Delivery Cupid

In the world of CJ Michalski's Delivery Cupid, Heaven is a land of puffy clouds, run by a forgetful bald god with a penchant for Hawaiian shirts and a multitude of adorable devices used to help pretty boys fall in love. Consistent and cute, this "petite fantasy" world wraps and cushions the short, otherwise typical stories of boys falling in love, and turns them into sweet little morsels of boys' love sugar.

The first four stories of Delivery Cupid share the theme of God in Heaven being a short, bald fellow who spends his time getting the right people to fall in love with each other. We are introduced to this world through Tsubasa, a typical young-looking, round-faced uke boy who just happens to be half-human, half-angel. As a cupid, he tries to earn full angelic status by making love matches with the bow and arrows of the Greek Cupid's tradition. Unfortunately, Tsubasa is a bit of a klutz, and while determined to make his very last chance at angel-hood a success, he manages to stab himself with his own arrow, and falls into the arms of the wicked sex-shop owner, Norimasa. Norimasa's lecherous leer and porn-star wardrobe are probably the best parts of this story, since there's not much character development as Tsubasa and Norimasa are "destined" to be together. "Delivery Cupid" does a great job at setting up the petite fantasy world of the other three stories, though, especially by showing us the weirdly adorable tools of Tsubasa's trade, including a winged, flying scooter that he uses to get to his jobs. From that point on, you know you're dealing with a kawaii quotient of Card Captor Sakura proportions.

Once the "destined to be together" storyline is dropped, the other short stories in Delivery Cupid fare better. In "Love Beam," God rewards a conscientious young man with a toy gun that causes its victim to fall in love with its shooter. In "Cinderfella: A Fairy Tale," Heaven's wheel of fortune chooses a poor newspaper delivery boy as its lucky person of the day, and grants his wish to spend the night with the handsome rich boy on his paper route. "With You Forever" is the truly stand-out story of the heavenly quartet, in which a terminally ill 17-year-old is visited by a gorgeous dark-haired stranger in the hospital, who just happens to be a visitor from Heaven. Loss, reincarnation, and true love beyond time all whisper and weave into this tender tale, and the story feels larger than it is. "With You Forever" could have been a stand-alone manga on its own and worked beautifully, but even this short tale is a true winner.

Two more stories, "Ai Scream" and "Under the Starlight" round out the book but do not feature the Heaven characters and themes from the first four. They are solid stories in their own right, but without the appearance of our squirrelly old God and his odd love gadgets, these two short tales don't seem to have as much personality as the first four. Michalski-sensei's characters continue along the same lines as dozens of other yaoi artists: the ukes are small with big eyes and floppy light-colored hair, while the semes are much taller, much more mature-looking, and of course, dark-haired. The stereotype is reversed in "Love Beam," but really, it's just the same two archetypes over and over. While Michalski-sensei's art is very good, very clean and nicely detailed, it doesn't really stand out as a unique, recognizable style. The real strength here is in her ability to create a little world in just a few pages with just a few details, and leave her readers feeling comfortable in that world.

Delivery Cupid is the first release from Boysenberry Books, the BL imprint of Broccoli Books USA. Boysenberry has clearly learned from its competitors and from Broccoli's experience. A simple cover with no dust jacket, a color insert at the front page, and quality paper and printing all make it look and feel like a good-quality manga. Boysenberry also throws in a couple of extras such as translation notes and a preview for their next release, Pet on Duty. It's especially nice to see unobtrusive yet well-translated sound effects, often with the English translation printed alongside the Japanese characters so readers can both get a feel for the original effect but also understand its meaning. Overall the translation seems smooth with no obvious mistakes. Boysenberry obviously already knows what they're doing, and delivers a quality manga without a lot of frills that drive up the price.

If it weren't for the sometimes silly, nearly sickeningly cute intervention of CJ Michalski's old-man God and his Heavenly love devices, Delivery Cupid likely wouldn't be anything special. Like a dash of rainbow sprinkles on your vanilla ice cream, Michalski's petite fantasy gives her stories just that extra bit of color and fun, brightening up an already sugary set of love stories.