Love is Like a Hurricane

When Love is Like a Hurricane was announced at the freshly-minted 801 Media kickoff panel at Yaoi-Con 2006, the squeals of fans were almost deafening. Reactions like that are usually saved for really incredible series, so even though I had never heard of the title before, I expected a lot out of it. I'm not sure quite what I was expecting, only after reading the first two volumes of Tokiya Shimazaki's Love is Like a Hurricane, I don't quite feel like I got... whatever it was.

The books follow two boy/boy couples who attend the same high school, though the focus is usually on little Mizuki, the reluctant cranky uke with an attitude. You can tell he's going to be the uke, not only because he's the standard short blond round-faced large-eyed high school type, but because in the first two pages of the first volume, he's getting molested on the train on his way to school. Why he doesn't fight back is either a plot hook or a Japanese cultural thing, but he doesn't, and come to find out it's not some dirty old man fondling and pleasuring Mizuki, but instead the president of his high school's student council, Azuma. Though friendly and self-confident at school, Azuma clearly has a few social problems because he never seems to see a problem with groping Mizuki wherever and whenever he sees fit, despite Mizuki's constant, loud, vociferous protests. I know that the cranky, protesting uke who secretly enjoys the physical pleasure of sex with another guy is a yaoi manga staple, but in Love is Like a Hurricane it just feels a little too staple. Mizuki is forever struggling while Azuma never seems to pay him any heed, and after awhile this just gets uncomfortable. Thankfully, by the middle of the second volume, Mizuki begins to calm down, and once he really starts enjoying sex with Azuma, I really started to enjoy their relationship a lot more.

Balancing out the contentious relationship between Mizuki and Azuma is the secret and somewhat forbidden love of their classmates Izumi and Akira, who just happen to be stepbrothers. We meet them when they are already well into their sexual relationship, despite being step-siblings and living in the same house with their parents. Akira, the younger stepbrother, developed physically faster, and is deeply and loyally attached to his younger stepbrother Izumi. Oddly enough, the tension for this couple has very little to do with being step-siblings, and instead relies on the normal relationship questions of what the other partner truly feels. In fact, the situation of the two boys being brothers by marriage is less an issue of their relationship and more a "how we met" story. Still, as the second book develops their relationship further, their brotherly affection only intensifies the loyalty of their love, creating a deeply attached relationship that seems built to last despite the double taboo of family and homosexuality. It's a welcome contrast to Mizuki's temper tantrums at the very least.

Volume one of Love is Like a Hurricane does contain two other decent but mediocre stories, but volume two focuses exclusively on the two main couples. The stories are fairly typical trials and tribulations of high school lovers found in countless yaoi volumes in English and Japanese. Sure, the characters are cute, but they're all cute, without any manly men or stylish semes or any other of our tried-and-true yaoi stereotypes to break up the sea of cute round-faced high school boys. Even the sex, of which there is plenty, well-lubricated and dripping, follows the very standard lick-finger-penetrate formula. It's still good sex, especially when our ukes are agreeable and passionate, but I never got that extra "oomph" that turns an aesthetically pleasing sex scene into a steaming smutfest that leaves me fanning myself with the dust jacket.

It no longer comes as a surprise that 801 Media produces quality manga, and that's a good thing! Their dust jackets continue to be impressive, especially in the way that the cover design fits with the comedic and light-hearted themes of the book. Volume one boasts four separate color inserts, one for each of the four couples in the book, while volume two has two color pages and a two-page color spread in between. An extensive author's afterword, translated sound effects and an overall clean translation are par for the course with 801 Media as they continue to stay on the top of the heap of yaoi manga production.

I seem to run hot and cold with 801's licensing choices, so while My Paranoid Next Door Neighbor had me hot under the collar, Love is Like a Hurricane left me rather out in the cold. It's still a quality, enjoyable series, but whatever it was that had dozens of fans squealing about its announcement, I didn't seem to get it. Perhaps all will become clear in volume three.