Make More Love and Peace

Review by Kris

The adventures in and out of the bedroom for Ayame and Koichi continue in Make More Love and Peace. This time around things are a bit more rocky from Ayame’s point of view. After catching a girl shoplifting at a grocery store Ayame invites the girl over for dinner (the girl claimed she hadn’t eaten for two days.) But a surprise is in store for Ayame. The girl, Nono, is just a common trouble making delinquent who had been taken in to the police while Koichi was working. Nono is just looking for attention and plays Ayame for a fool. Because Ayame is such a sweetheart she can’t refuse when Nono begs to tag along on Ayame and Koichi’s date. Nono plants seeds of doubt within Ayame that her kindness is just a front and that Ayame is just a fake.

Of course Ayame struggles with all of these emotions and Koichi tries to be the good boyfriend and reassure her that she’s wonderful. Once everything is back to normal another woman is thrown into the mix. This time around it’s Koichi’s ex-girlfriend from high school, Tamaki. Tamaki is impressed with how Koichi has turned out and makes the comment to Ayame that she wants to steal him away from her. Ayame knows that Koichi is in love with her but she can’t help but worry. Man, being in love is hard.

There are also two brief one-shots included as well. Just Like a Romance Novel is about a librarian who compares her new romance to the romance novels that she loves to read. The Way You Look at Me is the tale of a make-up artist who hides a secret beneath her makeup and frets when she decides to show her new boyfriend what’s behind her makeup.

As a sequel to Make Love and Peace, Make More Love and Peace is more of the same. I really enjoyed the first one but this volume just adds more smut to the mix. Don’t get me wrong I liked it but it wasn’t groundbreaking or earth shattering. It’s a fluffy, sugary manga that is a great to read when you want something quick and light to read. I must say though that I really liked the one-shot Just Like a Romance Novel. It was a really sweet story where the girl loves books and compares life to books. It’s a fun mix of sweetness and creativity. I was a bit disappointed with The Way You Look at Me. The character is much more shallow than she tries to let on and the way I see it she wanted to put the blame on her boyfriend. Oh well, you win some you lose some!

The art in Make More Love and Peace is definitely beautiful. It has the look of a high quality shojo title but the sex thrown in to make it an adult title. If you have an aversion to sex scenes in your josei titles then you’ll probably want to skip this title because there is a whole lotta sex going on with our couples. As a whole I did like the manga but I still prefer the first one. But I’m still going to recommend it to those who like fluffy adult manga. Keep up the good work Luv Luv Press!

If you are interested here are some other review links from this series:

Make Love and Peace – review written by Kris
Make Love and Peace – review written by Linda Yau
Make More Love and Peace – review written by Linda Yau.

Object of Desire

Review by Kris

Object of Desire by Tomoko Noguchi is an anthology of sexy stories from Aurora’s own Luv Luv josei line.

We have stories like the title story. Kako is tired of dealing with guys who want to date her just to sleep with her and not be with “her.” She wishes that guys would be up front and be direct in what they want. She’s taken aback when Mizoguchi gets to the point and asks her to sleep with him just once. In Lovey-Dovey we deal with an obsessive stalker type girl and her cheating boyfriend. Oil & Water and With Lemon are about Shizuka and Kimura. Shizuka is an intelligent girl who has a crush on a fellow classmate, Kimura. Shizuka is kind of a tough chick and all of the guys treat her as one of their own, with the exception of Kimura. He teases her and treats her differently than the other guys and Shizuka likes that. Maid for Love is about a clumsy girl who works in a maid café and her salaryman boyfriend. The final story, Summer Prince, is about a girl who falls for the womanizing foreign exchange student who is staying with them.

Luv Luv has been churning out some good titles lately, like Pretty Poison, Sounds of Love, and Make Love and Peace. But they missed the mark with Object of Desire. All of the men in each of the one-shots turned out to be a cheating jerk with the air of loser hovering around them. The title story of Object of Desire and the Shizuka/Kimura stories of Oil & Water and With Lemon were tolerable and somewhat enjoyable but the rest of them are really quite forgettable and I found the last story of Summer Prince to be the most disturbing of them all. They’re only in high school and she’s already obsessed with having sex regardless of who it’s with. There was also a lot of self-loving going on. You wouldn’t think I’d be all that surprised by reading a manga where pleasuring ones self is present, I read a whole lotta yaoi, but with this featuring women touching themselves I was a bit surprised. I know that sounds really weird but I’m just not used to it like I am with reading yaoi self-satisfaction panels.

