Boys Next Door Reviews

Rating: ♦♦♦♦

I shouldn’t have been as charmed by this release as I was - yet re-interpretation of fairytales has always been one of my downfalls.

This release opens up with a mish-mash of the Little Mermaid fairytale. Haru has always used a giant clam as his sounding board. Every time something’s gone wrong in his little world, he would go and cry to the giant clam and tell it all of his secrets.
The giant clam was listening. After one night of tearful confessions from Haru, the giant clam prayed to be given a form that he could comfort Haru with.
It’s wish was granted, and he became a mermaid. The only thing was that he wasn’t given a voice, so, he has no way of comforting Haru, or even letting him know that he is the giant clam that Haru is now going crazy looking for.

You can see where this is going. It’s cheesy. I’ve seen it before, but damn if it doesn’t pull the right strings and leave me with that warm, fuzzy, just petted a basket of puppies feeling.

This release is really a great example of the whole being worth more than the sum of it’s parts. Taken individually, the stories, and the art wouldn’t be enough to make this stand out - but on a whole, this series sticks with you, and is going firmly on the keeper shelf, to be read when I want to just smile, and let happy fluff spill all over me.

Rating: ♦♦♦♦

You know, it’s kind of nice to get back to vampires that are demonic and bloody. Most of the vamps that we get in manga form are too lilly-white to be able to cause some real carnage.

Not so for the vamps in this release. Lots of gore, complete with hearts being ripped out of chests. While I’m not a huge horror fan, vamps should be a bit forbidden and scary. They can’t be sexy and mysterious all the time. Hell, they’re supposed to be killers, not saints.

When we last left these guys, Sein was recovering from an attack by his older brother, Verloren. His devoted human Lou wants nothing more than to be first in Sein’s eyes, and to keep him strong.

Verloren has different ideas for his brother, and is going to do everything he can to turn Sein into a killer like him.

What really makes me happy is the mix of serious drama, and silly, silly art. One moment things are very detailed and all of a sudden Lou says or does something that’s exasperating/cute, and the characters go super deformed for a panel or so.

While there wasn’t quite enough romance to make this a truly stellar release for me, it was really damn good - and something that’s going directly to the keeper shelf.

Rating: ♦♦♦♦

I didn’t think I was going to like this one. I mean, it had good art, and a cute cat. But, good art and a cute cat will only take you so far.

I need some substance to really bring me over, and thankfully, this one had substance.

All Atsu wants in life is a dog. All Junya wants in life is Atsu. Once they hit college, Junya decides to make his feelings clear, confusing the hell out of poor Atsu.

My favorite scene was when our two heroes finally get together. They’re getting all hot and heavy, when Junya’s cat decides to make his prescience known, by leaping on to Junya’s back.
Being the owner of a fat, clumsy and rather stupid cat, I found this to be hysterical.

This release is filthy, graphic and far too endearing. I’m not familiar with this artist, but she reminds me of Takakura Row, when it comes to the amount of detail she puts into her characters, and just how dirty they are.

I’m also reminded of just why I like 801’s releases in the first place. They’re graphic (no glowing cones of light here) and they usually have some substance to back up the filth.

Substance in my smut, who ever would have thought!

Rating: ♦♦♦♦

I always enjoy Makoto Tateno’s work. I’ve really been happy with this series, and it’s follow up, Steal Moon. There’s something about this dystopian society, with assassins and cabals that just pushes all of my buttons.
Plus, there’s angst and pretty boys screwing. Hell, throw in some Mecha and some teenage pilots, and this would be my version of Gundam Wing.

I love the tension between Kai and Lahti. By now, I shouldn’t be all impressed with Tateno’s deft handling of angst, and longing, but she still manages to get me every time.

Kai wants Lahti, but Lahti is giving off mixed signals. Then there’s the underlying drama of Lahti’s assassin sister, Maria, who captured Kai’s heart - and his conflict with his perfect image of Maria, and the truth of the assassin that she really is.

What drives me crazy is that I shouldn’t like this as much as I do. In one scene, Lahti hauls off and smacks Kai across the face, and Kai goes crawling back to him, like a puppy dog who doesn’t know any better.
My femmi-nazi self is screaming that I should be offended by this, not turned on and enthralled, yet, I’m sucked in and left wanting more.

