why aida saki fails for me
Huh, I think there'll be a lot of fangirls filled with glee when they hear that the novel "S" by Aida Saki and illustrated by Nara Chiharu has been licensed by Juné (complete list of new licenses here--There's a bunch of novels in addition to "S," none of which I've read...Hmm, are any of them any good?). I can't help but shrug in indifference. I read the first novel out of curiosity (saw a good amount of squeeing online) and was...so not impressed. I think the Deadlock series (the one about the former DEA agent who gets jailed and falls in love with his cellmate, the one illustrated by the amazing Takashina You), for all the problems I had with it, is much better.
...Though "better" is truly relative in this case. I've read at least seven books by Aida Saki and just can't quite...get into her novels. Well, except for this one series that I will someday talk about because it just cracked me up (totally unintentionally...I think it was supposed to be a serious story. Maybe the author didn't take it seriously (at least, I hope she didn't write it in all earnestness because that would be so sad), but I think it was meant to be taken seriously by the reader). In any case, it's not that I think her novels bad. I don't. I've read bad, and hers aren't. They just don't captivate me. They even more or less hit my moe points, and yet they don't make me squee. I thought about it for a while one day and I came to the conclusion that her characters just fail to engage me. They tend to be too talky about their feelings (I suppose I should feel bad about stereotyping men as unable to express their feelings, but seriously...lots of guys can't. For all that the uber-aggressive seme stereotype is stupid and over-the-top, I'm more able to believe that men will resort to violence before laying out their hearts when they've been set up as proud macho men...). Especially when the guys in question are supposed to be hard-boiled detectives/yakuza/terrorists/assassins/whatever. The author seems to love meaningful and/or heartrending deaths/deathscenes. And she adores ukes just being pwned by dominating semes, in a virgin maiden sort of way (even though the ukes are never virgins!). She also loves coincidences and contrived storylines (possibly more than usual in BL, though not the worst I've seen by far). Whatever. I could go on and on, but I won't. I suppose it all comes down to the characters. I can forgive a lot of badness in plot if I like and care about them, and I just don't with her characters. *shrugs*
The funny thing is that now that I've typed up this little rant, I kind of feel like rereading the Deadlock series....
On second thought, maybe I just want to look at the pretty pics. Check them out in all their glory thanks to rusalkaz: Volumes 1, 2, and 3. I personally prefer looking at the books.
...Though "better" is truly relative in this case. I've read at least seven books by Aida Saki and just can't quite...get into her novels. Well, except for this one series that I will someday talk about because it just cracked me up (totally unintentionally...I think it was supposed to be a serious story. Maybe the author didn't take it seriously (at least, I hope she didn't write it in all earnestness because that would be so sad), but I think it was meant to be taken seriously by the reader). In any case, it's not that I think her novels bad. I don't. I've read bad, and hers aren't. They just don't captivate me. They even more or less hit my moe points, and yet they don't make me squee. I thought about it for a while one day and I came to the conclusion that her characters just fail to engage me. They tend to be too talky about their feelings (I suppose I should feel bad about stereotyping men as unable to express their feelings, but seriously...lots of guys can't. For all that the uber-aggressive seme stereotype is stupid and over-the-top, I'm more able to believe that men will resort to violence before laying out their hearts when they've been set up as proud macho men...). Especially when the guys in question are supposed to be hard-boiled detectives/yakuza/terrorists/assassins/whatever. The author seems to love meaningful and/or heartrending deaths/deathscenes. And she adores ukes just being pwned by dominating semes, in a virgin maiden sort of way (even though the ukes are never virgins!). She also loves coincidences and contrived storylines (possibly more than usual in BL, though not the worst I've seen by far). Whatever. I could go on and on, but I won't. I suppose it all comes down to the characters. I can forgive a lot of badness in plot if I like and care about them, and I just don't with her characters. *shrugs*
The funny thing is that now that I've typed up this little rant, I kind of feel like rereading the Deadlock series....
On second thought, maybe I just want to look at the pretty pics. Check them out in all their glory thanks to rusalkaz: Volumes 1, 2, and 3. I personally prefer looking at the books.