Boys Next Door Reviews

Rating: ♦♦♦♦

Color me surprised. Yaoi Press has finally put out a title that I really enjoyed. Three stories and I only cringed at one of them.

The first story, “Saihoshi the Guardian” by KOSEN, is just lovely. The art is crisp, the story flows nicely and there are these great bits of humor that keep the story bouncing along. It’s a nice twist on the normal fairy tale with a completely self-centered prince, a selfless guardian and a pretty serving boy caught in the middle. I’m really looking forward to the next part of this story to see just what happens.

The second story didn’t thrill me as much. “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” just didn’t have the same punch that the other two stories in the collection had. The art wasn’t quite up to par with the rest of the work in the collection either. It seemed like the editors were searching for something that kind of fit with the fairy tale/medieval setting of the first story and settled on this one.

The last story in the collection, “Closed Flower”, makes up for the disappointment with the second story. It’s drawn beautifully and is a unsettling story. I like stories that unsettle me and make me think. It’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea, but I really enjoyed it.

If Yaoi Press is going to keep producing quality work like this, I may be more likely to buy their products. It’s not oh-my-god-run-out-and-buy-this-now amazing, but it was a damn good read.

Rating: ♦♦♦♦

As much as I usually don’t care for works from Yaoi Press, I do find myself being drawn to Kôsen’s work. The art is deep and lush with incredibly pretty boys and the plotlines are fairly engrossing. All of which contribute to making me happy that I spent the money for the book instead of bitching about wasting my money. This book is no exception. I love the title story, and for once with a Yaoi Press release, I did not hate the other stories that were included in the book.

When we last left our heroes they were in fairly dire straits. Kôsen managed to take a fairly trite fantasy story and turn it into something sweet and refreshing with sly doses of humor to cut through the sweetness. I just wish we could find out what happened to the horn-ball of a prince.

The companion story in Saihoshi, Volume Two revolves around a little fox-boy who’s been bred for pleasure and the mercenary who’s taken it upon himself to free him from captivity and take him under his wing. While the art isn’t fully my cup of tea, it’s a nice story and fairly compelling.

But I guess after art like Kôsen’s, just about everything falls short. I truly wish that Kôsen would get more books on their own. Their talents are wasted in having to share books with others.

At least this time Yaoi Press didn’t fill the middle of the book with advertisements for up and coming releases. They stuck all of the advertising in the back of the book. I’ve got no problem reading about up-and-coming books when they’re placed at the end of the book I’m reading. Hell, I’m planning on buying two of the releases they mentioned, but their old style of placing adds in the middle of the books just completely turned me off. If I want ads in the middle of my reading, I’ll pick up a magazine or a newspaper thank you very much.

Here’s hoping we get some more OEL manga that’s as high quality as the stuff that Kôsen’s been releasing. I hate to turn into a drooling fangirl, but their work just brings that out of me in spades.