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By Leroy Douresseaux
May 12, 2010 - 13:37
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| Cute Devil cover image is courtesy of Anime Castle Books. |
Rated “M” for “Mature”
The yaoi manga, Cute Devil, from creator Hiro Madarame, is the story of two pretty boys who fall in love – the hard way. One of those pretty faces, however, hides a dark side.
Tohru Akiyoshi is a good student with top grades and a place on the student council. Everything is going well for him, but Akiyoshi has a complex about his effeminate looks. Then, he meets someone who looks even more like a girl, Fuuta Naruse. Fuuta is beautiful and very popular with girls… and boys. Fuuta surprisingly focuses his attention on Akiyoshi, who is embarrassed to have such a girlish-looking boy making amorous moves on him. When he rejects Fuuta’s advances, however, Akiyoshi gets to see the devil in Fuuta.
Although the front cover and back cover of Cute Devil feature pretty painted images of the lead characters, the interior art is a mixed bag of super-deformed characters and stylishly rendered figuring drawings. Some of it looks like the late Michael Turner’s art on the Witchblade comic book series. While Tohru Akiyoshi is supposed to look like a girl, Hiro Madarame actually draws him as a handsome older teenaged boy. In fact, I hardly call either of the leads bishounen or “beautiful boys.”
The story is OK, although there are some good scenes (like the shower masturbation scene). Also, stories like Cute Devil foster the notion that romance fiction… romanticizes rape. Beyond that, I cannot completely describe this comic book as standard yaoi manga. For one thing, it does have a rather edgy and sometimes creepy vibe. Secondly, it subverts the seme/uke dynamic in sometimes funny ways. Cute Devil does have it moments, but Madarame focuses on the leads to the exclusion of some good supporting characters. That is what keeps this from being top yaoi manga material.
B-
For more of me, visit www.negromancer.com.
