Hello everyone! I recently finished reading a shounen-Ai manga and i'd like to say some words about it...I don't know if this post can be considered a review but i'll try
Name: Complex
Mangaka: Manda Ringo
Year: 1996
Genre: soft yaoi, shounain-AI, slice of life, romance, drama, shotacon
Plot: Tatsuya and Shinozaki are in 5th grade and their music teacher is a perverted pedo. One day the music teacher has a request for Yumi, a girl who uses him to get expensive gifts. He wants her to get Tatsuya into the music room so he can be with him. Shinozaki recently confessed his feelings for Yumi and she decides to use him as bait to get Tatsuya to go to the music room. Shinozaki and Tatsuya's future does not look good...
Note: Only chapters 1 of volume 1 and chapter 7 of volume 2 are shotacon.
The theme of the manga is ''Eternal Love''. The story explores the life of the two main characters(Tatsuya and Junichi). It starts when they were 6th graders and the storyline continues like this : middle school, high school, university....until their end and almost 2 generations later.
Ratings: Most of the ratings i saw were positive. Many loved it(this category includes me). Others had mixed feelings and some didn't like it (1 or 2 people? maybe?...).
My rating: I really loved it, and it touched me (even though i'm not the most sensitive guy in the world). It contains a little shotacon action (i'm not a very big fun of that genre) but it's not something very serious and the 2nd scene can be skipped because it doesn't affect the main story at all. I believe that this manga teaches some important lessons about life... and as the story moves on, you will eventually realise, how short life is, and that you should cherish the precious happy moments...
The art: at first wasn't as good as in later chapters. It gets better (a little 90s style of course), I don't consider myself suitable to rate it so: 10/10
The storyline was a little idealistic and at first wasn't as interesting as it is later but still very touching, and strangely, different from most yaoi mangas: 8/10
Overall rating (for me
): 9/10
I can't express my exact feelings but i'm 100% sure that i loved it and it stigmatized me(in a good way). It's not the kind of manga that you read the 1st chapter and then you can guess the whole story, you must read the whole manga. It's not just a love story, sometimes it gets a little idealistic, but the situations could happen in real life.
Recommended for those who are more romantic and don't mind tears.
I hope you will love this manga!
Can be found (in english, completed) in:
http://manga.animea.net/complex.html
(unfortunately mangafox deleted the manga...
)
by EmanGr