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Plural Media: Romantic Illusions, by Reiichi Hiiro
So, here's an oddball; while at the library, I ended up picking up a yaoi manga about three headmates in an in-house relationship: Romantic Illusions, by Reiichi Hiiro.
EDIT 10/22/2019: I finally got off my ass to translate the Japanese title (romanized Nōnai Renai no Susume, only to discover with delight that it translates to Intracerebral Romance Recommendation--I guess 脳内 would be the Japanese equivalent of "in-head.")
(Yes, I know apparently the correct term these days is BL or boy's love, but fuck it, the damn thing is marketed as "Yaoi Manga," that's what's written on the cover, I'm going to call it what it calls itself.)
Romantic Illusions follows the romantic and sexual misadventures of a small system of three. There's Yu, the sheltered original who works part-time in a flower shop; he's sweet and a little dreamy and tends to be dominated by his headmates, who were created in response to an emotionally abusive mother who later ditched, leaving Yu with his aunt. Since Yu grew up sure that nobody would love him, his headmates Kaname and Ryo came into being to provide that love and protection. Kaname becomes the system breadwinner, being highly ambitious and driven. He gets them through law school and starts his own law practice at 25, working as a defense attorney; he controls most of the working daylight hours. As for Ryo, well, he's got terrible taste in tattoos and men alike, mostly drinks, sleeps around, and gets into fights, but he's also the physical one who defends them from violence and gets them out of crummy situations; he mostly claims the wee hours of the night.
This book is very much of its genre. It follows the tropes we're all pretty familiar with--the sketchy consent and relationships, the manufactured conflicts, so if those are tropes you're not into, you won't like it. In the first pages, Ryo brings home a high school boy, which is gross, and there's one panel involving child sexual abuse (not of Yu/Ryo/Kaname) that's drawn in a really creepy titillating way, so ick.
But... even though I'm not sure I'd call this a GOOD book, and it's not my genre, I still found it weirdly charming. (In part because it's the only time I have ever seen an in-house plural relationship depicted in a book that I didn't make myself.)
Despite their bickering, Yu, Ryo, and Kaname are clearly all on the same side. They complain and kvetch about each other, but at the end of the day all want each other to be happy. Ryo might get tattoos and bring guys home that the others don't like, but Kaname and Yu both know that he has their back in a bad situation, and they depend on him for their feelings of security. Kaname and Ryo are deeply possessive and protective of Yu, but in the end they're willing to give his new boyfriend a shot when he proves he might be a nice guy, and over time they relent as he proves himself. And Kaname might be a rigid workaholic, but he also supports the rest of them, and Yu and Ryo never try to interfere with his job. And I found that "bickering boyfriends" dynamic kinda sweet, even though over the course of the book, all three end of getting their own corporeal boyfriends, and they develop more of a family love dynamic, rather than that of boyfriends. (If you're curious, Kaname finds a kinky prosecutor who is his equal in ambition and coldbloodedness, Ryo falls for a broken bird host of another multiple who loves drinking and partying as much as he does, and Yu ends up dating a therapist who was originally curious in them for research but grew to like them anyway.)
The three don't fuse at the end. There's the kinda goofy fear of Yu's that he mustn't love anyone else, lest his headmates die, but over time he learns that they can still love each other in different ways, and love their own boyfriends too. And I actually really appreciate that Yu expresses how important his headmates are to them--in the end, he decides that he cares more about them than his boyfriend, and if it means dating the boyfriend would kill his headmates, then he'll stick with his headmates. (In the end, of course, he doesn't have to choose between them.) And while I'm not sure how I feel about the discussion of fusion and integration, at least Yu and Ryo ASK about the ethics of "erasing" headmates, as they call it.
The three are co-conscious and actively negotiate their switching and calendar--it's common for one to ask, "Hey, switch with me this morning, I have something I need to do!" "Okay, fine." And they're really accommodating of each other! Kaname never complains about Ryo or Yu taking time away from his work; Yu sticks with his flower shop job because it gives him something to do and makes him happy. And however Yu and Kaname feel about Ryo's party boy behavior, they never try to say, "no, you don't get to have time out anymore." There's this sort of tacit understanding and acceptance that they all live here, and they all get their respective times. Maybe because they must be at least over twenty-five, and have had time to get used to each other.
So on the whole, this book was weird, very much of its genre, and oddly charming, despite its strangeness? Once things are more settled, I am even considering getting a copy to add to my multi book section, because even in the weird squickiness, I really found myself rooting for these three goofballs and wanting them to succeed and be happy in life, and I liked that they ended up finding a creative solution and all got a happy ending.
