Yeah, I’m being reaaaaaaaaal bad about finishing up this challenge, but I have a legit excuse: I was working my part-time job and house-sitting for 4 days. The house-sitting included dog-sitting, so I was working 9-to-5 and dealing with three dogs (two more than usual for me), two of whom are jealous of each other.
It was sooooooo relaxing.
Love Makes Everything Right by Sanae Rokuya
Mizuha is an out-of-work college graduate when he suddenly gets an odd offer to run a company from his college’s employment agency. He gets the feeling that the company is shady, and he’s right. They sell sex toys, but that’s not the shady part. He gets the job after answering two questions: “Are you seeing anyone?” and “Would you be a sadist or a masochist?” But his interviewer, Satake, is so creepy that Mizuha immediately tries to get out of the job. Instead, he winds up having phone sex with Satake and signing on anyway.
The two work together for a few weeks and Satake keeps saying weird, vague things about knowing Mizuha for a long time. A creepy photographer with a thing for Satake abuses Mizuha for information, and somehow Satake and Mizuha fall in love. Turns out Satake owed Mizuha’s late father a debt, and the company is Satake trying to pay that debt. But when Satake found out (before the story begins) that Mizuha was gay, he started lusting after Mizuha. Thus the creepiness?
Next is a story about a quiet business man who has a one night stand with another man who claims to be straight. Because of the unusual situation, the two wind up having a very wild night… Wild enough for the straight man to offer up a lucrative business contract when the two meet on the job, but only if the gay man sleeps with him again. Sweet, right?
But the gay man refuses, so the straight man proposes a game in which he chases the gay man for a week. If he catches the man, they sleep together, if he doesn’t the gay man gets the contract. Of course, over the course of the week, the man successfully evades his stalker, but finds that he kind of misses the guy. So the gay man decides to catch the “straight” guy and they end up happily ever after.
So, in case you haven’t noticed, I found this manga to be a little creepy. I mean… Holy stalkers, Batman! They’re everywhere in this book!
It’s kind of the same problem I have with the rapists. Why is stalking attractive to the creators? And the editors? The readers? I can understand that someone devoted to you is attractive, but stalking is going beyond devotion and into obsession. How is that attractive? It’s like being objectified! A relationship like that is just never good and usually strains suspension of disbelief. How many reliably true stories do you hear about people getting with their stalker? Probably none.
The art is alright, but everyone’s either grumpy or an ever-smirking bastard.
So yeah. I can’t recommend this one. It wasn’t rape-y, but this manga set of all my ick-senses and I am honestly finding nothing positive to say about Love Makes Everything Right.
I’m going to end this post by saying that I’m going to do the 30 Day Yaoi Challenge every other day for now. I really want to participate in the Kaori Yuki MMF that’s happening this week, so I need the time to read Angel Sanctuary as well as yaoi manga.
I know I haven’t been totally reliable on trying to finish the Yaoi Challenge, but the whole point of it was trying to get myself to blog again. So I think I can forgive myself for further delaying the end of the challenge to do more blogging-related things.
Happy reading, everyone!
