だからこそ。

Due to my awesome real life commitments, I have found myself unable to find any time to game or watch anime, barring 5 minutes of Hetalia every week. But on the bright side, I have rediscovered the joys of reading manga (which I have been neglecting in favour of anime recently…) because it seems to take up less time that anime. Whether or not it really does take up less time is irrelevant.

So anyway, I was browsing through some manga, trying to find something new to read, and I chanced upon this gem on mangafox. Warning: This series contains bl (ie. malexmale pairings) so if you don’t like it, don’t read on.

Shinkuu Yuusetsu (Hollow Fusion) mainly follows (with a few detours) the story of Alexi and Rael, the pair in the picture above. They live in a special country, where every person has to be matched up with a partner. One person acts as the ’supplier’ and the other the ‘receiver’. It is impossible for a ‘receiver’ to continue to live without periodically being given power from the ’supplier.’ And in the same way, it is imperative for a ’supplier’ that a ‘receiver’ accept some of the power generated within their body. Doctors decide who gets paired up based on how well their frequencies match. The catch is, this power has to be transferred through a kiss ;D

Storywise, I liked the very unique premise of the ‘receiver’ and ’supplier’ thing. While it is arguable that it has been done before (ie. two people get together because they have some severe dependency on each other), this premise applies to a whole country, not just one couple, so it sets a very unique tone for the book. After having read so many bl mangas where the plot is 90% the same, this came as a very refreshing change. Also, apart from the kiss scenes, there is no direct ‘in your face’ bl, and no random sex scenes which have no visible purpose except as fanservice (thank God, so may good bl mangas have been utterly ruined by this) and yet the story still sustains the romantic feel throughout. The feeling I get of UST is probably my overactive imagination.

Another wonderful thing about the premise is that it poses a very interesting problem. Because ’suppliers’ and ‘receivers’ are so dependent on one another, it makes it hard for them to have any (romantic) relationships outside of their partner. Thus it brings about the question of ‘Is that person staying with me because he/she has no choice or because he/she really loves me?’ which gives a very nice depth to the story that most other bl mangas seem to lack. Sadly, the mangaka didn’t really dwell very much on this, so it could have been a little more well-developed.

The plot is mainly a bunch of short stories strung together, each serving to show the a different side of the relationship between Alexi and Rael. There are also a few stories which focus more on the other characters, and these usually show the unique relationships between the people of the country. Most of the time it’s really just pure fluff C:

The characters in this book are quite well, normal in the sense. The main characters are fleshed out quite well, especially considering the very short length of the series (2 volumes), but they themselves aren’t really anything out of the ordinary. What is good, as I mentioned before, is the relationships between the characters, because they’re all so well though-out, and have a really good depth to them, so it feels almost real.

A rather amusing thing is that the mangaka included a character called Hannes, an exchange student from outside the country ie. a normal person, and she uses him to point out certain things in the manga such as ‘Is this a lover’s quarrel?’ and ‘To an outsider, they sound completely in love.’ almost to the point of satire, which I found rather amusing.

Artwise, this manga is about average. The general level of the art in the book is slightly below that of the cover’s, and there quite a few parts where the drawings become somewhat odd, but there’s nothing majorly bad. I think the mangaka’s style makes the chracters look a little younger that they’re supposed to be and Alexi’s hair seems to fluctuate a lot between spikey and smooth but that’s just nitpicking really.

All in all, this was a really good read. I originally picked it up as a filler, but it turned out to be one of the best bl mangas that I’ve read in a long time. I think my biggest complaint would be that this series was way too short and there’s still so much potential in the premise that the plot hasn’t touched on yet, but it’s definitely a great series worth the read.