That’s the talent of Tateno. This is old-school, stereotypical BL. The stuff that normally makes me cranky. Yet, when presented this well, I find myself remembering exactly why I like the genre in the first place.

I’m just in it for the angst.

Rating: ♦♦♦♦

I’ve been waiting so long for this volume, that I pretty much forgot what had happened in the first two volumes.
Thankfully, I caught myself up pretty quickly. This isn’t one of those deep thought mangas that has lots and lots of complicated plot twists. No, this is pretty straightforward, boy meets other boy, boys boink, and then complications arise to keep boys from boinking.
Just to catch all of you up, we have Tokumaru and Hasune. Tokumaru is good at anything athletic, but is a dismal failure at almost everything else. Hasune is the head of his family’s tea house, and his charged with trying to teach Tokumaru some grace and manners.
Cue some hilarity with Tokumaru being a klutz, and winning over Hasune with his bubbly personality and we’ve got a relationship.

In this volume, it’s summer break, and Tokumaru is faced with trying to figure out what he wants to do with the rest of his life. Nothing like putting the pressure on! When he’s given the opportunity to look into attending a sports college, where his lack of book knowledge is not going to be held against him, Tokumaru thinks that he’s got it all figured out.
Hasune takes this as an opportunity to tutor and molest Tokumaru at every possible opportunity. Now, the question is if Tokumaru will be able to stay with Hasune or will his future plans pull them apart.

You know, if this wasn’t so well drawn, and so charming, I don’t think I would care for it as much. It’s really nothing special, when you look at the basic plot, but, there’s something with the quality of the art, and the situations the characters find themselves in, which turn this into a series that I’m happy to wait for.

I have volume four pre-ordered on Amazon.com, and it’s slated for delivery in April. Let’s hope that the release date doesn’t get pushed back too far, now that I’m remembering how much I like this series, I don’t want to wait too long to read the rest of it!

Rating: ♦♦♦♦

I have waited a long time to hold a book by Becca Abbott in my hot little hands. She was always one of my favorite Gundam Wing authors that we archived here at BND. Her stories were always filled with pain and heartache, yet tempered with passion and sweetness.
SL Publishing Group has picked a real gem to be their first foray into print books. This is going to appeal to the yaoi fans, as well as to fans of m/m fiction who want a good dose of high fantasy with their relationships.
I happen to be a sucker for high fantasy, so this book pushed all of my happy buttons.

Stefn is a sin-eater. Sin-eaters are humans who are born with a deformity and everything that goes wrong is laid to blame at their feet. Despised by his family because of his deformity, Stefn spends his days wrapped up in ancient histories and books.
There’s a revolution brewing. The church, which Stefn’s family owes full allegiance has grown corrupt and power hungry. The king of the land is in a drug addled haze. The king’s brother will do everything in his power to save the kingdom of Tanrin; even if it means bringing back forbidden Naran sorcery.
A coup is staged, and Stefn is the only male member of his family left alive.
He’s left alive for one reason, to serve as the conduit of power for Michael Arranz, who’s descended from the demon race of Naragi. Michael’s blood is one of the purest left, and he needs a conduit if the plans to save the country are to be fruitful.

Enter in Stefn – abused, sheltered and believing fully that the demon race is evil, and that he must do everything in his power to thwart Michael’s plans.
Yet, it’s hard to rebel when you’re very being is tied to what you hate most in the world - When it holds you in a web of pleasure and friendship, greater than anything that Stefn has ever known.

This book too me to a place that few books are able to bring me to. A place where you don’t even notice that time is passing, yet you’re spending hours devouring every word on the page. I was sad when I found that I only had a few chapters left. I wanted the book to keep going, to spend more time with these characters.
I knew I was going to like this book, based on the strength of Abbott’s previous writing, but I wasn’t expecting to like it quite this much. If this is the quality of work that SL Publishing Group is going to be releasing, then we’re all in for a big treat.

Rating: ♦♦♦♦

I have been waiting for this one! I had forgotten just how gorgeous Modoru Motoni’s artwork is. Her boys seem so real–awkward and over-emotional. Their feelings are screaming at them to do one thing, yet they’re pushing away to protect themselves.

