Monday, February 16, 2009

Time Lag by Shinobu Gotoh and Hotaru Odagiri review

Time Lag

Author/Artist: Shinobu Gotoh/Hotaru Odagiri

Publisher: Juné

Rating: YA – ages 16 and up

Genre: Shonen Ai, Drama, Romance, School Life

Grade: B

Satoru Tendou has a monster crush on his next door neighbor and long time friend Shirou Sawaguchi. Every year around the same time he always confesses his love and every year he gets turned down. The once warm Shirou has now turned into a cold, cold guy towards Satoru. Now in high school Satoru is the star sports photographer for the school newspaper and Shirou is a hotshot on the track team. When the time of year for Satoru to confess nears he struggles with the idea of not confessing to Shirou. Satoru confides in the editor of the school paper, Seiichi Hiroi. These two have been fairly good friends and Seiichi always comforts Satoru when he gets dumped.

At one of Shirou's track meets, Satoru and Seiichi are casually conversing and Satoru notices that Shirou is staring with love in his eyes in his direction. Feeling dejected Satoru assumes that Shirou was dreamily staring at Seiichi. Satoru's emotions are all over the place and Seiichi seizes on this opportunity. It seems that Seiichi has a thing for Satoru and has been waiting for his chance. Time moves on and Satoru is worried about the rift with Shirou until a letter arrives for him. It is from Shirou and the postmark is three years old. What?

You'll recognize the art right away (at least if you are familiar with Hotaru Odagiri) and Shinobu Gotoh (ignore the typo on the front cover of the book) is well known for the Passion and the Takumi-kun series. When I first read a description about this story I was a little confused. The synopsis I read made it sound like it was a time travel story so I really didn't have much desire to read it. But I ordered it anyway (I got it for a nice cheap price) and I'm glad I did. I know this is the typical love triangle and falling for your childhood friend, but it is so sweet how the three-year-old letter introduces an interesting angle to the story. If you're new to the realm of BL this is a good title to pick up because it shows us the beginning of the relationship. If you want sweaty, hot, passion you won't find it here. But the story moves gently and quickly and is quite refreshing.

This is a good read and you won't regret picking it up. Another review of Time Lag is available at J LHLS by Ginger Mayerson. This review helped me out to decipher the actual plot of the story and piqued my interest.

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