Storm Flower (Yaoi)

I really enjoy the artwork here as the uke seems to be enveloped by all these blooming flowers. There is almost a surreal atmostphere to it in the beginning, which I thought was well done with some revelation on the uke's past. But as soon as the story turns to their school lives it becomes the typical school boy Yaoi, with the uke refusing the seme's advances. The seme having an identical twin certainly adds to the plot. I was frustrated with the speech bubbles which are not properly referred to the characters. I was also confused in the beginning as to who is who as the features of both boys were quite alike until I figured out "Oops their hair is different". But this confusion is resolved as the story switches to the school as these boys aged two years. Still a pretty good read, helped by the pretty artwork.

I ordered this because I like the mangaka and her pretty art. but I'm sad to say that it wasn't very good. At first I couldn't tell the main characters apart at all, and the story was confusing and I didn't understand the characters problems. The uke is a moody and self-hated slut, who also acts strong by badmouthing people inside, but acts all weak and wussy the whole time. Its ridiculous how the uke kept refusing to acknowledge his love for the seme and the seme's love for him, yet still try to make the seme jealous.The seme is an indecisive, spineless guy. He just does whatever the uke wants until someone told him off. He said the uke is so fragile that he shouldnt touch him. Oh please, he slept with MEN. And the uke came on him first (almost like rape).The story is lacking. The characters just kept repeating sex, jealousy, and separation. The love is very fast and came out of no where. There is very little "rival becomes lovers" nor "tea ceremony" really. To make things more awkward, the couples randomly become part of student council (talk about cliche plot) and all of them have the same faces (on top of the twins thing). The ending is rather weird, no serious talk, just sex (again). It was a waste of time.

The English translation of this book is really, really bad. I was often lost and had to re-read sections to figure out what was going on. Part of the reason might also be that it's unclear who is saying what as the author unexpectably changes from one character's thoughts to the next. Plot line was OK, but just OK (um,twins plot can be really hot, but just wasn't this time...), but art's nice. All in all, I'd give this one a skip thou; it is really hard to read and to make sense of, not something I want in my yaoi. Far from of my "Best Owned Yaoi", and was simply a waste of money....

I've not been reading Manga that long, and so I can be forgiven for perhaps making a mistake here. However; I do think the description/category of this should have been made clearer - simply carrying an `advisory' logo is not enough when some Manga carry this that are just a little deeper and for adults.This is described as `Romance', but the imagery is `explicit' to say the least - along side somewhat `perverse' and crude dialogue also, and so I would warn anyone not liking such stuff or familiar with this type of Manga to stay well clear of this...Like another Reviewer has also pointed out; the speech bubbles are poorly placed too, but having spent, and not wishing to have totally wasted my money on this, I read this through twice in an attempt to make some form of sense of it - but I was still none the wiser... I couldn't distinguish any of the characters... There were three main characters (I think?) but it was all a jumble to me... Plus many of the pages were filled with the likes of: `hah' and `unh' etc...Simply dreadful...