White Guardian

Haruka Akatsuki and Nobuyoshi Watanabe, better known by their joint pen name Duo Brand (and for their sexy doujinshi!) turned pro with White Guardian, a fantasy manga brimming with political intrigue and smoldering sexual tension. Well... White Guardian aspires to the former, with the seeds of a meaty plot, but it does deliver on the sex, in spades, and beautifully so.

The story is set in the fictional land of Landa, whose ruler has become weak and corrupt, sending Landa spiraling downward into chaos. His son, Linth Highwind Blec Landa IV, having grown up in foreign lands, is returning home, determined to set things aright in his homeland. Linth is idealistic and impulsive, and determined to bring the strongest and best of Landa to his cause. One of those men is the legendary general Sei, who Linth has worshipped since he was a child. A twist of fate brings the prince and general together when Linth joins a naval battle and... inadvertently ends up as Sei's cabin boy one night, so to speak. Sei's appalled when he realizes he's all but raped the crown prince of Landa, but is attracted to the young man's enthusiasm, nonetheless. Despite Sei's long-standing hatred of court intrigue, Linth convinces him to return to land as his right-hand man, to help him repair the damages done to Landa.

Back at the capital, a new character is introduced -- a former lover of Sei's, Touri -- who, upon realizing Sei's returned to Landa for Linth, rapes the young prince in anger. Despite this, and over Sei's protests, Linth invites Touri, who is a Baron, to join their cause, creating an uneasy political alliance and love triangle (though the irrepressive Linth seems to be only nominally jealous of their past relationship and Sei seems uninterested in being possessed again by Touri -- perhaps in future volumes this might play out more). And so cue a couple scenes of sexual tension between Touri and Sei (hot, definitely hot!) and Linth getting himself in trouble, both on his own and in pursuit of traitors against the crown, leading to his rescue by Sei, of course.

There's actually a promising story in this setup, and were Duo Brand to carry it out across future volumes, it could prove interesting, but in a single shot like this, the plot really serves little more than for excuses for Linth to do impetuous, impulsive things to give Sei heart attacks -- and for the pair to have frequent hot sex (not that I'm complaining, mind you!). It appears as if the next volume in the series, Crimson Wind, is actually a flashback, showing us more of Touri and Sei's early relationship, of which we get but glimpses in this book. That should prove a treat indeed.

Duo Brand's artwork is quite lovely (in fact, I am now tempted to go hunt down some of their doujinshi), and White Guardian is a fun read, if somewhat lacking in substance. Eye candy has its place on the shelves too! It was a pleasure to discover that brash, masculine Sei swings both ways -- a true reversible, which is rare in boys love, and always tasty, in my eyes. Oh, and be sure to read under the slipcover for two extra bits of humour concerning a running joke in the manga! The book itself is DramaQueen's usual high quality, with a gorgeous slipcover and colour inserts inside.