About the Mangaka
Unfortunately everything I could find about le Peruggine was in french, which I don’t speak. He/She has a website and a MySpace site. I couldn’t read the MySpace site, the colours used make it almost impossible to read hehe
About the Manga
This was the first true yaoi title I’ve reviewed, and I have to admit that I did enjoy it. Also this is not a manga, technically it’s an OFL (Original French Language) hehehe. But for sake of ease in categories I’m listing it as OEL
This release is a so called box set, though I don’t consider it to be so. All three volumes came packed together with shrink-wrap and no box. It was a bit disappointing really. And I would have thought it would have been better to simply release all three volumes in a single omnibus. It would have made the spine art all the more impressive.
That said, I do love the cover art for the individual volumes, true I’m not a huge yaoi fan, but I can appreciate good art. That’s what these covers are, good art. Also attached to the volume is a card bit of art with another great bit of art on it. This is probably due to the release being shrink wrapped together rather than in an actual box or omnibus (though I wish it was a sticker ISBN code so as it could be removed from the image).
The art in the volumes isn’t great, but it isn’t bad either. It’s certainly not the worst I’ve ever seen, but it’s clearly western art. Several times I had to look again at characters because they’d changed to how they’d seemed previously.
I’ll admit this was just a minor grievance of mine, but it was something that irked me no end at times. Especially when characters faces and builds were suddenly changed.
There is however some really nice art inside the volumes, mostly the chapter start images.
I did like the characters, and was impressed at the way le Peruggine brought them to life. I was also impressed with the character personalities which were well defined, which is usually hard to do in such a short series.
The aspect that bugged me the most, and is also something I hate, was the lack of definition between time jumps.
The initial one is really confusing, since there’s no hint as to whether it’s a jump forward or backwards. It’s not until later on that it becomes clear. Then there’s the minor jumps in later volumes which are even more confusing and don’t really make a lot of sense until realise that a time jump (and in one case a person change) has happened.
Unfortunately it suffers from the issue that almost all short titles have, it’s clearly way to short. The series should have gone for double or more the number of volumes. This would have allowed the characters to explore their relationships more, as well as set up the bonds between them better.
Sadly, my copy of this has very poor print quality (Note: I bought mine through my local comic shop, it was not a review copy).
Initially it wasn’t to bad, the art work just had a tendency to be fuzzy at times. However as I progressed through the volumes the problems grew worse and worse. Lots of smudging and artefacts all over the place. In all honesty it was the worst print quality I’ve ever seen in a series.
There were no issues with the translation, or at least it was smooth and flowed nicely. though translation from french to english is easier than japanese to english.
One thing I will compliment them for is the paper. Yaoi Press used a good high quality paper for the release and it does look nice. However this does just highlight the issue of smudging and artefacts. Which have become clearer since they’re on whiter paper than usual.
All told though I found that I did enjoy this series. Unlike other yaoi titles I’ve looked at this one wasn’t focused on rape, rather it’s a pure love story. I really got into it and think it’s well worth reading even for none yaoi fans.
I had hopped to pick up some other le Peruggine titles, unfortunately they’re not available in the UK, and the cost of importing them is insane at the moment. So this will be my first and last le Peruggine review for a long while.
After rereading it again, and thinking on it, I’ve decided to add this to my Essential Read list. Despite the printing flaws, and the issues I noted in the review, I did enjoy it. More importantly, it’s a series I will reread several times, and it’s one that sets the imagination burning with ideas of what happened after the final volume. All of which I feel make it worth it’s place on my list.
Really want to read Winter Demon, since that looks amazing!!
Where to Buy
Note: UK visitors should not buy from Amazon as it’s over priced. Play.com don’t carry Yaoi titles period. Also Canadian visitors should avoid Amazon with it’s $94 new copies lol
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Brits: Play,com or Amazon UK
