Yuki Kaori - Parfum Extrait 0 (Chi. trans.)

[oyceter]

Saikawa Kanade and his half-Japanese, half-French cousin Anais solve three perfume-related mysteries. I feel this plot seems deceptively simple compared to the tangles in Angel Sanctuary and Cain Saga/Godchild, but given that it's only a one shot, what can you do?

I was bored a little by Kanade, despite his angsty backstory rivalry with a fellow perfumer, but I love Anais. She is half-French so Yuki Kaori has an excluse to give her blond hair and blue eyes*, and amazingly, there are no incestuous vibes between her and Kanade, despite the fact that they aren't actually related by blood (she's his aunt's stepdaughter). She is grumpy and tall and beats people up and glares sullenly from the cover. I wanted to get more backstory about her childhood bond with Kanade, but only tidbits for me.

Sadly, the crack is not quite up to normal Yuki Kaori levels, though there are goth girls, dead bodies galore, lots of evil women, and an evil MTF to boot. Oh Yuki Kaori, why?

Still, the art is gorgeous and there are enough cracktastically insane bits to please me, but it's definitely not among her more memorable pieces of work.


* I do not understand all these half-Continental-European characters running around in manga and anime and how they all have blond hair and blue eyes. I mean, obviously there is no set way to look if one is half-Asian and half-European, but it'd be nice if one of these half-Continental-European characters had brown hair and brown eyes for once.


ETA: I am going to the comic book store tomorrow, so tell me what in Yuki Kaori's backlist I should get! (Besides the rent boy serial killer one, which is, uh, already on the list.) Bonus points for letting me know if the plot involves crazy terminology like "organic angels," which will be a little confusing in Chinese.

Comments

[coffeeandink.livejournal.com]

There's one called Neji/Screw, which is very early and sf; there are scans but I've never read it. And there's a very creepy, bloody, disturbing series of fairytale retellings about a sadistic prince named Ludwig or Leopold or something who is clearly modeled on David Bowie.

[oyceter]

I got Neji! And I almost bought the rent boy one but juuust didn't, though now I have an account at a manga rental store, bwahahahaha. I realized there were too many things I wanted to sample before deciding to buy, and you can't tachiyomi here because the manga is shrink wrapped. And I got the Ludwig one, because hey, Yuki Kaori + creepy blood disturbing + fairy tales!

I am certain there is tons of creepy bloody disturbing misogyny as well, sigh.