Product Description: Souhei always wanted to be a professional boxer. Yet at the age of 25, he is just an idle good-for-nothing who keeps himself from starving by sleeping with older, rich women. After a traumatic boxing bout in high school that nearly left his opponent dead, he is simply wasting his life away in an attempt to atone for his impulsive behavior in his youth. His rather serious friend and struggling writer, Chika, has watched Souhei for the last ten years. With his help, will Souhei be able to finally achieve his childhood dreams?
unpleasant, and suprisingly typical The title and cover artwork led me to believe this manga would be something upbeat and egalitarian. Well, not quite: The apparent intent is to take the basic plot of a male-empowerment boxing flick and combine it with a female-oriented gay-abuse fantasy. Needless to say, the combined result makes no sense, and is about as romantic and empowering as kicking a puppy.
The likable-loser hero Sohei (who deserves to be in a better manga, if you ask me) gave up on his childhood dream of being a boxer after injuring an opponent. Now at twenty-five, he isn't good for anything except mooching off women. His high school friend Chika drags him down to the boxing gym one day and forces him to sign himself up again. Chika is in love with Sohei, but has to show a tough-love face to prevent Sohei from getting all whiny and dependent, leading Sohei to doubt whether Chika even likes him.
You could do something pretty great with this premise if you had a clue. The author, by contrast, simply has Chika alternate plausible sternness and grouchiness with sick and stupid abuse (culminating in the inevitable sexual assault), so as to turn Sohei into a pathetic blubbering wreck at regular intervals. Sticklers for consistency might complain that this goes against the point of both the friendship and the plot, which is supposed to be about building Sohei up, not beating him down. But it's fun for the puppy-kicking demographic, and that's what counts. Whining is like sex-crime -- so valued for its own sake the author will sacrifice plausibility and characterization to include it. For example, Sohei beats up on himself for failing at boxing. But when he realizes he's not the only one struggling with career troubles, he cleverly avoids getting over himself by instead whining even more intensely about what a horrible, terrible, bad bad bad, selfish person he is not to have realized this earlier. This is NO IMPROVEMENT WHATSOEVER!
The art is rough but lively, the character designs are distinct, there is decent attention to backgrounds, and it is easy to follow. But Yamada is either emotionally blind or at the mercy of a brainless editor with a shotgun. Every time the story is on the verge of an honest emotional moment, it takes a sharp left turn into Stupid Sadist Territory. The idea is that these are adults acting like grade-schoolers, which would be great. But Chika behaves more like the product of a Russian orphanage, and he's not even supposed to be the one with the problem. Rather, it is SOHEI who needs to "grow up" enough to realize that Sexual Assault = Love. Sohei must further accept that the abuse is All His Own Fault for SELFISHLY failing to realize Chika's feelings, and that once he stops DESERVING to be treated badly, his abuser will stop, and happiness and love will magically ensue.
If you don't like the sound of this you might try Keiki Konno's STAR, also a one-shot about a twenty-five year old seeking love and maturity, but with genuine human emotions and sans abuse. It's for people who LIKE puppies.
Heart warming and uplifting story with endearing characters. This is a most heartwarming and uplifting tale of friendship and love involving 3 very close friends, Sohei, Chika and Naoki, who are such appealing characters. Naoki is ofcourse the flamboyant uke from Yugi Yamada's Spring Fever. Here Naoki plays an important role supporting his 2 close friends as they slowly acknowledge their love for each other after much misunderstandings.
Chika has loved Sohei since high school and still does 10 years later. Sohei is of course clueless about it, as he hardly cares sbout anything since he gave up boxing 8 years ago. Sohei drifts through life living off women while his 2 best friends have more or less succeeded in their respective careers. Chika, knowing what is best for Sohei, manages to convince Sohei to box again. Here it is almost painful to read about Sohei's struggles as he faces challenges from all those much younger than him. And of course each time his pretty face gets bashed, it breaks poor Naoki's heart. Sohei soons realizes Chika's care is much more than just a close friend and he of course freaks out. Amusing yet bittersweet scenes follows. And it takes a little help from Naoki to pull them together. Naoki has his own little snapsots of love lost as we get to read about this cheerful but extremely lonely character searching for love (Glad to have Spring Fever on hand to continue with this endearing uke's story) Sohei finally fulfilling his dreams and finding true love is most uplifting and touching. The final chapter is well done.
A soft Yaoi with a lovely storyline and endearing characters indeed.
Excellent Yamada Yugi is one of my absolute favorite manga artists and one of the best selling artists in Japan. I already own all her books in Japanese but, as my Japanese is so poor, it's great to finally be able understand exactly what is happening. Laugh Under the Sun is the story of a pretty young lay-about, Sohei, who mooches off women while secretly dreaming of being a boxer and is oblivious to the crush his best friend, a free lance journalist named Chikazawa, has on him. Rounding out the story is his other friend from high school, Naoki, who is a favorite character of Yamada-san's. The story is very cute but didn't grab my attention as much as some of Yamada-san's other stories. I'd still rank it head and shoulders above the majority of yaoi manga available (in the US and Japan). Naoki plays a supporting role in this book but appears as a main character in two other of Yamada-san's books: Glass Sky and Spring Fever (BTW, this book I'm reviewing and Glass Sky are currently incorrectly listed as Yamada Yuji, Spring Fever has the correct author). Chikazawa and Sohei make cameo appearences.
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