Manga-ka: Kimiyoshi
Publisher: Digital Manga Guild
Rating: Mature (18+)
Release Date: May 2013

Synopsis: “Takahiro’s normal life as a high school student gets turned on its head when his father marries a super rich Hollywood actress named, Elizabeth Adley, and leaves Japan to be with her. Takahiro is forced to leave his apartment home move into a lavish hotel room. Fantasies of naked nights of porn and debauchery begin to fill Takahiro’s mind. Too bad his new mother in law has other plans. In order to protect Takahiro (and her money) from kidnappings, Elizabeth hires two bodyguards from a distinguished American company. Any thoughts of unsupervised nights of fun quickly rush from Takahiro’s mind. On the up side, his new bodyguards are totally cool.”

Sometimes there are books so bad that you almost have to recommend them as an important genre piece. Some books just make the good books look better. That said, Body Guard is still not a book I would recommend to many, but I would lying if I said I hadn’t shown select pages to a number of fellow boys’ love fans just to get a good laugh.

The story of Body Guard isn’t anything notable on its own, neither especially good or bad. It follows a young man named Takahiro who finds his life completely changed when his Father gets married to a rich, Hollywood actress. When his Father leaves the country to live with her, Takahiro is moved into a fancy hotel where he’s assigned a bodyguard to protect him. Apparently the married-in children of movie stars suddenly have more kidnapping and blackmail threats than political figures – who knew? It won’t take a veteran BL reader any time to ascertain where this plot is going, but in summary there are kidnappings, rescues, and sex with mr. bodyguard.

What stands out about Body Guard is the art. This is one of those stories that gives boys’ love a bad name for some of the worst anatomy in comics. It’s not bad everywhere but when it is bad, one can’t help but stare incredulously at a panel that should never have gotten by any editor, let alone the artist themselves. Heads the size of baseballs atop behemoth torsos and hands the size of tennis rackets plague the pages. That the inking and screen toning is so solid and professional looking makes it all the more baffling why the basics of the art is so painfully lacking.

Still, if you enjoy your boys’ love raunchy and dirty, and aren’t afraid to wade through a sea of anatomical hilarity, then Body Guard may be enough for you. The sex scenes are lengthy and all are uncensored. You’ve got fully drawn penises, sex toys, lubrication and all the mess that goes with them. Also included are plenty of tears, begging, semes in suits and ukes in rope bondage.

Body Guard – There’s little story, lots of sex and artwork that we assume only passes because of providing the latter. It’s pretty darn bad, but still serves some purpose as a piece of entertainment, for whatever personal reason you find yourself inclined to read it.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
Digita copy provided by eManga.com for review purposes

Follow

Share on Tumblr

About the Author: Lissa Pattillo

Lissa Pattillo is the owner and editor of Kuriousity.ca. Residing in Halifax, Nova Scotia she takes great joy in collecting all manners of manga genres, regretting that there's never enough time in the day to review or share them all. Along with reviews, Lissa is responsible for all the news postings to the website and works full time as a web and graphic designer.