Masaki Ashizawa is employed by a management consulting firm and is renowned for rehabilitating struggling restaurants and persuading his clients to his way of thinking. His current project involves finding the perfect chef for a new French restaurant being secretly opened by Chef Yanaginuma, a big name in the business, and when Ashizawa tastes the cooking of Chef Tsubaki, he knows he’s found his man. Unfortunately, when he first mentions the proposal to Chef Tsubaki, he manages to insult the man and must resort to rather drastic measures—volunteering to work as a waiter in Tsubaki’s restaurant for a month—to learn what makes the restaurant a success and simultaneously show that he can be trusted. Gradually, Ashizawa’s attempt to secure Tsubaki as a business partner becomes a quest to better know and understand the man, culminating in Ashizawa’s realization that he wants more than a purely professional relationship.

There are several major things to like about Eat or Be Eaten. For one thing, it has an actual plot and takes the time to educate the reader on various facts about French cuisine. For another, the scenes where Ashizawa is learning the tasks that need doing around the restaurant—like tablecloth wrangling, for example—are a lot of fun. The biggest factor in its favor for me, however, is the age of the protagonists. Both Ashizawa and Tsubaki are grown men in their thirties with professional goals and Tsubaki, at least, is openly gay. Though Ashizawa sometimes acts like a self-proclaimed high school girl as his feelings for Tsubaki manifest—there’s a lot of clutching at his palpitating heart—the fact that the protagonists in a yaoi novel are preoccupied with something besides their romance is a refreshing change.

Of course, it has its flaws, too. Like most light novels, the language is simplistic and features some cheesy lines. Here’s my favorite:

Bright red blood dripped from Tsubaki’s hand. It looked like his heart was crying.

Ashizawa’s characterization is inconsistent; he’s initially described as being “flinty,” but that would be the last word I’d choose for someone who gets flustered as often as he does. The explicit scenes are also a bit odd, as Fuyuno uses the adjective “disgusting” a number of times to describe those excessively slobbery kisses that seem prevalent in this genre. Not that I disagree, but it’s an unexpected word choice. Lastly, the first sexual encounter between Ashizawa and Tsubaki is possibly nonconsensual; it’s one of those times when “no” seems to mean “yes”; given our access to Ashizawa’s thoughts at the time, it seems he’s merely ashamed of his own desires.

There are also some issues with the production of the physical book itself. On many pages, the margins seem to be off, resulting in excess blank space near the spine of the book and text that comes perilously close to being cut off by the edge of the page. Also, while I was doing nothing more than simply holding the book open a pair of pages popped free from the binding.

Ultimately, Eat or Be Eaten is fun fluff. To indulge in a bit of culinary metaphor, think of it as the literary equivalent of meringue.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at Manga Recon.

Masaki Shiiba was a detective investigating the manufacture of illegal firearms and Keigo Munechika was his “S,” an informant who played a key role in Shiiba’s information gathering. At some point in the past, the two began a romantic relationship, but a powerful yakuza boss with a grudge against Munechika wants to see him suffer and so hires a hitman who’ll receive one million yen every time he shoots Munechika.

As the fourth volume begins, Munechika lies hospitalized and Shiiba has turned in his resignation and bought an illegal gun with the intention of killing the man responsible—Takanari Godou—who also might’ve had something to do with the death of Shiiba’s sister eight years earlier. Shiiba gets as far as confronting Godou at gunpoint, but the other man manages to exploit his weaknesses in such a way that he agrees to do Godou’s bidding in exchange for the hit against Munechika being called off.

Let me be clear on one thing: I am not comparing S to great works of literature. As far as yaoi novels go, however, it seems to be better than most. True, the writing is facile, with a blatant disregard for the admonition “show, don’t tell,” but at least the story is trying to be about something more than sex. In fact, there’s only one sex scene in the whole book and it’s between two men who genuinely love each other. Despite Godou’s attempts to humiliate Shiiba while the latter is in his clutches, no nonconsensual scenes result. That alone is worthy of praise.

The basic plot is “the good guys versus Godou,” and I had no trouble getting into it, though the finer details never really coalesced for me. Nearly all of the characters are conflicted in some way, especially Shiiba, whose ruminating upon past events fills in the blanks pretty well. Throughout, I could easily visualize the action, so it felt a lot like reading a novelization of a story originally told in manga format.

There are some problems, though. After much is made of Shiiba needing to stay at Godou’s house in order to protect Munechika, there are no consequences when he leaves. When Shiiba is reunited with Munechika, who has some powerful connections himself, Munechika’s people simply say, “Oh yes, we know about the hitman,” and that’s that. It’s all very anticlimactic. Also, two characters, including the main villain, have similar angsty backgrounds that involve a mother’s inappropriate love for either her son or her son’s half-brother and her subsequent early demise. I’m not sure what the author was trying to say there.

DMP’s packaging is a mixed bag. A color illustration is included, which I appreciate—Chiharu Nara’s art is quite nice and depicts both Shiba and Munechika as mature, masculine men—but there are many grammatical errors in the text. Most of these are things that should’ve been easily caught, like “the wings itself aren’t blue,” while others, like “He took the bouquet from the employee’s hands, who looked conflicted,” conjure up amusing mental images of unusually expressive appendages.

If you’re looking for a yaoi novel with an emphasis on plot, then S might suit you to a T.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at Manga Recon.