Product Description: Student and teacher. Man and... man. Taboo upon taboo is what Hikaru and Shima have to overcome if they want to pursue their feelings for one another. Uikaru, a second year high school student, is obsessed with Shima, a male teacher. Surprisingly, Shima is not averse to the boy's affections. He even convinces Hikaru to study hard so that when he graduates, they would openly become lovers. However, Amamiya, an ex-lover of Shima, steps into the picture and tries to win him back. Will Hikaru and Shima's passion prove great enough to hurdle all the obstacles stacked against them?
passion i like this series. its very good. the art is original in the way the faces are drawn, so that was very refreshing. kudos mangaka of Passion! ^^
"Passion"--worst title ever? With a name like "Passion," I was expecting something more...well, passionate. All I see here is a few power and mind games, sprinkled with not-very-erotic sex scenes.
The story opens with Hikaru, who is obsessed with his teacher Shima, raping Shima in an empty classroom. Shima, instead of getting angry or, you know, calling the police or anything, tells Hikaru that he should think about how he's going to make up for what he's done.
What follows is a bizarre series of events that I just can't swallow--a teenager with stalker tendencies obsesses over his teacher, while the teacher, fully aware of the obsession, uses it to manipulate his student. Hikaru is allowed to "play" at being Shima's lover as long as he keeps his grades up, and by the end of the book, Shima seems to be developing some tender feelings for his rapist.
The art is sparse and mostly unattractive; plenty of panels don't have backgrounds, and the characters don't look polished enough to carry the story on their own. The translation is awkward and dialogue unnatural, though I have seen worse. Combine it all with the weak and unbelievable plot, and I'm just glad that I won this book in a raffle; if I'd spent money on it, I'd have felt ripped off.
Worth It To start with, I've read both volumes, and I'd have to say it is absolutely necessary to read Volume 2 to truly enjoy this manga. (The series is complete with Volume 2.)
The artwork can take some getting used to, but the main attraction for me was that the characters do not look like little girls- though Shima has his moments... The sex is on the less explicit side of explicit; that is to say, the artist relies on angles to obscure all the "important" stuff and subscribes to the "vague outline" school of drawing when it becomes necessary. As with any truly good yaoi manga, the story is more about the emotional aspect of the relationship than the sex. The translation is awkward at times, but if you take the spirit of what they're saying rather than the exact words it doesn't impede the story. As others have said the translation of honorifics is clumsy. ...There really isn't anything else I can say about that, except that you get used to it.
As for the story, something I found particularly enjoyable about it is the way the balance of power is shifted from expectations. For example, Shima, the teacher and elder of the pair, is the uke(bottom) yet he also exerts almost all control in the relationship, limiting how often Hikaru can see him and insisting that Hikaru finish his schoolwork before they do anything romantic. "Passion" is a very complicated story in which almost all of your first perceptions of the central relationship are eventually challenged. A lot of reviews talk about the illicit nature of the relationship depicted. All I can say is, yeah it's kind of a dark story. It's about a love forbidden on two different levels... what were you expecting? The characters are well portrayed, and that's what makes the story worth reading.
For those who enjoyed (or didn't quite) this manga, I also recommend: Loveless (soft-core shonen ai-ish, dark/twisted relationships.) Kizuna - Bonds of Love (hard-core yaoi, difficulties facing an established relationship.)
All yaoi is NOT created equal I have been a fan of yaoi (gay-themed manga) since before it became popular in the U.S., so I used to just take whatever I could get. Unfortunately, this is the first manga I bought that taught me that just because it's yaoi, doesn't mean it's gonna be good. The main premise of this story is that Hikaru, a high school student, rapes Shima, one of his teachers (on the very first page!) and he must then make it up to him by "play-acting" as his lover, and also by maintaining a high GPA (don't even ask). Will Shima ever decide to become Hikaru's "real" lover? Before you're through the 1st volume, you'll already have stopped caring.
Rape is a common occurance in yaoi manga, and there is usually a lot of deep angst or emotion involved in it, from one or both people involved. There's none of that in "Passion". Hikaru just raped him because he loves him so much. Really! He even blurts out "Will you marry me?" right afterwards! Now if that's not true love, then I don't know what is. But it's okay, Shima doesn't seem overly upset. Like any good teacher, he just criticizes Hikaru for doing it wrong and tells him to "think about what you should do to make up for what you've done today." Okay, I know yaoi isn't supposed to be realistic, but "Passion" asked me to suspend my disbelief way too much. It isn't that they act out of character, it's more that they don't have "character" to begin with. We never find out why Shima or Hikaru act in the bizarre ways they do (volume 2 attempts to offer some belated explanations, but fails). There are some side plots and additional characters that add length, particularly in the 2nd final volume, but they supply nothing in entertainment value.
In addition to all that, the English translation is horrible! The language sounds dry at best, but it's often so awkward and unnatural that it made me wince. Not to mention Hikaru throws "sir" into his speech at the most irrelevent times ("I could imagine it was painful, sir"). And to top it all off, the sex scenes aren't even very impressive.
This is definitely one-star yaoi, but I give it two stars because "Passion" is still better than a lot of sappy shoujo manga out there that manage to be twice as unbelievable and melodramatic as this is. But unless you've already bought the many better-quality yaoi manga that are now available in the U.S. and you're truly desperate for more, I'd pass on this one.
Not so good. Another of DMP's Yaoi Manga, it's not like most Yaoi Manga having the teacher as the Uke and the student as the Seme. It wasn't necessarily DMP's fault for my low rating of this Yaoi Manga but it simply the fact was I disliked it. The art didn't catch me and neither did the story. So if you are a true Yaoi Fan get it but if you only collect the good stuff, pass by this one. After all, two of the main characters get girlfriends and that's not my cup of tea when I prefer reading boys boinking.
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