Manga, Manhua, and Manwha are the popular forms of sequential art in Asia. All roughly translated as comics from their individual languages, they form a medium that’s content spans countless genres and age groups. However, here in the West many readers are only aware of a select few titles, like Dragonballs, Sailor Moon, Chinese Hero, and Goong. Yet hidden across thousands of titles from the past half century are countless gems of asian comic perfection, often translated in English and lost in large book shelves at your local book store. To help find these gems on your next hunt for what’s big in Japan, China, or Korea, we have the Manga review.

 

The Info Bit

Title: Honey Darling

Genre/s: Yaoi

Writer: Norikazu Akira (Twin’s Labyrinth, Heartstrings)

Artist: Norikazu Akira

Translation: Christine Dashiell

Publisher: Sublime

Number of Volumes: 1 (of 1)

Page Count: 192

Age Rating: 18+

Price: 12.99

 

The Review Bit

Honey Darling is an unexpectedly cute boy love manga under Viz Media’s new boy love imprint, SuBLime. In fact, it is one of the first print/digital releases from SuBLime, having recently seen release this June. The manga was originally published as Hachimitsu Darling over three years in Magazine BExBOY, a yaoi/boy love manga magazine in Japan, finishing up in 2011. The story is of the young Chihiro Takahashi, a handsome slacker who rarely commits to anything, but is generally content to just get by in life. It contains some yaoi sex scenes, but is much more about the romance of two men and their pet cat.

Honey Darling opens with our introduction to Chihiro, who is your traditional cute and trendy looking manga character, with longer and well styled hair. One day, returning from his boring entry level job, Chihiro comes across an abandoned kitten. Naming the stray kitten Shiro, Chihiro attempts to raise his new pet in his traditional nonchalant lifestyle until little Shiro comes down with a cold. Chihiro had never had to care for anything before and suddenly becomes unaware of what to do, running out into the city with his sick cat looking for a veterinary office. In the sheer luck that only seems to happen in fiction, Chihiro runs right into a veterinarian on his way home. The vet, named Dr. Daisuke Kumazawa, offers to help little Shiro before offering Chihiro a rather untraditional job. Chihiro is instantly interested in the job, as it would provide him steady work, a place to stay, and care for Shiro when needed. However, the job is as Kumazawa’s “wife”, or rather his male, live-in housekeeper. Chihiro accepts the position, somewhat awkwardly, and the relation between Kumazawa and Chihiro begins. Yet both men are self proclaimed as straight, and find their interactions together at first quite awkward, as they stumble around any actions that might lead to the perception that they could be gay.

Chihiro is the first to start taking notice of his new boss and roommate, constantly and hilariously referring to him as a bear. This isn’t because Kumazawa is a bear in the gay terminology many of you might think, but more so because he is a very tall, strong man of little words and a firm personality. It also might help that the first part of Kumazawa’s name is the Japanese word for bear, Kuma. Never-the-less it is a humorous coincidence that is brought up throughout the manga. The two main characters grow close over the year they are together, with Shiro often trying to impress Kuma as he raises Shiro, tends to his duties, and begins training as a veterinary assistant to help Kuma’s business. Meanwhile, Kuma’s family and colleague do all that they can to set him up with a potential wife, so that Kuma might settle down and have children. Kuma, however, is not looking for marriage and constantly turns more to Chihiro, who is fulfilling many of Kuma’s wifely chores and he refers to as his cat, as a means of escaping these marriage offers.

The story rather beautifully and organically leads these two ‘straight’ male characters down a path where their bonds grow and they eventually end up together. Over the 7 main chapters and several bonus chapters, Honey Darling highlights the moments in Chihiro and Kuma’s lives that bring them closer to one another in a very understandable way. On that approach alone, Honey Darling is a great story. But sprinkled throughout the comic is a great amount of humor, often revolving around the cat, Shiro, and Chihiro’s comparisons to Kuma being a bear. Any yaoi based sex scenes come almost as an afterthought to the plot at the end of the series. The sex scenes are censored, with the traditional whited-out penises, but do last for a rather extensive 14-pages (where as many yaoi manga just hold a few pages here and there throughout the book). Still, it should be said that yaoi fans looking more for boy on boy sex might want to look elsewhere, as this manga is much more deeply rooted in the slice of life style romance of two men meeting and bonding over time.

Norikazu’s art is quite lovely, in a traditional manga style with two very different archetypes of beautiful male leads. Of course, she also throws in some cute chibi panels throughout the book for humorous effect. Having been drawn over 3 years, you can see Norikazu’s art style grow slightly, as she points out in her omake (bonus material) at the end. Aside from the 7 main chapters that complete the entirety of Honey Darling, the SuBLime collection also includes a full color page, 3 bonus chapters, an afterword from Norikazu, and some 4-panel omakes.

 

 

The Rating Bit

Honey Darling is a rather fun new boy love manga, released in one complete collection. The title definitely lives up to its mature rating in the end, due to its graphic sex scene, but otherwise holds a story that really anyone with an open mind could enjoy. Lovers of boy love stories or cat related manga will certainly enjoy this done in one treat from the new Viz imprint. So with all of that, I can confidently rate Honey Darling as a strong 8 out of 10, that I recommend any fans of the genre pick up.