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FAKE FUR (ADVANCE REVIEW) |
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Friday, 20 April 2007 |
 | | ▪ | PUBLISHED BY: | | DIGITAL MANGA PUBLISHING | | | ▪ | ART/AUTHOR: | | SATOMI YAMAGATA | | | | ▪ | FORMAT/COLOR: | | JAPANESE FORMAT / BW | | | ▪ | PAGES: | | 200 | | | ▪ | RATED: | | 18+M | | | ▪ | RELEASE DATE: | | 04/25/2007 | | | ▪ | REVIEW DATE: | | 04/20/2007 | | | ▪ | REVIEWED BY: | | HOLLY ELLINGWOOD |
A telling drama about coming to terms with one’s sexuality, coming out, and being true to your heart and yourself, Fake Fur is an above average romantic drama with a touch of realism and depth. A stand alone manga, the story begins with high school student Yamashita. He longs to kiss another boy, he pines for it. His best friend Kubo is very dear to him and one day the truth comes out. It begins a journey of self-realization and often heart wrenching loneliness for Yamashita as he grapples with his sexuality, his desires, and what he truly longs for – love.
This is not your typical yaoi. It throws away the soap opera melodrama of the genre and instead imparts a tale of genuine feeling and often anguished depths of people often lost in a maze of loneliness and want. Yamashita’s journey of self-discovery has him dealing with fundamental questions about love versus lust, friendship versus a deeper connection, and about sex being used as an empty act to fulfill a deeper yearning for acceptance, warmth and love. As he enters into a potentially disastrous affair with a young man who takes home many lovers and keeps none, Yamashita finds something unexpected in the midst of his agony. He finds hope. After, he is in a relationship that has been kept casual when he is contacted after such along time by his best friend Kubo to come and see him. Now Yamashita will be faced with a choice: to discard his casual relationship to see what he might be able to find with his estranged friend, or to discover a surprising gift in the confessions of his current bed partner.
There is a sincere quality to the struggle of the characters in this story. Yamashita’s is not the only one either. Maki and Reni are two people he meets along his road of actualization. They are in a push and pull relationship that denies the true feelings underlying their strange emotional tug-of-war. For each of these characters, there is a very believable and sympathetic anguish to how alone each feels. There is something very real in the way each character tries to protect themselves and through that self-protection, end up hurting themselves far worse than they could have anticipated. It made for an unexpectedly emotionally moving read. The art work does a fine job of imparting the subtle emotions of the characters, particularly in the eyes. The wistful art style imparts the reflective longing of the characters.
IN SUMMARY:
Fake Fur is a yaoi manga of surprising emotional depth and powerful honesty in the characters’ struggles with identity, sexuality and love.
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