Renai Koufukuron
The Art of Loving

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The Art of Loving is dark and amazing. The story is well paced and the art is beautiful. The characterization is also believable. The only reason I gave the story just a seven is because Eiki Eiki has taken over seven years to publish the second volume. Anyone who likes dark/graphic yaoi should really enjoy this one. Just be prepared to be very frustrated when the cliffhanger ending comes and no second volume actually exists.

I never thought I'd say that masturbation scenes in a yaoi book is what would bump up the rating for me, yet here I am.

The Art of Loving "Part 1" (we'll see part two when Satan wears a parka), starts off promising, if you don't mind cliche yaoi school stories (I don't if the bishies are cute, and Yutaka is one chiquita banana - I actually bought this one just because of the cover), and takes an interesting turn once you find out that the hero is actually the villain. But once I started getting to the end and realized that it's going to end ... on a permanent cliffhanger, I quickly got annoyed. It's hard to pick apart the story when you don't get to see the real ending, because it may have explained away some inconsistencies (for example, how did Maki go from being an art student to a successful businessman?), but it's irritating that it didn't have a satisfying, well, *anything* at the end. There was barely anything in the story to warrant an M+ rating which was also disappointing, unless you count masturbation scenes, which oddly I found to be fairly titillating. Or maybe it's just hands covered in semen, I don't know. I need Jesus.

I do like Eiki' art, and she draws cute guys. Yutaka is an interesting and complex character, and the story has a lot of potential if it would ever get finished - but the fact that it is not complete is just really unsatisfying.