Love + Alpha

Love + Alpha

By Kanzaki Takashi

Overall: Homocheese
Smex Factor: Sexy Sexy
Art: Ugly
Status: 1 Volume; Complete

Review: I was going to review something good today, but a small Russian woman took all of my blood. As a result I just want to crawl in bed and die, but my life is too busy.

So you get…Love + Alpha.

What can I say about this? It stars a ghost, an exorcist, and the object of their affections. And they’re all high school students because creative settings are for people that actually try.

The conflict obviously lies between our ghost, Kyousuke (whose death is too gloriously stupid to simply compress between these parentheses), and the exorcist, Katsuki, who is the obligatory childhood friend (with a crush) to our protagonist, Yuya. Katsuki and Kyousuke’s names both begin with ka, so I will probably end up confusing them during this review.

So the whole story is brought about by Kyousuke’s hilarious accident. He goes to an abandoned building on the school’s campus in preparation for his confession to Yuya and…

The ceiling inexplicably falls on him.

Crushing him to death.

It just falls on him.

For no reason.

I guess you could argue that they go to school in a pretty ghetto district where their safety precautions only go as far as “this building is old, but we’re not going to do anything about it, so don’t go in it.” Seems a bit farfetched though, doesn’t it? Not if you go to public school!

So he dies. And he comes back. And in his infinite compassion, Yuya decides to date him, despite the fact that Kyousuke’s intangible. Meanwhile, his living friend is sorta pissed that a dead guy beat him to the punch (and it worked).

But Katsuki’s a medium (exorcist, whatever), so he can just, y’know, exorcise his rival into the everlasting after, right?

NO.

Because that would be too easy.

Not to say that Katsuki doesn’t promise several times throughout this manga to send Kyousuke off to the nether, but he just doesn’t…do it. I swear, there are like ten false endings, and this only has six chapters. Instead of doing the OBVIOUS, he keeps helping his own love rival and then getting vocally pissed whenever Kyousuke and Yuya interact. If he had some sort of strategy, it must be far too complicated for a meager mind such as mine.

While Katsuki lost his right to bitch about Kyousuke when all he does is help him out, I wouldn’t say Katsuki shouldn’t complain.

Good job, Katsuki! You have loosed a horny, sexual molesting stalker upon your best friend and beloved! Darwin Awards all ‘round. Seriously, all Kyousuke wants is SEX, SEX, SEX all the time, and he will even possess Yuya’s dreams or limbs to get it.

Which makes Yuya a bit uncomfortable. Katsuki gets upset because Yuya’s upset, and informs Kyousuke that nobody likes a nonconsensual sexual deviant. Yuya can only think, “Why’d you go and do THAT, Katsuki?!” Um, because he’s trying to look out for you? Because when someone tries to touch you in place or in a way that makes you feel uncomfortable, that’s no good?

I’m going to interrupt myself here and describe Yuya. He’s unintriguing. A Gary-Stu whom everyone (even Katsuki’s chaste Buddhist priest brother) can’t help but adore. Why? Because he’s a whiney, noncommittal, passive baby? Is that attractive? Have I been going at this the entirely wrong way all this time?

And I may have mistakenly portrayed Katsuki as some sort of white-knight here. Bear in mind that the scene right before he tells off Kyousuke for being a rapist-fuck (who would put Yuya into a permanent coma just to keep him to himself), Katsuki all but forces himself upon Yuya in an act of ultimate hypocrisy. (Well, maybe not ultimate.)

So really, Yuya gets to pick between ghost rapist or childhood friend rapist. Which dick will I taa~aake?

As a bonus, this manga has the two creepiest sex scenes I’ve seen in recent memory.

1. Kyousuke possesses an older teacher at their school for the express purpose of having sex with Yuya. Sure, Yuya’s cool with having sex with this random old guy. Totally cool. Not awkward at—OH GOD, PLEASE STOP

2. While Katsuki is supplying Yuya with sympathy sex upon Kyousuke’s departure, Yuya discovers—SURPRISE!! Kyousuke was never exorcised! In fact, he’s been right here.

Having sex with you.

With Katsuki.

(He gives tips!)

It’s really a shame that this series is so contrived because  there’s actually one clear-cut, genuine line in it. It’s so out of place, it doesn't fit the manga at all; I have no idea what it’s doing here.