesson.”
Although the background art is about as good as it is in most yaoi manga, the figure drawing by creator Hanae Sakazaki has an awkward quality that lends itself to depicting the emotionally charged content of a story like “Don’t Love Me Tender.” However, the art does nothing for a standard yaoi tale like the title story. Overall, Love Lesson is a pretty good collection mainly because Sakazaki offers as much heart-wrenching romance as she does sex. This makes the entire volume seem not so shallow.
B+
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