Genre: Fantasy/BL

Age rating: 16+

The summer I turned thirteen, I sat on the roof of my school, and discussed parallel universes with a cat.

That's the opening sentence of Voice or Noise volume 1. It's a hell of an opening sentence, I think you'll agree: pithy, unusual, and instantly intriguing. On the basis of that opening sentence and nothing more, I bought the book and brought it home, figuring that whatever followed would have to be at least as interesting.

Unfortunately, the rest of the book doesn't quite live up to the promise of the first page. The premise, as you've probably guessed, is that there are certain people in the world who can talk to animals, and our protagonists -- junior high school student Shinichiro and physics professor Narusawa -- are among them. Shinichiro's dog is suffering from some vague ailment that doesn't seem to have a physical cause, so the vet, a friend of Narusawa's, tells Shinichiro to get Narusawa to speak to him. But Narusawa is not open about his gift, and finds it to be as much a burden as a joy. Shinichiro is drawn in by his brooding intensity and refuses to leave Narusawa alone, no matter how unwelcoming he is. Narusawa insists that being able to understand animals and communicate with them is dangerous: "If you talk with animals, you may become like an animal... Do you have any idea what that means?"

So far, so good; but a good concept doesn't make a good manga, and Voice or Noise is only good in parts. It looks nice enough -- there's nothing particularly distinguished about Yamimaru Enjin's style, but it's readable and easy on the eye -- but the plot develops slowly and unevenly, in fits and starts, and the dialogue doesn't flow at all well. There's little to distinguish the characters from any random seme/uke pair from any random BL manga, and so little actually happens in the story that it's hard to care about them or their relationship. When the most fleshed-out character in a BL manga is the seme's pet cat, something has gone badly wrong.

The writing rises in quality towards the end, as Narusawa begins to open up to Shinichiro, and this improvement (along with the occasional humorous touches coming from the various animals' comments on the humans' behaviour) is enough to make the second volume look promising. But I can't honestly recommend the first volume on its own merits. There isn't enough there, and the fact that the basic idea is good just makes the lacklustre execution frustrating.

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