I'm Not Your Steppin' Stone

Twenty-three-year-old construction worker Kazuya loves soft, plump girls (that is, girls with large chests), so how exactly is it he's ended up in bed with a hard, cold-hearted guy who's still a senior in high school?! Kazuya has a crush on the sister of seventeen-year-old high school genius Masashi, but the problem is, Kazuya never even went to high school, and Masashi's sister only likes smart guys. Masashi offers to tutor Kazuya so he can take his high school equivalency test and attend night college, but in return, he wants payment with Kazuya's body. Even though Kazuya has never been with a guy before, he wants Masashi's help, and after a few "study sessions," Kazuya can't deny that sex with Masashi feels pretty damn good. Too bad Masashi is such a tight-lipped jerk, and simple, honest Kazuya can't really tell just how his younger lover really feels.

The storyline of Shiuko Kano's I'm Not Your Steppin' Stone is pretty flimsy, and it certainly isn't as if we haven't seen its like before. A cold, stone-faced seme all but tricks a more emotional uke, who's never even thought about men sexually before, into bed, and eventually the uke falls in love. The same conceit has been done in dozens of yaoi manga to varying degrees of interest and success, but the plotline works in I'm Not Your Steppin' Stone because the manga is so unrepentantly dirty. Mangaka Shiuko Kano, queen of the hot manly construction workers of BL manga, treats us to deliciously detailed scenes of hardcore sex, sucking and masturbation every few pages with absolutely nothing left to the imagination. From detailed depictions of Masashi's "alien"-sized erection wrapped in a wet towel for his pleasure, to extreme close-ups of the most intimate moments of anal sex, Shiuko Kano shows every last detail, tempered by the kind of smoothly masculine beauty only found in the very best yaoi artwork.

I'm Not Your Steppin' Stone may not be the most enlightened yaoi manga ever written, but the plot that gets slipped in between the erotic scenes isn't dull, at least. At times, the conflicts between Kazuya and Masashi don't make complete sense, which could be due either to confusion in the original text, or because of a slightly confusing translation. For the most part, Masashi's awkward insistence on Kazuya's attention, and Kazuya's standard protest that he shouldn't enjoy sex with a guy because he isn't in to guys, are clear and obvious character traits. Every now and then, however, suddenly the pair are fighting or turning away from each other, and it's difficult to say exactly why. The confusion never lasts long, though, but usually it's because the couple is rolling into bed again for another soul-cleansing sex scene!

For their late 2007 releases, 801 Media seems to have switched to a very nice matte color dust jacket in place of the shiny covers the first releases wore. I'm Not Your Steppin' Stone mimics the original Japanese tankoubon cover very well, and in fact, even less of the artwork is covered up by text in 801's version of the cover. Most fans seem to want English releases that are just like the Japanese releases, only with the text replaced in English translation, and that is pretty much what 801 Media delivers. The full-color first page and the Free Talk section in the back are always nice extras to have, too.

For connoisseurs of fine boys' love plot and characterization, I'm Not Your Steppin' Stone may not have a whole lot to offer, but Shiuko Kano's sexy men and deliciously detailed art certainly cater to those of us with more debauched tastes. Fans of steamy adult yaoi manga should not pass up adding this title to their collections.