I wanted to pick something a little different this week for the Manga section so I chose a Yaoi which isn’t something usually featured here at Comic Bastards. Let me explain what a Yaoi Manga is; its focus on beautiful boys and typically with same sex relationships. Just imagine it as published fan-fiction that’s not really based off any fandoms. Okay, I know a lot of you would rather see reviews of something more along the lines of Deathnote or Soul Eater but honestly there’s a lot of Yaoi out there that is pretty good Anyways I was hoping to find some good Yaoi to present but turns out Steal Moon isn’t the best example. It’s about a street fighter, Nozomi that loses a fight and becomes part of this “digital angels” scheme. Yea, it’s pretty much exactly what you would think it is, basically a virtual brothel. There are just a lot of problematic scenes in this story that I just wasn’t cool with like the threats of a “forcible event” against Nozomi. It’s got some creepy Stockholm syndrome vibes at first which I wasn’t a huge fan of in this story, but as I read on I found that there’s a lot more going on than expected. Turns out that “digital angels” is actually a cover for a dark secret. Somehow the moon is spying on the whole city and Nozomi has a special ability that is connected with the god Hermes. I did like the whole sci-fi plot but it just was hard to make sense of it all. What I did like though was the art; it had a futuristic feel to it. However, I think if you’re a newbie to Yaoi I wouldn’t suggest this one.
Score: 2/5
Author/Artist: Makoto Tateno Publisher: June Manga Price: $12.95