In the last volume, everything seemed to be working against Tomoyuki and Akihito. Akihito was making arrangements for marriage, though never exactly willingly. The head of the Ishizaki family requested Tomoyuki’s service in exchange for help with the marriage arrangements. It seems a lot went on behind the scenes between that volume and this one. Volume 4 opens with Akihito shopping at the market (which would have been unheard of for someone of his rank). He’s moved to a small apartment, and is trying out life without titles or society. When Tomoyuki finds out about this, he’s furious. He’s been working for the Ishizaki family, but hasn’t been able to get Akihito out of his head. Akihito has called off the wedding and is planning to abandon his title in hopes that Tomoyuki can take his place.

This one was a slight backtrack from the engaging third volume. I’ll admit to part of my difficulties owing to the fact that Tomoyuki and Akihito spent so much of this volume apart. Their stories were connected, but they weren’t together, and they spent most of the volume working against each other. I found Akihito’s attempts to make Tomoyuki’s ambitions come true to be romantic, in a dramatic sort of way. He was willing to give up everything just so Tomoyuki could have all the things he ever wanted. Tomoyuki, on the other hand, is finally willing to admit that he cares enough for Akihito to stop him from ruining himself.

One character who’s been a little flat for me throughout this series was Ishizaki, Akihito’s best friend. In the last volume, he gained a little more depth when Akihito and Tomoyuki found out about his relationship with a courtesan. In this volume, Tomoyuki is constantly telling him that if he cares for her, he shouldn’t worry so much about his place; he should be with her if he wants. Ishizaki is quick to point out the hypocrisy in Tomoyuki’s words. I think watching Akihito and Tomoyuki swing back and forth between love and duty has made Ishizaki a little nauseated.

I’ll admit that some of the dealing with social ranks in this one confused me. I’m not completely sure how Akihito was accomplishing his task to give Tomoyuki his title. In the end, I think things were turning out more in their favor. I guess we’ll see for sure in the next volume.

Akihito is moving ever closer to an engagement that will put him higher on the social ladder. When he asks his friend’s father to be the go-between for the marriage arrangements, he’s horrified to find that Ishizaki wants Tomoyuki to come into his service in exchange. Meanwhile, a former houseboy finds documents that bring up some interesting questions about Tomoyuki’s birth. The relationship between Tomoyuki and Akihito remains turbulent, but passionate.

I was surprisingly more engaged by this volume than any of the previous ones. It’s common for a manga series to take a few volumes before it settles into a good pace. Often, the first two or three volumes are full expository material that can be difficult to trudge through. I admit being put off of a series by that before. I’ve been very interested in this manga series since the beginning, but I’ve noted the slow pace. It really picks up in volume 3.

One of the elements I think helped the pace is the changing dynamic of Tomoyuki’s relationship with Akihito. Until this volume, he’s seemed indifferent about all of it. Perhaps that’s simply due to his demeanor. Generally, he’s very serious and unsentimental. It’s made him seem somewhat unfeeling, and that’s certainly how Akihito took it most of his life. There’s a change in this volume. Tomoyuki is beginning to admit to himself that he actually feels something for Akihito. It’s refreshing because I’m never a fan of the one-sided yaoi relationship.

This volume was well done, and I’m eager to see where this one goes. My experiences with the yaoi that SuBLime is producing have been really great. It seems like they value a great story arc and original stories. So much of yaoi is clearly about sex and the stories carry no real weight. I think it’s important for me to make that distinction between what I would call the typical yaoi manga and this new, better crafted yaoi I’m finding.

I received this book for free from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Warning: This post may contain spoilers of previous volumes.

I enjoyed the first volume of Blue Morning. It offered a very different kind of yaoi manga experience. Yaoi tends to have a few cliche quirks, and Blue Morning is doesn’t follow the normal formula. Because of that, I was excited to read a review copy for the second volume.

Viscount Akihito just wants to be with his Katsuragi, his butler. It seems Katsuragi only cares about how far Akihito can climb socially for the Kuze family name. The two come to an agreement: Katsuragi will do whatever Akihito wants as long as the Kuze family ranks count or higher. Still, Katsuragi remains cold toward Akihito, and it’s driving him crazy.

I have to admit I had a difficult time keeping up at the beginning of this volume. All of the talk of social ranks got a little over my head. The rest of the volume was pretty good, though. Akihito’s friend starts to suspect what’s going on between Akihito and Katsuragi. Katsuragi’s brother also starts meddling in things. Akihito is mostly just annoyed that Katsuragi never lets himself show any emotion when they’re together. I would definitely love to know more of what’s going on in Katsuragi’s head. He can be very enigmatic. There was more sexual content in this volume, but nothing so explicit that I felt awkward. I can see why there’s a mature rating now, though.

I plan to keep reading and see where this one is going. Like Akihito, I’d like to see a little more emotion from Katsuragi, and learn a little more about his past.

Disclosure: I received this book from the publicist in exchange for an honest review.

Yaoi manga is something that I’ve read a few times, but never got into because the series I tried were too sexual. I’ve reviewed one yaoi series on this blog, Totally Captivated, which falls into the oversexualized category. It was a short series so I was able to finish it. Aside from that I’ve started a few and immediately stopped when it became clear the story was more about sex than anything else. Blue Morning came to via a publicist looking to promote VIZ manga’s new yaoi imprint, SuBlime. I’ve agreed to try out a few of their series.

If you don’t know what yaoi is, let me explain. Yaoi, or “boy’s love,” is manga targeted at a female audience with homoromantic (and sometimes homoerotic) relationships. This is a totally different genre of manga than that targeted at gay male readers (referred to as bara, and limited to Japanese culture). Yaoi has only become available to Western audiences in recent years. Previously, it could only be found on translation websites, such as Manga Fox or Manga Here. Don’t let the term “boy” fool you. The characters are teenagers or older. There are some definite gay stereotypes and the occasional homophobic language. Now that you have some background, let’s get on with the actual review.

Akihito Kuze was only ten years old when he inherited his family’s viscountship. He was put in the care of Tomoyuki Katsuragi, the family butler. Katsuragi raised him, tutored him, and advised him, but he was never warm. His iciness over the years has only caused Kuze to yearn to know Katsuragi better and become closer to him.

While this sounds like it could get really sexual really fast, it was more about social standings and advancing the Kuze name. Tomoyuki is invested in the legacy of the Kuze family, for some reason. There is a look into his past and his relationship with Akihito’s father. Akihito seeks, desperately for information on the relationship between the Katsuragis and the Kuzes. He’s also desperate to know why Tomoyuki has always been so cold. He’s spent years trying to please Tomoyuki, and over the years his need to please has turned into a secret romantic yearning. This could all lead to something more sexual than anything else, but the plot really stays away from that. There is sex, but it’s not all over the pages, and it’s not the most important part of the story. I’m so happy about that. I may have found a yaoi manga that I can read. In fact, I was pretty engaged by the family relationships and the social climbing. That was really the most interesting part. I’m not sure how I feel about Akihito and Tomoyuki’s relationship right now. It seems pretty one-sided.

We’ll have to see how this one pans out. The publisher has rated this manga mature, so I’m reluctant to recommend it to readers under 18. As for this volume, there was mild sexual content and some language.