Seduce Me After the Show (Yaoi)

by Est Em

Devastated by the death of his world famous dancer mother, Theo Galland abandons his dancing career for Hollywood acting and meets the famous actor Daren Ferguson. As lustful passions boil over, will... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1934496162
• ISBN13: 9781934496169
• Release Date: April 2008
• Publisher: Deux Press
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.1" x 7.5"
• Age Range: 18 years and up

Customer Reviews

It is safe to expect great things from Est Em in the future

To say that standalone volume Seduce Me After the Show author Est Em is to the boy's love (BL) genre as Ursula K. Le Guin is to science fiction, as translator Matt Thorn suggests in his lengthy endorsement on the back of the Deux Press edition of the manga, is a little bit of an exaggeration. He was her former professor at Kyoto Seika University, and he is, as he himself acknowledges readily enough, biased. But he was only exaggerating a little. She is, without question, a mangaka who shows tremendous promise. And her stories in this volume are likely to impress. The best of the five self-contained storylines across seven chapters happens to be the most conventional; Est Em is able to sublimate the occasional lack of creative confidence behind the genre codes of BL. "Rockin' in My Head" is practically perfect. The story is about a starving guitarist who loses a bandmate and a rock vocalist named Pete on the same day. Said guitarist decides to go drink his miseries away...and meets Pete's disillusioned ex-guitarist Joe. As it turns out, he adores Joe even more than Pete, and they become lovers because he reminds Joe of Pete. The story is drawn with an edgy, hard-wearing style that keeps a story that might otherwise rank as wish-fulfillment fantasy--boy scores childhood crush--from being too saccharine. Another of the short stores, "Café et Cigarette," also trades on romance fulfilled--the artist protagonist finds both inspiration and adoration from the gallery owner he falls in love with. Est Em changes things up, however, and not all of her stories have blissfully romantic, happy endings. "Twilight Cicadas/A Winding Kyoto Lane/Steamy Summer's Night" has a perversely long title and a tragically unconsummated romance. In this story, an elderly gentleman returns to his hometown of Kyoto from Tokyo for a festival. He meets plenty of old friends but soon discovers that the man he most wanted to see has recently passed away. They had been in love but, tragically, were unable to fully admit it to themselves. So now, many years later, his only consolation is the man's grandson--who looks just like him, of course--and the nostalgic sound of his flute. The story and its art are quiet, elegant, yet terribly poignant...especially considering how happily-ever-after has become the BL norm. The manga's title piece, "Seduce Me After the Show" (and its prequel, "Curtain Call"), is the most ambitious. Est Em takes a stab at complex characters here, and she is not, alas, wholly successful. About two rising stars, a dancer and a movie director, the plot describes their romance as a choreographed display while drawing upon allusions to the opera Carmen. The director, it seems, cannot resist enacting a forbidden relationship with a man who actually loves him (but refuses, cynically, to admit it, knowing that doing so transgresses unspoken boundaries). Obviously, the story is wildly ambitious in its narrative construction, and despite some gorgeous visual experiment

Very touching...

Ohh!!! Nero was my favorite story of the bunch. So loving, sweet and yet sad! Actually all the stories give off such deep underlining emotions. Things that can only be read 'in between the lines' and on the characters features. I want more!

Crack? No. Fantastic? Yes.

If you prefer BL that's fluffy, sweet, soapy, hardcore or just plain silly, you can stop reading this now and go look up anything Kitty Media publishes. If you prefer BL that's thoughtful, emotionally engaging, gracefully written and skillfully drawn, you can stop reading this now and go press the little "Add to Shopping Cart" button. est em does literary work in the same vein as Ono Natsume (somebody license this woman, please!) and Yoshinaga Fumi. Which is to say that if you're looking for a crack fix, this isn't it, but if you're looking for something intelligent and innovative and affecting, this should please you in spades. And many thanks to Deux for the flawless translation and solid production of the book.

I'm biased, but...

...I think it's fair to say R.Parklane's review is not fair. It's sort of the equivalent of complaining that Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons "Watchmen" is not like the work of, say, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby. If you are looking for comfortable, familiarly formulaic yaoi, you may be disappointed with this book. But if you like beautifully drawn, thought-provoking, and moving comics, that also happen to feature hot guys in love, you won't be. I say I'm biased because I'm the supervising translator of this book, and Est Em is my former student and good friend. If you have already read, and enjoyed, this book, you can look forward to her next volume, "Red Blinds the Foolish," which is set for release from Deux/Aurora in December 2008 (and which I'm translating at this very moment). Oh, and R.Parklane, you need to re-read "Nero" and "Monochrome" carefully. These stories are not about "a pair of twins very much in love, who died tragically and now roam the earth assuming different life forms." Ney and Nye are literally and precisely what they appear to be in the final panel of each story. You might want to look up "Anthropomorphism" on Wikipedia.

Great collection

This is very different from the usual manga that is available. It is very thoughtful and the characters are interesting and well developed. If you like something well-written and unique this is highly recommemded, especially if you want to add some variety to your manga collection.