Love Pistols 4

Tarako Kotobuki – SuBLime – 2012 – 8+ volumes

Annoyingly, the rather in-depth fight Norio and Kunimasa were having last volume isn’t resolved here.  I thought it was kind of nice that the series was calling out Kunimasa, who’s the stereotypical overpowering seme who takes what he wants and treats his partner horribly, who clings to him because he’s weak and he loves him, blah blah blah.  Norio tells Kunimasa if Kunimasa can’t treat him equally, or even well, he’ll leave him.  But then they wake up in bed together here (sleeping, Norio and Kunimasa don’t have sex), without having resolved the argument.  I was more than a little disappointed.

Anyway, it goes downhill from there.  Kunimasa and Yonekuni’s mother is introduced.  She’s a caricature, a witchy woman who runs a high-end brothel and abuses her sons.  Norio saves Kunimasa, Kunimasa gets all weepy and apologetic, blah blah blah.  I was a little disappointed by Makio, who everyone made out to be a truly frightening character.  She’s a little scary, but gets defeated… kind of easily?  But she’s married to Karen, the matron/mother/parent of Kunimasa and his siblings (of which there are a TON… what happened to the Zooman infertility?).  Her and Karen make a cute couple.  And it’s not often you find badass lesbians in your BL books.

The second half is about Kunimasa and Yonekuni’s fathers, who are also married (Kunimasa and Yonekuni are their sons with Makio).  Not only is this pair attractive and powerful older men in the present, they were good-looking artists types in their youth, and their love story is freaking adorable.

On one hand, I do like Norio and Kunimasa (I complain about their relationship here a little, but Kunimasa is normally pretty affectionate, he was weirdly a jerk last volume… I suppose to make this storyline more dramatic).  I kinda wish we’d see more of them, and part of me doesn’t like it when the main narrative is diverted by side characters.

On the other hand, the side character stories are always SO CUTE.  I liked the snake/mongoose story last volume, and I LOVED the fathers story here.  I’m curious to see if this will continue to be balanced so well, or I’ll hate all the characters getting introduced constantly, or if I’ll want to see more of Norio and Kunimasa.  We’ll see.  I’m going to binge-read this entire thing.