The Man I Picked Up by CJ Michalski
……….I was not prepared for CJ Michalski.
Actually, that’s not quite true. I was very much prepared for the first four chapters of this manga, which focus on the romances that blossom in a gay host club called Boy’s Club Garçon. I was not prepared for the last four chapters that focus on three friends in what seems to be a high school oendan squad, one of whom is being courted by a very cute boy with a lot of talent for cooking. Let’s start off with the host club…
First off is the story of Michiya, a recently divorced man, who is spending some time with his college friend Tamaki, a gay man who owns Boy’s Club Garçon. Tamaki keeps teasing Michiya and asking him if he’s sure he isn’t gay, but Michiya vehemently denies any feelings for men. In fact, he’s so hung up on his ex-wife, he still carries his wedding ring around.
Despite Tamaki’s teasing, Michiya decides to join him at his luxurious mountain cabin for a weekend. But when he gets there, the only other person there is Sumio. Michiya turns in for the night, but awakes to find Sumio giving him some unwanted blowjob action in bed. Uncomfortable, Michiya tries to leave, but finds that they’re completely snowed in. Over the course of the blizzard, however, Michiya begins to have some feelings for Sumio and vice versa. Michiya comes back to the Boy’s Club to tell Tamaki that he was right all along and that he’s fallen for Sumio, thus foiling Tamaki’s plans to snag Michiya for himself. Then there’s a short story about a young man working at Garçon who reunites with his high school crush through the club before we get to the main story.
One night Tamaki is closing up when he finds a man badly beaten lying on the street next to the club’s sign. He takes him in and nurses him back to health, but this causes the man, named Kouta, to fall for Tamaki. Tamaki isn’t having it, but he keeps Kouta around because the less-beefy club workers like having the muscular Kouta there to protect them from the sudden surge of creepy clients.
Kouta realizes that the surge of creepers is coming from his old gang, so he prepares himself to confront them, and possibly get killed in the process, by surprising Tamaki in his bathrobe and doing some double dick handjob before running off. I have to pause here to mention the ridiculous baseball cap that Kouta puts on between these two scenes that says, (Lord, help me) “Drink My Milk.” This should have been my first clue, but I just thought it was a funny easter egg-type thing.
Of course, Kouta gets beaten up within an inch of his life, forcing Tamaki to let Kouta live in his apartment until he’s fully healed. After a few shenanigans, they unsurprisingly fall in love.
This brings us to the next four chapters… Oh lord.
Hanazono is the captain of the ultra-manly oendan squad at his high school, with strict rules about being manly and not dating girls. So, of course, he’s not too happy when the little Takeo confesses to him and hands him a cute lunchbox. Still, he winds up eating the lunch box (it’s environmentally conscious of him to do so), and accepting more lunch boxes from Takeo every day until Hanazono confronts his feelings. They then bang each other happily in the club room with Hanazono proclaiming, “this isn’t some meaningless fling with a girl! This is pure man love!” (Their emphasis, not mine.)
The next chapter sees Takeo and Hanazono having some intimacy problems, and a rival from another school who mistakenly kidnaps Takeo. (He meant to kidnap Hanazono, beat the crap out of him and steal Takeo, but he mixed up their names so his friends kidnap the wrong person.) Takeo thinks that Hanazono won’t rescue him and thus beats up his kidnapper instead. Hanazono then bursts in to save the day, and the two wind up having a lot of sex in front of the kidnapper, which leads to some serious nose-bleeding.
The story then switches to Hanazono’s two cohorts, Chin and Kitou. Chin clearly has a thing for Kitou, so when he gets injured in a big fight, Kitou takes care of him. They wind up at Chin’s house, which has a huge bath, and Chin winds up jerking off Kitou. Annnnnnnnnd this is when CJ Michalski starts using turtles as visual metaphors for penises and sex. (Yup, you read that right.) A few days later, muses aloud about his feelings in his school’s restroom when Chin pops out of a stall and the two consummate their relationship. Loudly enough that Takeo and Hanazono think there’s a ghost haunting the bathroom, and start throwing toilet paper into the stall.
I really cannot properly describe all the crack that Michalski unleashes upon her readers here. You’d really have to get a copy and read it yourself to do that.
I did like her art style. There were different body types and different types of men showcased here, even a bald guy, which is a nice change from yaoi manga where everyone’s gorgeous, but the same.
I’m not too happy about the three instances where there is either outright sexual assault, but I don’t have time to talk about it much today. In one instance, consent was shown a few panels later, so I’ll let that one slide. The first assault, in Michiya’s story, Sumio didn’t continue to assault Michiya after he pushed him away, so I think I can let that one slide too. The last instance was in the crack-filled oendan squad chapters, so I was too distracted by the sex turtle metaphors to react properly. I’m beginning to feel desensitized to all this. Urgh.
Finally, I would like to say that The Man I Picked Up is a horrible title for a book. It sounds like a story that leads to everyone getting venereal diseases. Til next time, folks…
