sakurabunny35

WARNING: the following review is about a Boys' Love (or "yaoi") manga title, which is a subgenre of shojo and ladies manga detailing male/ male homoerotic themes. If you are not at least around 16-18 years old, or don't like the thought of two cute guys getting it on, feel free to not read this.

Introduction to Ashika Sakura's Sensitive Pornograph:

Yes, this, you anti-yaoi [fangirl] retarded boys (excuse my language), this is "that manga" (which also inspired that "one infamously porny, yaoi-fangirl-fodder, eromanga-ish" 30-minute OAV, and it, in all its amazing, hawt bishonen mansecks glory, all originated from this sweet, little single-volume gem, written and illustrated by Ashika Sakura, whom many fans of her also know as Sakurako Gokurakuin (the creator of Juvenile Orion and Category: Freaks, which aren't BL titles by the way. plus the creator of the ecchi seinen series, Sekirei, which is now an anime)

To say the least, in my opinion, the manga is much better than the OAV anime adaption, simply because, there are six stories (yes, six!), including the ones that were animated, and the details of the relationships are drawn out more convincingly.

Another thing, the TITLE is misleading. No, the manga is NOT hentai, yes, there is graphic bishie man-sex, but its not like... let me put it this way, there are no tentacle monsters, switch-blade dicks or ridiculously large, seriously nekkid boobage flopping around to be seen here (THANK GOD, HALLELUJAH JEBUS). The manga, is surprisingly modest when it comes to those "hardcore" sex scenes. Unlike in the OAV, the penises are somewhat "whited out with rays of sparkly light" which, to be honest, is very common in many (if not all) boys' love titles, well unless you count Under Grand Hotel, but that's different. To be honest, the manga of Sensitive Pornograph is actually (believe me or not, but I'm right) ISN'T (yes, ISN'T, I-S-N-dash thingy-T, IS NOT!) the most hard-core yaoi manga you'll find, if anyone tells you otherwise, they are LYING. Actually, I've seen worse, to give examples, Mika Sadahiro's Under Grand Hotel (yes, UGH, again... penis veins... ick, and I don't mean 801 Media's censored release, I mean the original.), and if you've read Ashika Sakura's Adult na Kaihatsushitsu, Sensitive Pornograph is just puppy love (no, seriously, if you though "bunnay-bondage-man-in-da-closet" was offensive, check out the story Biroudo no Tensoku (lit. The Velvet Foodbindings), in Sakura's manga, Adult na Kaihatsushitsu! It made me cry, and there was no happy ending, unlike the Trophies Belong in the Bedroom story in Sensitive Pornograph)

Now, the title comes from the title story (like in most anthology manga), because it is about two manga artists, the gorgeous, older, feminine "awesome, well-known bishoujo hentai artist", Sono Hanasaki and the budding shonen manga artist (who seems to be around 23-25 years old) Seiji Yamada, who instantly falls into love (lust?) with Hanasaki-sensei because of his girlish appearance, hot body, and also because Sono Hanasaki is Seiji-kun's favorite mangaka (if he's not a yaoi fangirl's fantasy of an overly-obsessive anime fanboy, I don't know what is). If you haven't already figured it out. the title cleverly comes from "sensitive" , because the title story is very romantic, sweet and cute, and perfect fujoshi material, I mean, if you like older ukes, and "pornograph", a Greek term meaning "a story about prostitution/whores" (yes, its almost like "pornography", which means practically the same thing.), which is clever because, not only is Sono-san a "hentai" artist he's (SPOILER ALERT) well known to be a total whore-bag slut who sleeps around with other men. And don't take this wrong, he's not the kind of slutty character you'd find in some yaoi manga (like... for example, the work of *cough*, *cough* Haruka (Kazuka) Minami *cough*), no, he just is confused about what he really wants and needs in a relationship, and thus, Seiji-kun gets really emotional and sad and spazzes out and sits on the swingset outside while Sono is holding a cute stuffed bunny animal toy (Awww... *kawaii* its such fujoshi catnip! I mean, the seriously BL obsessed fangirls would just roll in that cuteness if it were physically and humanly possible, I know I would!)

Story:

All the stories in Sensitive Pornograph are vignettes, one or two chapters each. The stories are all un-related, there are no crossovers (it would be funny if it did though).

Out of the six tales, only one doesn't have sex in it, but thats okay, even if that story is lame, it gives the reader a break from all the constant "hot yaoi buttseckz".

Each of the stories are so well thought out, that some could have even been longer. Like as with the

Art:

The art is drawn in Ashika Sakura's earlier art style, featuring muscle-toned cute guys with baby faces, her characters also actually look more authentically "Asian", which fits because her stories mostly take place in Japan.

I strongly prefer her art in this title (and other early Ashika Sakura books like her shoujo title, Aquarian Age: Juvenile Orion) over her updated style, because it is uniquely, Ashika Sakura/ Sakurako Gokurakuin. I mean, her color artwork is better now than before, but when she started going down the more "generic" anime/ manga route, like what she does in Sekirei, I'll gladly pass.

In Sensitive Pornograph, the characters are sometimes a bit crooked, but I sympathize with that since drawing BL is hard work, especially when drawing the "hot and heavy love scenes", but you can tell Ashika Sakura tries her best here.

The guys are all fairly similar looking. For example, Sono in the first story is technically Aki-chan with blonde hair. And Aki-chan looks... well in the anime... looks somewhat like Rei Ayanami from Evangelion, but as a pretty man (Yes, I know Clarissa from Anime World Order already said this, I am just agreeing completely with her.)

Characters:

I really love how the guys act in this title, they are all really affectonate (well, most of them), and there is no real "rape= love" themes in here much, which should be praised (unless you count Aki-chan's sadistic "boyfriend" who lures adorable puppi and kittinz-loving college student, Ueno into his apartment and forces Aki to perform unwanted sexual acts on the poor guy (but you know, like in almost all yaoi, even the supposed straight guys can't get enough bishonen cock, so not surprisingly, Ueno gets turned on and starts dry-humping the shit out of Aki and they (SPOILER ALERT!) both instantly fall in love and become lovers at the end). Or, you could probably count the creepy seme in the story about the model and his photographer.)

The characters in the first and last stories are well thought out, and memorable (in the positive ways). I love the last story "Please Come Home", because its very endearing, I wish they animated that one as well.

Now, pretty much all the ukes (bottom/ recieving characters) have girl names. Sono, Mari, Aki, you get the idea.

Overall:

Sensitive Pornograph is a good, and sweet yaoi, like the kind you would want to cuddle up with on a cold winter night with a pipin' hot mocha... or something. Its good BL for the kind of fangirl with a sweet-tooth. The manga was released by Digital Manga Inc. under their 801 Media imprint (the so-called "hardcore, adult, uncensored BL division of DMP", which, by the way is total marketing bullshit, since they censored UGH, but its not like I want to read that one anyway so...)

But unlike the OAV, which Kitty Media released, the translation is top-notch (there is no dumb, unneccesary rephrasings like taking the Trophies Belong in the Bedroom story. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I'll put it this way: In the Kitty Media release, in the second half of the OAV, Ueno, a petsitter, is asked by a fellow student if he wants to go to a party, and he says no, because all the cute "puppies and kittens are waiting for him." In the original Japanese, the student replies something like "dude, thats kind of wierd, that you'd like to do that, than hang out with those hot chicks", but in Kitty Media's version, they subtitle it as "Who do you think you are. Jack Hanna?"

Anyway, long story short, if you are a true, veteran yaoi fan, you should really own this book, or just be familiar with it at least, because people won't take you seriously as a boys' love fanatic without it.