EDIT 10/22/2019: I finally got off my ass to translate the Japanese title (romanized Nōnai Renai no Susume, only to discover with delight that it translates to Intracerebral Romance Recommendation--I guess 脳内 would be the Japanese equivalent of "in-head.")
(Yes, I know apparently the correct term these days is BL or boy's love, but fuck it, the damn thing is marketed as "Yaoi Manga," that's what's written on the cover, I'm going to call it what it calls itself.)
Romantic Illusions follows the romantic and sexual misadventures of a small system of three. There's Yu, the sheltered original who works part-time in a flower shop; he's sweet and a little dreamy and tends to be dominated by his headmates, who were created in response to an emotionally abusive mother who later ditched, leaving Yu with his aunt. Since Yu grew up sure that nobody would love him, his headmates Kaname and Ryo came into being to provide that love and protection. Kaname becomes the system breadwinner, being highly ambitious and driven. He gets them through law school and starts his own law practice at 25, working as a defense attorney; he controls most of the working daylight hours. As for Ryo, well, he's got terrible taste in tattoos and men alike, mostly drinks, sleeps around, and gets into fights, but he's also the physical one who defends them from violence and gets them out of crummy situations; he mostly claims the wee hours of the night.
This book is very much of its genre. It follows the tropes we're all pretty familiar with--the sketchy consent and relationships, the manufactured conflicts, so if those are tropes you're not into, you won't like it. In the first pages, Ryo brings home a high school boy, which is gross, and there's one panel involving child sexual abuse (not of Yu/Ryo/Kaname) that's drawn in a really creepy titillating way, so ick.
But... even though I'm not sure I'd call this a GOOD book, and it's not my genre, I still found it weirdly charming. (In part because it's the only time I have ever seen an in-house plural relationship depicted in a book that I didn't make myself.)
Despite their bickering, Yu, Ryo, and Kaname are clearly all on the same side. They complain and kvetch about each other, but at the end of the day all want each other to be happy. Ryo might get tattoos and bring guys home that the others don't like, but Kaname and Yu both know that he has their back in a bad situation, and they depend on him for their feelings of security. Kaname and Ryo are deeply possessive and protective of Yu, but in the end they're willing to give his new boyfriend a shot when he proves he might be a nice guy, and over time they relent as he proves himself. And Kaname might be a rigid workaholic, but he also supports the rest of them, and Yu and Ryo never try to interfere with his job. And I found that "bickering boyfriends" dynamic kinda sweet, even though over the course of the book, all three end of getting their own corporeal boyfriends, and they develop more of a family love dynamic, rather than that of boyfriends. (If you're curious, Kaname finds a kinky prosecutor who is his equal in ambition and coldbloodedness, Ryo falls for a broken bird host of another multiple who loves drinking and partying as much as he does, and Yu ends up dating a therapist who was originally curious in them for research but grew to like them anyway.)
The three don't fuse at the end. There's the kinda goofy fear of Yu's that he mustn't love anyone else, lest his headmates die, but over time he learns that they can still love each other in different ways, and love their own boyfriends too. And I actually really appreciate that Yu expresses how important his headmates are to them--in the end, he decides that he cares more about them than his boyfriend, and if it means dating the boyfriend would kill his headmates, then he'll stick with his headmates. (In the end, of course, he doesn't have to choose between them.) And while I'm not sure how I feel about the discussion of fusion and integration, at least Yu and Ryo ASK about the ethics of "erasing" headmates, as they call it.
The three are co-conscious and actively negotiate their switching and calendar--it's common for one to ask, "Hey, switch with me this morning, I have something I need to do!" "Okay, fine." And they're really accommodating of each other! Kaname never complains about Ryo or Yu taking time away from his work; Yu sticks with his flower shop job because it gives him something to do and makes him happy. And however Yu and Kaname feel about Ryo's party boy behavior, they never try to say, "no, you don't get to have time out anymore." There's this sort of tacit understanding and acceptance that they all live here, and they all get their respective times. Maybe because they must be at least over twenty-five, and have had time to get used to each other.
So on the whole, this book was weird, very much of its genre, and oddly charming, despite its strangeness? Once things are more settled, I am even considering getting a copy to add to my multi book section, because even in the weird squickiness, I really found myself rooting for these three goofballs and wanting them to succeed and be happy in life, and I liked that they ended up finding a creative solution and all got a happy ending.