Blue Morning, Vol. 1
2 journalers for this copy...
This new release caught my eye; looks nice and brooding {wry grin}.
Later: Brooding, yes; nice, not so much. Ouch! The premise: a 10-year-old inherits his father's title and estate - and the family butler, the youthful but efficient Katsuragi. Katsuragi serves as the boy's tutor and tries to teach him what he'll need to know to take up his responsibilities, but he's also very cold and distant; the boy admires him, but gets hurt whenever he tries to get close.
Flash forward ten years or so, and young Akihito's nearly grown - but still has a troubled relationship with Katsuragi, who flaunts his affairs with men and women in front of his charge. It's unclear whether Katsuragi's loyalty is to his late master, to the family as a whole, to his birth clan, or just to himself, but there's apparently a rather tangled history there! Akihito's feelings for Katsuragi seem to be a lethal mix of hero-worship, craving for fatherly approval, and outright lust - and, eventually, he begins to take advantage of his position to force Katsuragi to acknowledge him. Things... don't go well.
There are lots of secondary characters who might have more of a role to play in future; I'd like to hope that one of Akihito's school friends will eventually rescue him from this very ill-guided fixation on the butler, but that would probably be too simple. As for Katsuragi's motives - impossible to say at this point. His self-control seems inhuman, which is one of many factors that makes me think of this as a kind of non-magical, more-adult Black Butler, complete with sexy, accomplished butler and imperious young lordling, love/hate relationship and all. Some of the artwork seems to be going that way, too, such as the bound-in-chains-of-flowers panels. And there's more than a hint of "soul devouring" going on here, too!
Later: Brooding, yes; nice, not so much. Ouch! The premise: a 10-year-old inherits his father's title and estate - and the family butler, the youthful but efficient Katsuragi. Katsuragi serves as the boy's tutor and tries to teach him what he'll need to know to take up his responsibilities, but he's also very cold and distant; the boy admires him, but gets hurt whenever he tries to get close.
Flash forward ten years or so, and young Akihito's nearly grown - but still has a troubled relationship with Katsuragi, who flaunts his affairs with men and women in front of his charge. It's unclear whether Katsuragi's loyalty is to his late master, to the family as a whole, to his birth clan, or just to himself, but there's apparently a rather tangled history there! Akihito's feelings for Katsuragi seem to be a lethal mix of hero-worship, craving for fatherly approval, and outright lust - and, eventually, he begins to take advantage of his position to force Katsuragi to acknowledge him. Things... don't go well.
There are lots of secondary characters who might have more of a role to play in future; I'd like to hope that one of Akihito's school friends will eventually rescue him from this very ill-guided fixation on the butler, but that would probably be too simple. As for Katsuragi's motives - impossible to say at this point. His self-control seems inhuman, which is one of many factors that makes me think of this as a kind of non-magical, more-adult Black Butler, complete with sexy, accomplished butler and imperious young lordling, love/hate relationship and all. Some of the artwork seems to be going that way, too, such as the bound-in-chains-of-flowers panels. And there's more than a hint of "soul devouring" going on here, too!
I'm adding this book to my Yaoi Manga shrinking bookbox, which will set out on its first leg tomorrow. (See the bookbox journal here for mailing order and contents.) Hope someone enjoys the book!
*** Released for the June Brides release challenge, for "blue", as in "something borrowed, something blue". ***
*** Released for the June Brides release challenge, for "blue", as in "something borrowed, something blue". ***
this was the other book i had to read right away from the bookbox b/c master and servant yaoi is awesome. the power dynamics/struggle is fairly well written, and i'm interested in finding out more about the butler's past, and the artwork is pretty good. as a standalone volume this wasn't too amazing, but it def. has room to grow. i'll hold on to this one and will try to track down the other volumes at some point.
