talyseon's Full Review: Reiichi Hiiro - Romantic Illusions
Romantic Illusions. By Reiichi Hiiro
Warning: This is a Yaoi Novel. Yaoi is Japanese art form, graphic novels depicting romances between men. They are usually written by women, for women. They can range from sweet romances to quite racy and explicit. Also, there are certain themes beyond this that the Japanese take as a matter of course, but that can be disconcerting to Westerners. If this is not your cup of tea, well, you have been warned!
This is a rather unusual Yaoi because it features a love triangle. What is unusual about that, you may ask? Many Yaoi have triangles, quadrangles, pentagons....
This love triangle takes place in one person's head. Igarashi Yu is a multiple personality. Yu is the core personality, and the weakest, joined by Igarashi Kaname, an elite lawyer who provides for their financial needs. Ryo is a playboy, a predatory slut who roams the night. Both of these personalities were created to love Yu, which, while making him feel very secure, does very little to make him a fully functional person. Their case is unusual because they can all speak with each other and frequently switch upon request.
While Kaname and Ryo both love Yu, Ryo frequently brings home boys, which is awkward for Yu, who is usually the personality who is in charge when they wake up. Both Ryo and Kaname can control Yu's right hand, which is how they express their love for him, but Yu wants more than just to be a serial masturbator.
Yu works part time in a florist shop, and there he meets a man Sugo-san. Sugo likes Yu, but Kaname and Ryo do not like Sugo even a little bit, and do all they can to slow the path of love. But when they do actually start dating, Kaname and Ryo fall strangely silent. If their only function is to love Yu, what happens to them if Yu is getting his emotional needs met?
Worse, it comes out that Sugo is a psychiatrist, and was first drawn to Yu because of his condition! Yu feels betrayed, and Kaname and Ryo are vindicated.
Then the first exterior complication arises; Prosecutor Amamiya discovers Yu and Sugo's romance. The opponent of Kaname, he has developed a passion for his adversary, and is determined to have him!
As if that was not bad enough, Ryo also meets someone, a mysterious man known only as Dionysus. Totally captivated, Ryo moves heaven and earth to find him again.
But if Kaname and Ryo only exist to love Yu, then why are they developing relationships of their own? And how is the one body of Yu going to juggle having three boyfriends?
As I said, this is an unusual yaoi, heavier on plot than sex, (though it does get rather graphic in several steamy sequences) and while there are some discrepancies about how disassociative personality disorder actually works, we are willing to forgive these for the sake of the plot.
The art of this yaoi is very nice; Yu, the Uke (passive partner) in most situations, (Ryo and Kaname are more Seme (active partner) with their partners) is not girly or possessed of huge eyes. And in point of fact, as Ryo, he holds his eyes narrower, with a harder look, which helps distinguish the two personalities. (Kaname uses a washable hair dye and wears glasses.) Her anatomy skills are very good, and it uses greytone shading to very good effect, giving the whole work a nice clean line and uncluttered feel. She also is very big on backgrounds, filling most of them in, making her work far more detailed than many of her compatriots.
She handles the issue of censorship as so many Yaoi-ka do by simply not drawing in the penis, leaving a suggestion of it by shape or by the hand gripping empty air. When she does draw it in, it is with a minimalist approach. While not much is left to the imagination about what is going on, it still is tamer than many more Hentai titles.
Her writing skills are well above average, and even her angsty passages come across as much less whiny than your average Yaoi (Japanese women love angst). Taken together, the combination of good art with good writing and a truly unusual romance makes this one of the most enjoyable Yaoi I have come across in months. I highly recommend it.
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