Sensual Phrase 11
Posted: June 15, 2011 Filed under: Sensual Phrase Leave a comment »Mayu Shinjo – Viz – 2005 – 18 volumes
This volume was all about the fans. Lucifer’s new producer decides that Aine’s bad for business, so she and Sakuya get back in his good graces by coming up with fan-centric shows.
Elsewhere, Aine develops a friendship with a Sakuya fan that I thought was a boy for, like, two volumes. Her name is a dead giveaway (Sakura), as is the fact that she’s obsessed with Sakuya, but still. The friendship ends here when she finds out that Aine is the for real girlfriend of Sakuya. They become enemies, in fact, when Sakura sends a group of girls to beat up Aine. This causes Sakuya to lose it, of course, and the jerk producer has to intervene. Sakuya’s methods of “dealing with it” are a little strange, though, since he proceeds to apparently seduce Sakura in order to get her to make up with Aine. Aine sees them together. Things go badly.
Unusually, the story carries through the whole volume, and the two sub-stories are related. As I’ve said, one of the things that makes this so fun to read is that it moves on so quickly to new insanity, so the lingering troubles here are strange. I’m not sure just what to make of that yet.
My bad dialogue moment of zen: “No one knows… what’s behind those lyrics… the price I pay…” said while Aine and Sakuya are having sex. Because that is a seriously taxing activity to wring song lyrics out of a girl.
For the record, I gave up on Shinjo’s author commentary in the side columns. It’s always about bands I’ve never heard of, and recently, it’s covered the real-life-but-based-on-an-anime-based-on-a-manga Lucifer. I just can’t be bothered to care anymore. Even if she did name-drop Sonoko Suzuki as a GLAY spokesperson.
