Using Kristin's excellent format
Apr. 18th, 2006 10:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petroniaTitle: Orso e intellettuale (クマとインテリ)
Author: basso
Publisher: Edge Comix
Series: N
Ongoing: N - well, sort of
Keywords: men in nice suits and glasses, reversible, mild non-con, waaaay older uke
Rating: ****
So yeah, the Italian politician BL manga. Rating is averaged: *** if you're not on the mangaka's wavelength [1], ***** if you never knew this was missing from your life until you found it. ...It really is about politicians. Normally in BL the word is synonymous with "rich, powerful, shady plot device", but the characters in this are seen attending parlimentary debates and organizing election campaigns. They belong to parties. The parties are rumoured to have policies. As kanji practice it's none too bad. XD
The mangaka is clearly a woman who knows what she likes, and what she likes is as follows:
...So if the idea speaks to you, basically.
The 'politician' continuity is loosely connected by the character of Faust Carraro, distinguished and greying former prime minister (whose private peccadillos are regularly quashed by his younger brother Gino, the media baron); aides and secretaries, other members of parliament, advising academics and boifurendo in varying degrees of skanky/smouldering [2]. The 'gelato' continuity revolves around Marcello's gelateria and the young men who gather there to eat ice cream and gossip about other people's love lives (the two narratives are connected in passing). Storytelling lies on the realistic side of classically constructed BL yomikiri, coolly observed, sardonically adult but still romantic. Kotobuki Tarako without the crack. ^^; Much of the effect is from the art, which looks as if it were comprised entirely of 15-minute oekaki sketches by someone who was good at it: rough, angular, minimalist linework, flat planes of black/white/50% grey, no patterned tones to speak of. Probably aiming for a sort of Euro arthouse film effect, and more or less achieves it. Conveys truckloads of expression in very few lines, so the writing can afford to be restrained.
(I also got this anthology, which is half comprised of basso's stories and essentially more of the same. Like I said, she knows what she likes. ...FWIW, reading the rest of the anthology put me bizarrely in mind of SSBB. XD)
[1] Or if you really cannot get the image of Silvio Berlusconi out of your mind.
[2] Her basic types. Skanky metro Minase Masara boy, tall dark and smouldering seme, nice preppy young man, acerbic middle-aged intellectual.
Author: basso
Publisher: Edge Comix
Series: N
Ongoing: N - well, sort of
Keywords: men in nice suits and glasses, reversible, mild non-con, waaaay older uke
Rating: ****
So yeah, the Italian politician BL manga. Rating is averaged: *** if you're not on the mangaka's wavelength [1], ***** if you never knew this was missing from your life until you found it. ...It really is about politicians. Normally in BL the word is synonymous with "rich, powerful, shady plot device", but the characters in this are seen attending parlimentary debates and organizing election campaigns. They belong to parties. The parties are rumoured to have policies. As kanji practice it's none too bad. XD
The mangaka is clearly a woman who knows what she likes, and what she likes is as follows:
- gelato
- tailored suits
- designer eyewear
- Latin metrosexual facial hair
- scrawny older men (like age 40-60, that kind of older)
- Italy, she'll fight Araki Hirohiko for it if she has to
...So if the idea speaks to you, basically.
The 'politician' continuity is loosely connected by the character of Faust Carraro, distinguished and greying former prime minister (whose private peccadillos are regularly quashed by his younger brother Gino, the media baron); aides and secretaries, other members of parliament, advising academics and boifurendo in varying degrees of skanky/smouldering [2]. The 'gelato' continuity revolves around Marcello's gelateria and the young men who gather there to eat ice cream and gossip about other people's love lives (the two narratives are connected in passing). Storytelling lies on the realistic side of classically constructed BL yomikiri, coolly observed, sardonically adult but still romantic. Kotobuki Tarako without the crack. ^^; Much of the effect is from the art, which looks as if it were comprised entirely of 15-minute oekaki sketches by someone who was good at it: rough, angular, minimalist linework, flat planes of black/white/50% grey, no patterned tones to speak of. Probably aiming for a sort of Euro arthouse film effect, and more or less achieves it. Conveys truckloads of expression in very few lines, so the writing can afford to be restrained.
(I also got this anthology, which is half comprised of basso's stories and essentially more of the same. Like I said, she knows what she likes. ...FWIW, reading the rest of the anthology put me bizarrely in mind of SSBB. XD)
[1] Or if you really cannot get the image of Silvio Berlusconi out of your mind.
[2] Her basic types. Skanky metro Minase Masara boy, tall dark and smouldering seme, nice preppy young man, acerbic middle-aged intellectual.
