Gravitation

Gravitation was the very first shonen-ai manga that I read, and I fell in love with it immediately. The main character was more or less like myself - a procrastinator, strangely confident, and just plain old crazy. At first, I was a bit confused as to which character was which, but I kept on reading. The rewards came, and I was laughing so hard I was out of breath. Maki Murakami might think that her manga was turning into a gag, but I absolutely loved the humor in the manga. I'm not a big fan of romance story, but Gravitation proved me wrong. Not only was I hooked on the art, and easy reading, but I felt a connection with the characters.

Enough about me. This review is after all, not of me, but of Gravitation. As the back cover might tell you, Gravitation is about a teenage boy named Shuichi Shindou, who's trying to make it into the music industry. His passion with music led him to form a two-man band called Bad Luck, which is a suitable name, considering their manager. Thus, Shindou and his best friend, Hiroshi Nakano, begins their journey on becoming the next Nittle Grasper. Keep in mind that it was because of Nittle Grasper that Shuichi Shindou is who he is today.

Shindou's life is about to change, but he doesn't know it, as he walks down the park - he just got off work, and he's taking the short-cut home. It was a dark, and he was feeling a tad bit scared - he sneezed, and the paper which contained his lyrics (to a love song) is blown away. Enter the handsome (and I mean handsome; he is to die for!) and mysterious man with a dark past. It's starting to sound oddly familiar right? But, wait, I'm not finished here. When the handsome mysterious man (later known as Eiri Yuki) criticizes his lyrics, Shindou fell oddly silent. The mysterious man disappears as suddenly as he had appeared.

Days later, Shindou was troubled by the criticism by the enigmatic man, and yet he denies it. His best friend and sister annoys him by saying that he's perhaps fallen in love with him, the stranger. Fate brings them together when Shindou tries to prove them wrong by going out on a date with a girl. His date was saying about how cool a certain Mercedes looked like, and he runs out in the middle of the street - nearly got killed - but somehow was right about his gut feeling. It was him.

That's it from me. You'll have to read to the manga to know what happened. A bit of advice, read the manga before you watch the anime. Not that I have anything against the anime - in fact, I love it - it's just that you'll understand what's going on in the anime better if you have read the manga first. The one thing that I really love about the anime is the music; it's really incredible. Buy it - I bought one, and let me tell you, it was so worth it. Another bit of advice, the OVA of Gravitation is not as fabulous as the anime that released in the U.S. For older, and more mature audiences, you might want to check out the dounjinshi - which is a fan-art, however it is drawn by Murakami herself. Watch out, the dounjinshi has really racy pictures, and I mean racy.