Sleeping Moon, Vol. 1

To discover the curse that leads to the early deaths of men in the Odagawa family, two male cousins skirt the borders of the supernatural and romance in this eerie yaoi (boys’ love) manga. Akihiko Odagawa is nearing 30, the age at which the men in his family must start worrying about untimely deaths. He returns to the family home, where he discovers his cousin, Ren, has given up on a future, unable to break the curse himself. But then, Akihiko dreams himself into the past, where a Meiji era distant relative is working on breaking the curse as well. With fox spirits, household demons, and time slips to contend with—not to mention Ren’s sexual pursuit of Akihiko, the one man who shares his fate—Akihiko finds himself drawn deeper into the supernatural world, but no closer to breaking the curse. Miyamoto captures the sense of time running out in the atmospheric artwork, and there is palpable tension in the illustrations of the doomed cousins. A strong series opener. (June)