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Oct 13, 2012
What do you get when you combine a gag manga with a healthy dose of Boys' Love, then add buckets of puns, pop culture and manga references, and a large helping of psychedelic drugs?
This long running series (88 volumes) is by acclaimed author Mineo Maya, one of the rare (straight, he's married with kids) male manga artists to write BL. The title character is the 10 year old king of a tiny, diamond rich country called Malynera. An evil organization called the International Diamond Syndicate tries to assassinate Patalliro in order to gain control of his country's diamonds. Therefore during one of
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his visits to the UK, the MI6 sends its best agent, Major Jack Barbarossa Bancoran to serve as his bodyguard. The first couple of volumes is about how they fend off several attempts by the Syndicate to assassinate Patalliro. One of the assassins, the beautiful teenager Maraich, was caught and umm... subdued by Bancoran to leave the Syndicate and later becomes his lover. From there on the manga evolves into an endless series of extremely random stories revolving around the hijinks of Patalliro and his cohorts. While repelling the efforts of the Syndicate and other villains, our prepubescent hero gets into all kind of weird situations such as traveling back and forward in time to meet his ancestors and descendants (as well as that of Bancoran's), encounters with all kinds of strange things (aliens, dinosaurs, vampires, psychics, etc.), building a lover for his lovesick robot, etc. If you think this sounds like a manga for little kids, then you wouldn't be more wrong. Patalliro! contains quite a few softcore scenes of Bancoran and other pretty boys getting intimate in bed, not to mention the depiction of pedophilia, ephebophilia, and rape involving said pretty boys. While most of this is shown in a tongue-in-cheek manner, it's still more explicit than its contemporary BL manga such as From Eroica With Love.
The main characters are all likable and interesting in their own ways. Patalliro is certainly one of the most outrageous characters you'll ever see. He's a child genius who can cook up any kind of bizarre invention, change into any disguise in a split second, travel through time at will (this is just tip of the iceberg of how bizarre everything about him is), but the quality that makes the biggest impression is his remarkable wit and the relentless way he uses such wit to rile up and annoy everyone around him, especially Bancoran and Maraich. I will not even get into his famous Cock Robin Dance (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyD8j0IJ9GY), which I find inexplicably amusing. Bancoran and Maraich both have their quirks as well. Bancoran is kind of a parody of James Bond, except he's only into youthful pretty boys instead of women. He is dubbed the nickname "Bishounen Killer" because his eyes have the power to seduce any pretty boy and make them blush. Maraich is an extremely stereotypically effeminate boy who looks, dresses, and behaves like a girl. He gets very jealous and insecure whenever Bancoran gets involved with some other pretty boy. In later volumes he even gets pregnant twice and has a baby. (I told you the author must have been on drugs) In fact, most of the bishounen in this manga look very girly, Maraich just takes it to the next level.
The humor of this series is every bit as random as its plot. There are a ton of puns in every chapter, most of which only makes sense in Japanese and loses their effect for a non-speaker like me. There is a great deal of slapstick and dry humor. Even in serious and dramatic story arcs it never misses a chance to crack a joke or a pun. Sometimes this nonstop stream of jokes makes the story inconsequential, and this is more apparent in the chapters where the gags aren't quite as funny. To the author's credit these are few and far between. The series also frequently makes pop culture references, including references to contemporary shojo manga. While I don't get a lot of the more Japanese references, I really appreciate the nods to shojo classics such as Rose of Versailles, Kaze to Ki no Uta, and From Eroica With Love.
So there you have it. Patalliro! - hilariously insane BL nonsense, fueled by drugs.
Reviewer’s Rating: 9
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Aug 6, 2012
Hi Izuru Tokoro No Tenshi (Heaven's Son in the Land of the Rising Sun) was written by Ryokou Yamagishi, an esteemed member of the Magnificent 49ers group of female manga artists who revolutionized shojo manga and created works of art that can stand among the greatest works ever created in the medium. This is her magnum opus. The story takes place during the Asuka period in ancient Japan and is about the legendary Prince Shōtoku Taishi (here called by his birth name of Umayado) and his relationship with Soga no Emishi, a son of a powerful noble of the Soga clan.
The
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story captures 10 years of Umayado and Emishi's life from when they were 10 and 14 to 20 and 24, respectively. While the manga shows many of the historical events that took place during that time, it takes many liberties with the characters of the story. Umayado is portrayed as a charismatic, cold, calculating child prodigy with trap-like beauty (he often disguises himself as a girl, and he's mistaken by Emishi as a girl initially). In addition, he possesses supernatural powers such as the ability to call upon Buddhist demons, astral projection, and other weird powers that the manga doesn't really try to define. However his powers and intelligence alienates him from his mother (she being one of few people who notices his invisible powers and fears him), whose love he craves but cannot have. He's respected, feared, and hated by various parties of the royal court due to his political cunning and influence.
Emishi is the polar opposite of Umayado. He's kind to everyone and sensitive to the feelings of others. He cares more for books and culture than politics, much to the chagrin of his father, the head of the powerful Soga clan. As a result he can sometimes be naive and indecisive in view of other people. Maybe it's this kindness and Emishi's earnest treatment of Umayado as his friend - the kind of affection Umayado couldn't have before - that made Umayado fall in love him. In many ways their relationship is similar to that of Eiji and Ash of Banana Fish, although Umayado and Emishi rarely communicated as well with each other as the heroes of Akimi Yoshida's classic. In Emishi the prince finds a source of genuine warmth and happiness, an escape from the cutthroat and dangerous world of politics.
There is a large cast of other important characters (most notable being Emishi's tomboyish sister who has tortured feelings for her brother, Emishi's domineering father, and the beautiful princess of the Soga's rival clan whom Emishi falls for), each with their motives and ambitions.
While the relationship between Emishi and Umayado is central to the story, there are many other themes and subplots as well. Marriage plays a huge role in everything, as they are usually chosen for creating political ties and to gain power and wealth rather than for love. Polygamy is common among the nobles of the royal court, and some even marry their half siblings (checkout this Soga family relationship tree: http://i.imgur.com/gGOUu.jpg). The title of emperor, the head of clan, and other positions can be passed to a brother after death. One's bloodlines and political influence are both important for succession. Obviously, these practices fly in the face of the passions of the story's main characters. Also, in the early volumes the main conflict is between the Soga clan which supported the spread of the new Buddhist religion and has blood ties to the kingdoms of ancient Korea, and the Mononobe clan which opposed Buddhism in favor of Shintoism and represented the indigenous Japanese royalty. The manga shows how Umayado's political and military cunning helps the Soga bring ruin to the Mononobe. Throughout the manga Umayado helps the Soga clan (especially allying with Emishi's father) not so much because he's a clan member, but for Emishi's sake. For Emishi's love, he is willing to do anything, even if it means hurting Emishi in the process. Thus Yamagishi ties all of the layers of the story - the history, politics, religion, culture and customs - into its central relationship between the two boys. It's this kind of ambitious storytelling (and the unbelievably sad ending) that makes Yamagishi's masterpiece such a classic among shojo manga.
Reviewer’s Rating: 10
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