Things No One Cares About: My Only King

 I”m going to take you back to a simpler time, when my jokes made some sense and I actually had a semblance of a schedule, to remind you of that time I talked about Yaoi. More specifically the forgettable Alone in My King's Harem by Lily Hoshino. I mention that book again because Night Circus section of that book is still pretty great. Oh, and because today’s subject,My Only King, is yet another collection of yaoi shorts by the same manga-ka.

My Only King drops the more fantasy based art and feel of Alone in My King's Harem(AMKH) in favor of a more realistic feel. All the stories take place in what can be considered the real world outside of the last story which is more fantasy like. It seems to be the opposite of AMKH,which ended with the more real life based Flesh chapters. My Only King carries over some of the other titles problems while also improving on a few. The art is still down right beautiful even if the uke characters are even more girly than before. It lacks the dream like aspect that kept the first book from being totally forgettable but in turn improves the story telling quality to an extent. My Only King manages to give the stories some more depth and delivers a more solid collection.

The book begins with the titular story that takes up half of the book's eight chapters. The plot is a a simple set up with a normal guy getting the a crest meant for a king of another world and the boy sent to find it. The set-up is rather interesting and the whole time I felt like it was establishing a world with it's own rules for magic. Then it does nothing with it,apparently just an excuse to get our two leads into some mildly steamy kissing. This could have been so much more,the world and characters are there to make this into a half way decent comedy or even action series. Heck,this would have been a perfect way to start a reverse magical girlfriend show. Nope they kissed so might as well call it a day. What's that about magical crests,probably not important. It's a fine story but it wastes it's potential in an infuriating way.

Twinkle Twinkle Horoscope and The Ghost in the Bath take the idea that brevity is best and run with it. The former concerns a boy recently broken up with falling in love with his male friend. As the story plays out the boys are in a constant struggle with why they are exactly doing this,mind you mostly through sub text. Are the boys using each other to stop their own loneliness or just using the pretext of the horoscope to make the love they have acceptable in there mind. It ends after a kiss,which seems to be a connector for these stories. This is probably one of the stronger stories and the uke actually looks like a guy and not just a rejected Prunus Girl lead

The Ghost in the Bath sort of comes and goes so fast that I'm not sure what quite went on. A business man is haunted by a ghost possessing his bathtub. It plays out like a scene from a much larger work yet manages to feel like a complete work in way. The scene is the two talking about how they came to this and what there feelings are. It's adorable and feels like it could be expanded if the manga-ka wanted to. However it feels like a complete story regardless. The fourth story Mixed Chocolate is an extra episode to another series not featured in the book and is short and fluffy. Not worth talking about due to lack of knowledge and depth so I'll skip to the final stop,King and Rune.

This one is the second longest and while going with a three way relationship between two guys and a girl leaves no impact asides from some minor squik factor. We watch the main boy grow up as he is sold off again and again by a king he claims to hate. Yet he keeps getting sent back to the king's home to see an albino girl who no one wants to buy. However the eventual pairing ends up with the two guys together-in a yaoi manga,shocking I know-with the girl being a platonic third party. The younger boy's actions are trying to vilify the king so he doesn't have to admit the loves him and the king plays along with it. However once they do do the deed, it has this squiky feeling of raising yourself a young husband. It's not too bad and the actual relationship dynamics are interesting. It's saved from being the weakest story by Mixed Chocolate but even if it was it's still pretty great.

So another set of stores that were beautifully drawn with most of them on about the same level as Night Circus. It is a marked improvement outside of the Mixed Chocolate story that is rather out of place. It's an interesting collection that is more focused on the love aspect and not just sexy boy/boy action. Definitely worth checking out unless you have some personal vendetta against yaoi.

Till Next Time:Stay Positive

Things No One Cares About:Metroid(Manga)

We've finally reach the end of the road metaphorically speaking,arriving at the end manga wise and the beginning time line wise. It's been a long road with some nice paved roads with a small interlude on a dirt road filled with oil slicks and whatnot. Reading this manga a few week back is what inspired me to write again for better or worse. In some respects I do owe it that,on the other hand it's not that good so I do not owe it that much.

The Metroid manga was released as a tie-in of sorts to promote the remake of the original Metroid,Zero Mission. As mentioned previously it does take quite a few cues from Nintendo Power's(god rest its' soul) Super Metroid comics. Expanding heavily on Samus' back story as well as Mother Brain and the Galactic Federation to some extent. It is considered the canon back story that most games are supposed to be drawing from even if it contains/causes contradictions for some of the games. I'd say more but it involves Other M and I'm not opening that can of worms.

The plot as mentioned is a more detailed account of Old Bird's story from the Super Metroid comics giving us more insight on the Chozo's culture and how Zebes became a pirate stronghold. They give Samus and Old Bird more of a connection with him being her rescuer after Ridley's attack on Samus's colony. They also introduce the character of Grey Voice,who despite having a much important role in the second half,gets downplayed in the section concerning Samus' childhood. So once he does pull a big damn hero moment it lose some of it's impact. Mother Brain is introduced as the control computer of Zebes and gets a generic AI gone rouge personality. The story bring up some more ties to Metroid Fusion with the Chozo's discovery of the X-parasite. The Chozo decide to not tell the Federation about The X because they'd just screw it up. I'd give them more crap about that but knowing the Federation's track record it's probably for the better.

