Review Statistics

Times Read

830

Comments

2

Reviews

Tv

Plot Synopsis

No plot synopsis or other information available for Zetsuai -1989-

Story & Characters

Zetsuai is the story of Takuto Izumi and Koji Nanjo. Koji is a young singer (17 years old) who happens to fall in love with Takuto, a high school student with great talent for football. Koji starts befriending him but it's not long until he has to let his feelings know. Takuto has issues of his own...
Zetsuai has a sequel called Bronze that deals with the relationship and problem of these characters.
The story, both in Zetsuai and Bronze, is a big drama, if you like those kind of plots you'll enjoy this manga. Some people are not very fond of it because it can be too extreme and non realistic at all; and well, the story being yaoi doesn't help either.
There also two Ovas, one for Zetsuai that follows the manga up to volume 4 and another for Bronze that deals with the first volumes of the manga.
I think it's worth a try, even if the story is really unreal it's interesting and makes you want to read more.
As some side info, Zetsuai is 5 volumes long and Bronze 13; but it seems that there is a kind of continuation going on.

Rating

6 (average)

Art

Zetsuai's art reminds me of doujinshi-like kind of drawing. Sometimes the pictures seem incomplete and more often than not there is no background. I like that kind of doujinshi like style, but people usually don't like it much.
Furthermore, Minami Ozaki seems to have some problems with body proportions, her characters are too long, with impossible legs and hands that are too big for the body size.
In Bronze you can see how the mangaka improved; you find backgrounds and the character look less ethereal than they did in Zetsuai.

Rating

4 (below average)

Sound

There is a OVA for Zetsuai, another for Bronze and a bunch of music videos put together that tell the story from a Bronze doujinshi done by it's original author. There are also some drama cds. The OVAs feature some seiyuus like Sho Hayami, Kappei Yamaguchi and Takehito Koyasu. Sho Hayami fits Koji really well.
It's seems like there is a big number of music CDs for only 2 ovas. Some of the music is not from the animation but inspired by the manga, with lyrics written by Minami Ozaki and sung by Ishihara Shinichi and Sho Hayami.

Rating

6 (average)

Presentation

I really enjoyed this manga as well as the OVAS. It's one of those mangas you'll love or you'll hate. The characters are charismatic and well defined. The overdramatic developing of events are not liked by everybody but it has some comic relief when needed.
It also has some yaoi scenes, that don't go as far as being explicit but they leave no doubt about what's going on.

The OVAs design is not bad, but it doesn’t give the same feeling that the manga. It fixed some of the major mistakes from Ozaki’s art style but they are not very similar, but maybe my opinion is biased because I like her doujinshi-like drawing style.
About the music video called Cathexis, is a bit weird; the stories carry a lot of symbolism and if you have not read the manga you can find them strange or offensive.

If you like hard yaoi and would like to see more mature scenes you can look for Ozaki’s doujinshis. She did a big number of doujinshis of her own manga, drawing the kind of scenes that couldn't be published, since it was released on a shojo magazine for girls from 12 to 18 years old. There are doujinshis that deal with the characters in a alternative universe as well as some crossovers with Captain Tsubasa.

Rating

7 (above average)

Final Verdict

6.00 (average)

Reviewed by Kazahaya, 3y 33wk ago