Akane Abe

The first chapter here sets this up as a story about a band breaking up due to time and motivation differences. In particular, one character quits, but actually does wish to go professional with his music. However, he cannot admit this to his band mates, struggling with the common teenage problem that putting real effort into something or having dreams comes off as too intense and therefore uncool. This chapter holds barely a hint of romance or 'slashyness.'

The chapter isn't particularly interesting but not particularly bad, and at least it's a little different from the usual yaoi, though if it didn't get to the romance soon after my interest would not be held for an entire volume. But after the first chapter, the story dives into the romance right away. Unfortunately, though, it splits the four band members off into couples and tells their little romances separately. Most of the information and setup given in the first chapter is rendered useless, with the only really important bit being the characters' names, and the fact they know each other. The stories of both couples are a case of one-sided love where the unrequited keeps hanging around the object of their affection, the other tolerating them because they were former band members and somewhat-friends, till eventually their feelings are returned (with little reason for these sudden changes of heart).

I didn't feel much convincing romance or feelings of attraction, concern, or passion between any of the characters. In the first coulpe's case, the unrequited lover acts like a busy sweet, doting little housewife while around his partner but like a mostly normal, fairly masculine guy when around his friend. Yet the latter seemed to me to be his real personality, and the way the manga seemed to suggest it was cute or sweet that he pretty much had to act like a different person in order to get the other guy to like him irritated me. In the case of the second couple, the guy likes the other cause he looks like his former girlfriend, who he's clearly still hung up on, only in the end he suddenly announces that actually he isn't really and he likes his band mate for himself, an entirely unbelievable development.

The best thing about this volume is definitely the art. Guys are pretty but masculine, and easy to tell apart. Though if you're looking to get this for the sex, don't, because the sex scene is (I kid you not) one page long. There are a couple pages of them sitting around in bed afterward, though, if you count that.

Though this didn't irritate me as much as a lot of yaoi and the writing sometimes wasn't quite as bad, I'm going to give this a little lower than average anyway. Though some things about this story were ok, none of them were strong enough to take away attention from the fact that the main point of a yaoi is the romance or sex, and that those here are so unaffecting, even if not THAT horribly flawed, that the whole thing is pretty underwhelming.… (meer)