cover image Alcohol, Shirt and Kiss (Yaoi)

Alcohol, Shirt and Kiss (Yaoi)

Kuwabara Yuko. Digital Manga Publishing, $12.95 (0pp) ISBN 978-1-56970-840-8

Detective Naru's been dumped, so he's spending his nights drinking with his partner, Kita. After getting drunk, passing out and waking up naked with Kita, he isn't even sure what happened, and Kita is no help. It turns out Kita wants Naru, regardless of Naru's feelings or trauma. Naru's face is frequently drawn like a much younger manga-style character, and it's odd to see an eight-year-old's head on a grown man's body, especially during nude scenes. The sexual politics are similarly disturbing. For instance, when their boss finds out about Kita's plans and desires, he figuratively shrugs and tells Kita ""don't pick on him too much,"" instead of stopping one of his employees from trying to date rape the other. He condones it because Naru has erotic dreams about Kita, and Naru's innocence will teach Kita what love really means. There's a lot of fantasy in this book: when one police detective is licking another's ear at work, the story is clearly not intended to be realistic. In subsequent chapters, the two get jealous of each other in different ways, and they talk about wanting each other, but after the starting setup, much of the book is treading water. Yuko's art is standard for the yaoi genre.