Tough Love Baby

"Tough guys need love, too" says the tagline on the back of Shiuko Kano's Tough Love Baby, published in English by Deux Press. The front cover shows a pair of teenage guys in Kano's typical style, with the curled lips and gelled hair typical of "delinquent" characters in Japanese manga. From their close posture and "tough" looks, you might assume this is the book's main couple. Tough Love Baby might have been a lot more interesting if these two were the book's major romantic couple, but unfortunately, they aren't. Tough Love Baby is actually about two separate male couples, and while the tough cover boys are both gay, they're not with each other. Strike one against this manga for getting my hopes up.

When I open a Shiuko Kano manga, I expect to see sexy, manly guys, a dash of comedy, a plot twist for better or for worse, and some steamy, creative sex scenes with nothing left to the imagination. In Tough Love Baby, only one of the four main characters fits my standards of "hot," the comedy and plot is pretty predictable, and the sex is almost non-existant. Strike two for not living up to the quality of other Shiuko Kano yaoi works.

The "tough guys" of Tough Love Baby are our cover boys, Sachi of the dark gelled hair and Tamotsu of the messy blond shag and multiple earrings. Sachi and Tamotsu are friends, but most of the story isn't told from their point of view. Instead, the manga begins with the character of Yoshino, a wispy blond who has recently moved back to the city he escaped three years ago. Yoshino once lived with Keiko, Sachi's older sister, but when he developed feelings for 14-year-old Sachi, Yoshino left their little motley family rather than hurt Sachi with his desires. Now Sachi is all grown up and has turned from the innocent kid Yoshino remembers into a thuggish punk who isn't at all happy that his "big bro" has returned after abandoning them. But Yoshino's feelings haven't changed, and maybe Sachi is just using his tough delinquent attitude to cover up for a broken heart.

In the meantime, Sachi's friend Tamotsu doesn't like this "dork" from the past moving in on his friend. Tamotsu is even more delinquent than Sachi and thinks nothing of having meaningless sex with other men, even though he suffers an unrequited attraction to Sachi. However, an underclassman named Sora has a serious case of hero-worship for Tamotsu, and as time goes by, Sora just keeps getting taller… and taller… and taller. If Sora outgrows Tamotsu, can he prove that his feelings are as adult as his body?

There is nothing particularly wrong with Tough Love Baby, but it just doesn't live up to its promises. The "tough" guys never seem to do anything particularly tough aside from slouch around, play pachinko and fail to button up their school uniform jackets. The young men bent on winning their "tough" hearts don't seem to be anything special, either. In fact, the saving grace of the entire manga is the friendship between Sachi and Tamotsu, which is warm and realistic despite their outward appearances. If the book had been about the two of them, the story might have been better, and the sex almost definitely would have been better, considering Tamotsu's sultry darkness and Sachi's virginal cluelessness. Instead, we have two fairly bland and wholly unsexy relationships instead of one rich and steamy one. Strike three against this manga for ignoring its real potential.

Completionist fans of Shiuko Kano may find something to like here, as will anyone who had a thing for doofy guys angsting over each other for 130 pages. For anyone else, though, Tough Love Baby has not got a lot to offer.