The Galactic Federation is in it's infancy here with the Space Pirate problem being a major issue that they spend about a chapter or so debating. It is sort of like the Phantom Menace senate scenes except much shorter They've redesigned Chairman Keaton in to a more of a wise old man and Hardy into a buddy cop police chief. The characters aren't that bad just one note which extends to most of the Federation characters. Adam Malkovich also makes his manga appearance here and again I am not going into Other M. He doesn't do much and it's baffling why Samus ends up trusting him so much. They get like two minor scenes together and she and him are great partners after that.

Samus herself has some fairly interesting growth here going from hotheaded young person to a strong responsible adult. The Chozo saddle her with heavy responsibility and the weight of that plus being slightly outcast develops her lone wolf personality. She struggles to deal with her past and ends up confronting it and finally accepting her destiny. This is also where they bring up Samus' PTSD with Ridely...and she overcomes it. It's a really great scene that is handled well and is a big turning point for Samus. That's all I'm going to say about it,moving on.

The plot itself is not really that bad overall it suffers from poor characters and everyone is just boring outside of Samus and Gray Voice. The story itself is presented well enough and flows really well till the end where it decided to tack on some weird direct prologue to the original game. It brings up a plot hole regarding the acquisition of Samus missiles and bombs. The whole section is rushed and feels out of place.

The art for the book is great and a bit meh at the same time. The alien races all look like something George Lucas would turn down for being to silly and are really generic. The Chozo look awesome even if their own version of the power suit is a tad ridiculous. The pirates and Ridley are on par with the penguins from Samus and Joey is terms of terrifying designs. On the other end of the spectrum young Samus is one of the cutest things I have seen in my life.

In the end this really is not that bad a manga just okay. It is lacking anything to make it stand out or be enjoyable like Samus and Joey.As far as canon goes we could get worse, they could have made the Echos manga canon. It is not worth checking out unless you really need a Metroid fix or want to see a bird man kick some serious ass.

Things No One Cares About:Alone In My Kings Harem

Long ago in the ancient past of April 2013,we visited Glass Wings. A short story collection playing with the ideas of love between men and women or in the last one's case just women. I tell you that to hopefully form a decent segue into today's book which is also a collection of short stories. However this time it is all about love between men and men who look like ladies with very little fighting to be had. The book was brought overseas by DMP who have quite a few books of this nature such as Almost Crying. Alone in My King's Harem is written by Lily Hoshino who would go on to draw the art for Mawaru Penguin Drum. Does this have any bearing on the book,not really, but hey at least were in for some nice art.

Similar to Glass Wings I'll get my art griping out of the way first then talk about the stories. The art is excellent plain and simple. Panels flow well,backgrounds are lovely and the guys are pretty,almost too pretty. Yes this is were the art does fall short,the uke characters simply look to girly for their own good. If they had not slapped the yaoi label on this I would have told you this was a book with four stories about straight people with a random yaoi story at the end. Would the stories be any weaker if they were not all boys,no. However the manga-ka set out to draw cute boys and failed half the time. Either way the art is still fantastic and gives the stories a dream like feel.

The first story is the title story about a king and his concubine and that's really it. The boy sticks with this man through his highs and lows and is rewarded with the King's love. It's pretty simple and offers nothing outside of good feeling and some cute guys action. The king is tall and handsome and looks a little like Holland Novak, while the concubine is pretty,too feminine and a little weird. I could question if this boy stays with him because he truly loves him or because he has no where else to go. The story is mostly fluff,enjoyable fluff,but fluff none the less.

The second story,Night Circus,is the highlight of the book and is very creative. It's told in the style of 4-koma comics and follows a young trapeze artist through his dreams. The visuals are weird and fanciful and requires a second read once you wrap your head around what is going on. Without spoiling much it is a different look at the eyes of someone who is into bestiality. It's an enjoyable mind screw that sort of erases the previous story from your mind. I won't say much else as it is very short but worth it. Moving on to next one.

The Seabed of Night has the same very fanciful qualities of Night Circus,while revisiting the king/servant dynamic from the title story. It involves a brothel that grants impossible wishes ran by Rosine. The prince inspects the place with his loyal servant and said servant makes a deal with the owner to spend the night with the prince. The realize they love each other and ride off home. It's not bad with the idea of love from afar being akin to looking up from the bottom of the sea. The very dreamy art helps add to the places other worldness. It is probably the most explicit story after the last tale but even then not much is shown. Again a little more too it than Alone in My King's Harem(AMKH) but still pretty fluffy.

Up fourth is Adventures of a Canary returning to the more realistic style of AMKH. It follows a good looking guy and a guy working at a lounge,then he escapes and they run off. Like the concubine there is a question of is this really love or does he have no where else to turn to. Not much else to say about the story,it offers one twist that makes sense if you think about it and it is heartwarming. That's it,the art is still good and works. The last story is where this book goes weird.

The last story is two chapters:Mature Flesh and Moist Flesh. The previous tales have all had a more fantasy slant to them and can be taken as heart warming love stories. This one instead is a generic high school boy story that is really nothing more than hentai. It's not bad if that's what you want but it is just so different than the other stories. This is very jarring when up till now there has been implied sex and this one is almost two straight(pardon the pun) chapters of hot guys boning. Did I like it...yes but that does not make it any less out of place here.

In the end is this collection worth it,maybe. The art is lovely but the fact that some of the boys look too girly may kill it for some yaoi fangirls or help the non-yaoi crowd. Other than that there isn't much to it. Oh,Night Circus is excellent and well worth the two minutes it takes to read. Everything else is enjoyable fluffy romance(or hentai) and that is fine. Those looking for something more substantial would be better off with something like Heart of Thomas.

Till next time Stay Positive