"To say that straight men are heterosexual is only to say that they engage in sex (fucking exclusively with the other sex, i.e., women). All or almost all of that which pertains to love, most straight men reserve exclusively for other men. The people whom they admire, respect, adore, revere, honor, whom they imitate, idolize, and form profound attachments to, whom they are willing to teach and from whom they are willing to learn, and whose respect, admiration, recognition, honor, reverence and love they desire… those are, overwhelmingly, other men. In their relations with women, what passes for respect is kindness, generosity or paternalism; what passes for honor is removal to the pedestal. From women they want devotion, service and sex. Heterosexual male culture is homoerotic; it is man-loving." -Marilyn Frye, The Politics of Reality
This quote pretty much sums up the genre I'd place Adekan in. I had so many thoughts about this series that it was difficult coming up with an overall rating. I love some aspects while there are others I didn't like as much - for instance, the way that the main characters (all male) see women. Even though the struggles and horrors faced by women in a historical Japan-like setting were depicted VERY well, I was just never quite comfortable with how often the men think of women as, essentially, pleasure tools to satisfy their lust. Reading this series you WILL see (as the above quote describes), how deeply these men admire and basically love each other while technically being "heterosexual". It disturbed me a little because I think it draws a parallel to how our RL patriarchal society works, it's just exaggerated in this series.
Aside from that, the art is stunningly gorgeous; the plot is pretty good! It takes on an episodic-like structure where Shiro and Koujirou initially investigate murder incidents together; often each chapter uncovers a rather dark or interesting plot twist to keep your interest fresh. However, there is an overarching main plot once we get familiarized with our characters, which deals with Shiro's origins. Personally, I love the darkness of it all and I enjoyed how we get to uncover the mystery bit by bit as the chapters go on. I think this series touches on many serious topics that would be eye-opening for a lot of us readers.
My favorite character from this series has got to be Saotome. He's such an underrated badass with an incredible mind!
