Genre: BL/yaoi.
Age rating: 18+
Price: $12.95
The first wonderful thing about Hyouta Fujiyama's BL is how down-to-earth it is. A lot of BL mangaka resort to outlandish premises and convoluted plots to get their lovers together; Fujiyama just puts them side by side and lets them interact like normal human beings. She has a gift for subtle characterisation that makes each of her stories distinctive and delightful.
Lover's Flat takes as its starting point the tiny apartments so many Tokyo residents live in. The two couples the story focuses on, Kouno with Natsu and Naomichi with Kei, live next door to each other, each pair sharing a "six-mat" room (about 9ft by 12ft). The forced proximity makes it harder for them to hide it when their feelings begin to grow from friendship into something more -- either from each other, or from their neighbours. Indeed, the second chapter begins with Naomichi figuring out just what those noises from next door mean, at the same time as Kei confesses his love. Thin walls guard no secrets...
The second wonderful thing about Hyouta Fujiyama's BL is that she doesn't assume that a blissful coupling followed by an exchange of "I love you"s is the end of the story. Both of the couples have issues to work out: Naomichi is tentative and a little bit freaked out about the prospect of having sex with another man, while Kouno has difficulties in his past that threaten his relationship with Natsu. The problems are low-key and convincingly depicted, and the way the characters deal with them is similarly realistic. Nobody suddenly develops telepathy or turns into a monster or a drama queen; they fret, they get jealous, they get angry, they fight, they apologise, and it's all very real and very human.
The bulk of the book comes from an early phase in Fujiyama's career, and her art is not as individual here as it later became; compared with what can be seen in her later books like Spell or Freefall Romance, it sometimes feels a bit cramped and tight, as if she doesn't have the confidence to relax into her own style yet. At times there's a bit of overuse of screentones -- a frequent problem with inexperienced BL artists. I'd also note that one consistent flaw in Fujiyama's art is her limited range of faces: when two of her male characters have the same haircut, it's practically impossible to tell them apart, and her low-key storytelling doesn't permit the kind of ultra-distinctive haircuts that would make the job easier. That said, context usually fills in the gaps, and for my money this flaw is irritating but not fatal, not least because it highlights how distinctly her characters are written, even if they're drawn to look similar.
Overall, Lover's Flat is a deeply enjoyable read -- satisfying in all the ways I want BL manga to be, and at the same time providing pleasures most BL manga don't. Fujiyama got better after this, but this was a bloody good start.
7