Not only were the stories lackluster but the art was not at all pleasing to the eye. I love it when a manga-ka has a unique style if it looks good, but this manga is really disappointing. The nipples on the characters don’t look like normal ones. They honestly look like Playtex baby bottle nipples that we used to feed my niece when she was a baby. Every once in a while you might catch a panel of two that really showed what potential Noguchi-sensei has but most of it is really not at all attractive. The cover is beautiful but the rest, not so much.

If you like stories about girls in some possibly unhealthy relationships with loser guys pick Object of Desire up. But I don’t really recommend it. Wait until January’s Luv Luv release Make More Love and Peace.

Make Love & Peace

Review by Linda Yau

College student Ayane Shinoda’s boyfriend Koichi is a hardworking police detective. They are passionately in love with each other. Every three pages or so, there is at least one sex scene between them, and that is quite graphic. At the beginning of the book, there is a brief mention of their initial meeting, while catching a thief. They hit it off (rather Ayane stalked after Koichi), and sparks flew.

Their relationship though has more problems than normal, ever since Ayane gets herself fancies herself to be a strong individual with a herorine tendency. Their relationship is either strenghted or bothered by everything from a panty theives, to who seeks revenge against Ayane, Koichi’s younger brother Ruka, or to the issue of parenthood. Make Love & Peace is a quick simple read.

Luv Luv Press has not back down on their quality of translating Josei books, these books are very much meant as romantic smut books. The few times I brought this to work, to try and write out a review, during my lunch hour – has my coworkers surprised at the graphic content of these type of stories. So these are what they meant for the 18+ crowd.

But as far as character development, I found Ayane to be an naive female, with one example in mind. There was one part where she was in trouble, she was about to jump out of a three story building, there was one bubble of wondering if this was how her parents felt in a life or death situation. That was such an odd timing to think about this though, and so I was pretty surprised by her line of thought, ever since it was established several times, that her parents died in a car accident. She has a redeeming characteristic though of being a traditional Japanese women, with the idea of being a wife and mother in mind… so this is the dream of a Japanese society women.

There was an interesting running joke of Koichi being very overprotective, which was actually parodied on at the author’s after comics, which was quite amusing, protective to the point of even ignoring his health and getting sick.

Kris wrote an earlier review for this book, so be sure to check that out.

Sounds of Love vol. 1

Review by Kris

If music be the food of love, play on

We are all familiar with this line from William Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (yet how many people do you know keep their Complete Works of William Shakespeare handy? Just me?). In Sounds of Love vol. 1 music and love weave a beautiful symphony. Kazune is the manager of up and coming pianist Kyoichiro Haneda. But Kazune is more than Kyoichiro’s manager; she’s also his girlfriend. Kyoichiro is hotheaded and passionate. When he plays it’s like he’s making love to the audience. Because he puts so much emotion into his playing he is quite frisky after his performances. Kazune is also a pianist but her style is very different from Kyoichiro’s. She seems to put everyone to sleep. It’s because her style is calming and flowing, like water.

In Sounds of Love vol. 1 we learn more about Kyoichiro and Kazune’s love affair all while dodging offers from prestigious talent agencies wanting Kyoichiro to sign with them, performing with other musicians, and even avoiding marriage proposals.

There are also two short one-shot stories, The Prince of Love and Little Lovers Hands. Mayu and Sakito dated in the past but Mayu wanted Sakito to show her how he feels. Many years later Sakito is a hot romance novelist and Mayu models for him. Will their love return? With Little Lovers Hands Shiori is dating her coworker Takayuki. Takayuki gets sick and Shiori is at a loss as to what she needs to do.

Holy crap this is one hot manga. The sex is so steamy you will need to keep a towel handy. We are dealing with a subject that I love. Classical Piano. Music and romance are perfect together. Kind of like chocolate and peanut butter, it’s the perfect combination. Rin Tanaka-sensei has written a beautiful story to go along with the gorgeous artwork. Kazune’s dresses are stunning and Kyoichiro is handsome in his tuxedo. The artwork and story are both so amazing you can almost hear the music coming through the manga.

Lately Luv Luv has released some really amazing titles recently. This one is added to the list of amazing josei titles that I’ve read. They really hit a home run with this title (mixing sports and music, hmm…). My only complaint is the cover isn’t scored near the binding so now you get nasty creases. I know I’m OCD, but aesthetics are very important to me.

I recommend this title to those who love music and romance. The story is compelling and since this is a series, I’m anxiously awaiting the next volume. Keep up the great work, Luv Luv!