Manga Thoughts: Go For It, Nakamura!

I read a lot of the "girls' love" manga released over here, but it just might be that each volume read is another nudge towards facing how I've sidestepped what might seem a related category in "boys' love." "The heterosexual male who takes a voyeur's interest in representations of lesbianism (however exploitatively distant from realism) but recoils from the mere thought of male homoeroticism" does seem a cliche.

Eventually, though, I did get to thinking that even if I've got my hangups I could surely face something not explicit, on one side of the line between "boys' love" and "yaoi," perhaps. I couldn't suppose it would signal any sort of virtue or shift me much more in any direction, but it would be something. One title among many did catch my attention somehow as presumably not explicit and perhaps even talked up a bit, and I ordered it and a follow-up online. They were part of a considerable bundle of other things that wouldn't be assembled for a while, though, and as I was waiting (and just happened to read the second volume of "Wotakoi," where the secondary main character Hanako finally needles her uptight boyfriend Taro into sampling some "boys' love" manga), the cover illustration heading one "Pick of the Week" on the Manga Bookshelf site caught my eye. Following up on that, I looked at Sean Gaffney's review of the manga, which led off with "I try not to be one of those 'girl on girl is hot, but guys ew!' fans," and that did get my attention as well. When I did see it in the area bookstore, I bought a copy of "Go For It, Nakamura!"
( Going for it )