Awaken Forest

Title: Awaken Forest

Volume: 1 of 1

Author: Yuna Aoi

Illustrator: Yuna Aoi

Type: Manga

Publisher: Digital Manga Publishing

Genres: Anthology

Age Rating: 18+ Mature

The Story

There are actually four stories - Awaken Forest, Loose Bonds, Be With Me 'Til Morning, and Be With Me 'Til Night.  I wasn't particularly impressed with any of them.  The first story involves one of my personal yaoi taboos, incest.  *shudders*  I don't care what excuse the author comes up with, I just really don't like it.  The other three stories are fairly predictable - even the supposed "twist" in Loose Bonds wasn't a surprise to me...but I've read a lot of yaoi, so maybe that's why.  The final two stories get a little bit more attention form me because they're mildly humorous...but that's about it.

The Characters

The most interesting characters by far are in the first story, Awaken Forest; I actually feel a little bit for what's happening to them and the dynamics of their relationships with each other.  That's not really the case in the other three stories; the characters just aren't really interesting enough to care about.

The Artwork

Th art is all very pretty with lithe, manly semes and dewey-eyed ukes all over the place.   Body proportions, for the most part, are very nice and fun to look at...but for some reason the artist really likes to give her guys pronounced shoulder blades.  It doesn't look bad all the time, but there were a few scenes where I briefly wondered what was sticking out of the guys'  backs before I quickly realized it was simply a bunch of over-pronounced bones.

The Sex

The sex wasn't overly graphic - mostly lots of scenes where the men are obviously unclothed and obviously enjoying themselves.  However, for those of you who, like me, are bothered by rape, consider yourself warned - there's an almost-rape scene in the first story and in the third story there's a definite rape scene (at least in  my opinion.)  I don't care if two guys are "together" in the story, if one of them says 'no' and the other one ignores him that's rape in my book - yet another one of my yaoi taboos (especially when the characters are an established couple or wind up as an established couple.)  :(  

Overall

I have to say that I probably won't be keeping this one for my personal collection.  Aside from the very pretty art, there just wasn't much to hold my interest.  Add to that the fact the this book broke not one, but two of my yaoi taboos and that's definite grounds for removal from my manga shelves.   On top of that, I've never been a huge fan of anthologies, especially yaoi ones; I like a bit more character development in my male couples than anthologies can typically offer.