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Manga-ka: Motoni Modoru
Publisher: Kitty Media
Rating: Mature (18+)
Released:
Synopsis: “The rumors are flying all over the net, there exists an unknown group of jack-of-all-trades heroes who will do anything and anyone to grant the wishes of hot hot guys. But there’s always a price for the service – what could they possibly want in exchange?”
Cherry Drive is a group of guys who have put together a jack-of-all-trades service offering themselves up to do whatever their clients ask (of course preferring their clients to be young, virgin gay men). The president, Ai Iida is a sex-crazed individual who created Cherry Drive so he could deflower virgins, or ‘cherries’, while vice president Mamezo Takano believes himself to be a 94 year old man who replenishes himself on the essence of young men. It’s not that difficult to get a kind grasp on what kind of book readers have found themselves with.
What follows is 160 pages of non-stop insanity ranging from the men of Cherry Drive helping a boy get over his phobia of naked males, to being a middle-aged man’s first gay experience. The topic of rape is brought up often in Poison Cherry Drive, both as driving force behind clients’ intents and the means in which to exact their vengeance with the group’s help. Of course everything in the book needs to be taken with a grain of salt as everything and everyone are used for the sake of jokes and nonsensical scenarios. For this reason alone, the book may not appeal to everyone and some may find the jokes too offensive to take humorously.
Motoni Modoru’s art style will appeal to fans of more masculine looking characters. The men are tall and built with sharp and defined features. The designs are easy to tell apart from one another, which is beneficial because readers will require their attention to follow the text and panelling to keep up with what’s going on. While direct shots of genitalia aren’t drawn in, the book certainly doesn’t feel censored at all. Overall it’s an attractive art style that feels a perfect level of over-the-top with the artistic choices used, suiting the content.
The book was decently put together by Kitty Media. The cover layout was kept much the same as the original Japanese release, though the design choice of the logo with the radial lines is a little distracting from the main image. The translation work is clean and readable though not overly memorable. Occasionally the font seems placed a little oddly in the text bubbles but it’s a minor complaint.
Simply said, don’t let this book’s categorization as drama fool you into thinking it’s to be taken seriously. Poison Cherry Drive is a crazy, unpredictable and overall surprisingly fun manga as it follows the escapades of these characters, all of which are weird enough to carry the senseless plot along. If you’re a yaoi fan with no qualms with mature themes, this book is recommended to you for a short but entertaining time full of sex, silly and a whole lot of random.
Written January 31, 2008 by Lissa Pattillo for ComicsVillage
Book purchased online from Amazon
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