Author: Hiroki Kusumoto
Pages: 200
Price: $12.95
Publisher: June
Summary from back cover: When young artist Lou catches the eye of the devastatingly handsome Sein on the street one afternoon, he thinks his new patron simply wants to commission a portrait for his wall...but what secret flickers within Sein's piercing gaze? At the very moment that Lou draws closer to his brooding boss, an arrogant rogue named Adam crashes the party and pulls the curtain back on Sein's blood-sucking identity. Lou realizes that his bond with Sein goes beyond mere portraiture and into the deepest recesses of his heart...but is this frightened boy truly ready to unleash an untamed beast?
Review: Remember in the novel Dracula how Jonathan Harker goes to work for the count? I always felt the chapters dealing with Jonathan being stuck in Dracula's castle were very homoerotic and found these chapters to be the most interesting and intense. Vampire's Portrait starts out with a very similar beginning as Dracula. Lou is commissioned to draw a portrait for the mysterious Sein. While he works for him, he stays in his home. Reading the first few pages that outline the setting I get excited and think I'm going to be reading a BL manga adaption of the novel. Although, there are tints of the original story here, Vamipire's Portrait fall's prey to typical BL storytelling and falls apart a chapter in.
One of the downfalls of this manga is how fast all the events unfold. Twelve pages in Sein is already baring his fangs. By chapter two we get the jealous "boyfriend", and Lou realizing his feelings. See, your average BL fodder and all within the frist 57 pages. All we need now is some type of zany misunderstanding that will cause an equally crazy situation. Oh, wait, there's one of those too...
But, you know what, this is BL, and BL doesn't tend to be about plot or story, what really saves it are the characters and watching them develop. Our protagonist, Lou, is naive, sweet, kind, adorable, and also a bit...crazy? After Sein digs his fangs into him, he notices music sheets scattered about the floor. He figures out Sein is the creator of a song his grandfather recorded and I guess from there he discerns him to be some poor soul who just wants the ability to see an image of himself (because, you know, vampire's don't have a reflection). I really don't understand it because even if I discovered the man who just dug his teeth into me was Charles Dickens you better believe I'll still be out the door faster then the Flash on skates. Isn't that how the mind works? Fight or flight? So either Lou doesn't have a brain stem, or he is indeed crazy.
Sein starts out as a jerk. Throwing a rich boy hissy fit and ripping apart Lou's portrait. But once Lou confronts him on being a vampire and the longing to see himself he settles down. The bad boy that plagued all of nine pages dissolves and we're left with a lethargic simpering seme.
Is there no one who will save this story?!
Enter Adam.
Adam is the "jealous boyfriend" I mentioned above, and he is the person who gives this story the shock treatment it so desperately needs. You see, Sein "feeds" off of Adam, and anyone who's read Dracula, you know this is usually linked to sex. So you can basically see Adam as Sein's lover. He's been with Sien for quite a while and here comes this nobody ragamuffin from the street wedging himself between them. Whenever Adam appears he steals the scene with his self-assuredness and calm calculating personality. The real highlight for me is near the end when he must go rescue Sein and Lou and I absolutely loved seeing the extreme worry that replaced the smile usually plastered across his face. I know in the end Adam is not met for Sein, but I'm rooting for him anyway.
Another highlight of this manga was the art. Sein's smiles are heartwarming and Adam's just delish. I'm really a fan of the way she draws the eyes of these two. I would have liked to see more background shots, more imagery of the city in order to get a better sense of things. But overall, I like Kusumoto's style.
But for all you sex fiends, who just want to know one thing, how much of it is there and how hot. Sadly there is none. So, if you're looking for hot vampire sex I'd look else where, namely Mika Sadahiro's Pathos, also released by June. But this story is more plot based.
To tie things up, Vampire's Portrait is a light story that tries desperately to be something more. This, like You Will Fall in Love is a great starter manga for those just getting into BL. But for us veterans this will barely whet your appetite.
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