Legal Drug: It Can Become Addictive
Written: Mar 10 '09
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Good tension in the story and relationships -- it has the edge.
Cons: Series seems to be in hiatus.
The Bottom Line: I like it -- good edgy story and characters, elegant, clean graphics. A real 4.5.
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| rmthunter's Full Review: Ageha Okahwa - Legal Drug |
Legal Drug is a somewhat surreal manga series from Studio CLAMP that treads perilously close to yaoi but never quite crosses the boundary -- at least, not yet. (Note: Since the manga follows Japanese usage for names, I will as well: family name first, followed by personal name.)
It's Christmas time and Kudo Kazahaya is about to freeze to death. He is rescued by a large and somewhat enigmatic young man named Himura Rikuo, who takes him back to the Green Drug Store, where he is given a job and a room -- as Rikuo's roommate -- by the manager, Kakei. The fourth member of this little group, Saiga, is even larger than Rikuo, and seems to do nothing but nap and smoke, always wearing a pair of dark sunglasses. We soon are given the unmistakable impression that his relationship with Kakei is quite intimate, while that between Rikuo and Kazahaya is -- well, "edgy" seems to fit.
Did I mention that everyone seems to have special talents? Kakei has precognitive ability, although it's useless against anyone stronger than he, while Rikuo can break things without touching them. Kazahaya is something of an empath and possesses a strong talent for psychometry: he picks up "memories" from objects he touches. Saiga is merely very good at finding things. As it happens, Kakei regularly has "special" jobs for Rikuo and Kazahaya that require these abilities, and Kazahaya always accepts them because he needs the money: he wants to move into his own place because, among other things, his relationship with Rikuo is not what you'd call stress-free. It's these special jobs that provide the stories within the larger arc, and, given their nature, also contribute most of the surreality.
What's more important in this first volume is that we begin to get glimpses of the pasts that haunt both Kazahaya and Rikuo, both involving women whose relation to our heroes -- Sisters? Lovers? -- is undefined. And there is the evolving relationship between the two young men, which is fluid and complex and seems to have at its core a strong element of attraction/repulsion -- although we get the feeling as the story goes along that Rikuo has a slightly different take on the possibilities than Kazahaya does, or at least is more prepared to admit them to himself. In fact, the attraction seems to be a very deep and dominant element.
I mentioned that this series veers close to yaoi, which is true: it's fairly obvious that Kakei and Saiga are lovers, given their casual intimacy, although they are not the focus. The relationship between Rikuo and Kazahaya provides the tension in this area, borne out in the images as much -- or perhaps more -- than in the dialogue: one of the first images we have of them together is of Rikuo embracing Kazahaya as he pulls him from the snow. It's an image that reads very strongly as something more than necessity, and one that is repeated again and again with small variations: Rikuo spends an inordinate amount of time rescuing Kazahaya, and those rescues seem invariably to involve what I can only call protective physical contact. I'm told that CLAMP will tease readers with this sort of thing until they are ready to scream. It seems this time, though, that they may come through.
The graphics definitely partake of a bishounen ("pretty boy") aesthetic, and Kazahaya, although relatively big-eyed, makes a somewhat more appealing uke (mmm -- uke-to-be?) than the usual. Graphics are clean and definite, and the style is definitely shoujo.
So far, three volumes of a projected fifteen have been released, and although CLAMP has stated that they are resuming work on the series, as of December, 2008 there's been no further word. I've read this volume and volume 2, which opens up the possibilities for Kazahaya and Rikuo even farther, and plan on getting hold of volume 3 as soon as I can. And then hoping that CLAMP gets its collective act together and starts turning out the continuations, because this looks like a good one: although I enjoy the romantic elements in shounen-ai and yaoi immensely, there is an equal enjoyment in watching the tension in developing relationships, and Legal Drug has that in full measure.
Recommended:
Yes
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Epinions.com ID:
rmthunter
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 in Books |
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Member: Robert Tilendis
Location: Close to the lake
Reviews written: 334
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