"I could never have done that! I'm a normal man who wants an average, normal family!"

I'd like to be able to give Future Lovers an unalloyedly positive review. The first story in the book, "Future lovers", is a very sweet and funny tale of a one-night stand that turns into a long-term relationship. Kento is a high school teacher who was raised by his grandparents after his parents died, and who longs to get married and start a family of his own. Unfortunately, when he proposes to his girlfriend Yukie, she is less than impressed by his way of putting this, suspecting (and rightly so) that he cares more about the idea of marriage than about her as a person. She tosses her drink at him and storms out, leaving him to be picked up by Akira, a bystander who got caught in the splash. One thing leads to another, and Kento finds himself having sex with Akira, much to his astonishment. The next day, he's determined to put it all behind him and make up with Yukie -- but when he gets to work, Akira is there. Turns out he's the new art teacher, which means it's not going to be as easy for Kento to avoid him as he was hoping...

"Future Lovers" is a lovely story about two people re-adjusting their expectations as a result of meeting each other. At first, Kento's dream of a perfect family and Akira's yearning for someone from his past both get in the way of the real love that's on offer in the here and now. Adapting to reality is hard for them: Akira's sarcastic and undomesticated and can't resist being provocative, while Kento is naive and too traditional for his own good. The second chapter is all about how they negotiate the gap between reality and dream and try to figure out whether the compromises are worth the trouble. It's funny and well-observed, and Kunieda's art has a light, slightly cartoony style that's unlike most BL artists', and complements the story perfectly.

Unfortunately, there's the second story in the book, "Winter Rabbit". I want to make it clear that "Winter Rabbit" is not a bad story. It has a rather softer, more melancholy tone than "Future Lovers", but Kunieda pulls this tone off quite nicely, and overall it works pretty well. But "Winter Rabbit" is an incest story, and this is not mentioned anywhere on the dust jacket. My copy was shrinkwrapped, so I had no way of knowing before I brought the book home that I had paid for a book with an incest story in it. Now, I am not one of those people who find incest stories utterly nauseating -- I don't particularly like them, but they don't send me running for the hills -- but there are people like that, and even if you're not one of them, it can be a bit disconcerting to go from a totally straightforward romance to a story about two cousins raised as brothers who fall in love. I don't blame Kunieda for this -- as I said, "Winter Rabbit" is a good story in itself (though it's not quite as good as "Future Lovers"; the characters aren't as well-rounded). I just wish the publishers had mentioned "Winter Rabbit"'s contents on the blurb. This is the kind of thing a reader ought to be informed of before making a purchase, and the fact that it's not mentioned anywhere forces me to mark Future Lovers down. Which is a shame, because the title story is really good.

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