Passion

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I read many positive reviews before deciding to read Passion, so I went into it probably expecting too much. I'm picky, so shoot me. But to be honest, I still feel a little cheated that I spent so much time looking for a manga that left me feeling absolutely... nothing.

The plot is a little off from the get-go. It begins with a non-consensual sexual encounter between the seme and uke, student and teacher respectfully. The scene is not explained until later, and not in full until the end of the series. So you're reading this awkwardly drawn rape scene thinking, "what the...?" Not only that, but the uke uses the incident (as well as the seme's unnatural infatuation) to provoke his student to do better in school. Yes, he is a teacher, but using threats and sex as motivation is taking the job a bit too far. Plus, this seems unnecessary as the seme is never characterized as a dunce to begin with. I wasn't happy for him when his grades started improving because I never knew anything about him before hand. Plus, he's a complete idiot. Not even loads of butt sex could really get him to succeed at school... or life.

So even though he was raped, Mr. Uke agrees to "play-date" his student until he graduates. I still have no idea what that means. You're only pretending to be lovers? Then what the heck are you two doing together naked? If that's tutoring, I'm Donald Trump's hair weave. While all of this "pretending" is going on, the uke's colleague/ex-boyfriend attempts to win him back after a decade. This had a lot of potential to instigate legitimate angst, but it goes nowhere. The seme doesn't even know about his uke's ex throughout the majority of the manga.

The conclusion sums up everything. It was nice to actually have an ending, but it felt cheap. Everything is exposed in the last five pages, and a lot of it seems completely random (the uke's feelings, for example, come out of nowhere and are quite out of character). The author uses the ending to clarify her earlier inconsistencies, which I found annoying. My biggest problem however, was that I felt nothing for any of the characters. The ending is meant to be tender and sweet, but it just felt stale.

Enough plot and on to the characters. I found the seme down right unlikeable. The author's attempts to make him cute (like constantly referring to his uke as "sir") fell flat, and he comes across as dense. The author tries to give him this obedient, "puppy-ish" personality that in no way reflects his actions. Maybe this is an attempt to create angst. It didn't work. The uke is a little more interesting. He is an extremely manipulative character, which is refreshingly unusual for an uke (in my limited experience, anyway). However, he becomes so controlling over his seme it almost doesn't make sense. The author seems to struggle with how to convey the uke's emotional depth, and as a result, he becomes very inconsistent. The only other character worth noting is the former fling of the uke. He is a worthless shell of a character meant to instigate angst (which he doesn't), and, like I mentioned earlier, his story arc falls flat on its face.

I found the art very unique, but not in a good way. The characters seemed unable to express any emotion properly, although you would have difficulty too if your lips took up the majority of your face. I got very sick of blank stares and obscene poutiness. The artist also had trouble with the size of her characters, particularly the uke, who changes depending on who he's around. Around his seme, he's ridiculously hobbit-esque. Around anyone else, he's no longer a female midget. I could have overlooked all of this, of course, if the sex scenes were hot. They weren't. The characters were extremely stiff. It was like watching a tree screw a brick wall.

Passion was mediocre in every way possible. It wasn't even fun just skipping to the "good stuff." You probably won't feel anything when you finish reading, except that that tree in your front yard looks an awful lot like Hikaru.