I really surprises me how much I like this series when I hated her other release, Poison Cherry Drive with the burning fire of a thousand suns. I guess it just goes to show you what you can do with a coherent plot line.

Now that Teru and Miki have settled into a strange sort of routine, of course, things have to come in to pull them apart. This wouldn’t be BL with out a boatload of problems keeping our heroes from committing to each other, right? Posturing, violence and remnants from their pasts keep our heroes in a state of flux until they start to smarten up and realize what’s really important.

It’s hard to pair violence and a bittersweet romance together, and have it work, but that’s what this series has done. I’m going to miss this series. I’m hoping that there’s going to be more from Modoru Motoni, but only if it’s of the caliber of Dog Style. Life’s too short to waste my time on crappy manga.

Rating: ♦♦♦♦

Angst, guns, violence, sex and a computer on the moon set on destruction. Oh, and bastardized Egyptian myths. I don’t think they could have fit any other plot devices in this series if they tried. You would think with a mix like this, the story wouldn’t work, but it does. Just like every other story by Tateno. I get pulled into the eroticism of the story and it all works together.

Nozomi’s on the run after Coyote’s betrayal, but ends up getting sucked back into the intrigue and mystery surrounding Isis–the computer on the moon I mentioned. Nozomi believes that Coyote didn’t feel anything for him, but we all know that’s not true. Throw in an extremely hot sexual torture scene and you’ve got a confirmed couple ready to take on anything to save the other one–even if it means sacrificing one them to save the other.

I can’t say enough good things about this series. Like all of Tateno’s works, it grabs you viscerally and doesn’t let go. One of the best things that June has done has been to license and bring over her works!

Rating: ♦♦♦♦

I think part of the reason that I like this series so much is because Misaki is such an average guy. He’s in a position to interact with people who are not average and is bemused as to why Misaki reacts the way he does. I don’t know why it’s taken me ten volumes to come to this conclusion. Something in this volume just made it stand out very clearly to me. There was a scene where Misaki gets to meet one of his favorite manga-ka, an artist who’s drawing a series about a chef, and Misaki reacts in a sane yet fanboyish way.

It’s something I would do if I ever got the chance to meet one of my favorite artists. And, looking back on the series, I realized that what makes it so endearing is watching this average guy react to these insane situations. His normality is being skewed to match the insanity around him and he’s just struggling to keep up. It’s very cute and will keep me reading this series for a long time to come.

So, in this volume we have more family drama, Usami getting jealous, trying to make deadlines, and tons of Misaki just trying to be Misaki.

If you’re not already a fan of this series, I’m not sure what’s stopping you from giving this one a try. It’s lovely, happy and just cute enough to be endearing without crossing the line into being saccharine and overdone.

Rating: ♦♦♦♦

I must admit to being a fan of Locke’s before she was discovered by Torquere Press. Hell, I like her writing so much that some of her fan work is on BND! Anyway, enough of my fangirl babbling!

Meet Ryzel. Ryzel is an incubus. He is sexy with his long hair and unearthly stamina. Now, meet Quinlin. Quinlin is a psychically gifted human and a delightful, if bitchy, treat for Ryzel.

After a hot one-night stand, Ryzel and Quinlin can’t stop thinking about each other. It doesn’t make sense at all to either of them. Can Quinlin really be the lover of an energy-feeding sex demon? And, does he want to be? What will Ryzel have to give up to keep Quinlin by his side? Fortunately, meddling parental figures, friends and even enemies help the duo figure out what is going on between them.

Honestly, Blind Desire is devilishly fun. I wanted more, though! It seems to me like the story could’ve had more external conflict to push Ryzel and Quinlin together. The bond they share is great, but I just want more angsting. Suffering makes the sex even better, in my opinion. Not that I’m complaining about the plentiful–hey, we are talking about an incubus here–sex scenes, mind you!

Now, this is the first published piece for Locke. I think this is a great start too. There is a well thought out setting, enough humor and a generous amount of pretty boys humping in this story. Perhaps we’ll see a sequel to Blind Desire in the future?