Object of Desire
Story and Art: Tomoko Noguchi
Published by the Luv Luv Press Imprint of Aurora Publishing, Inc.
ISBN-10: 1934496499
ISBN-13: 978-1934496497
Review by Kris
Object of Desire by Tomoko Noguchi is an anthology of sexy stories from Aurora’s own Luv Luv josei line.
We have stories like the title story. Kako is tired of dealing with guys who want to date her just to sleep with her and not be with “her.” She wishes that guys would be up front and be direct in what they want. She’s taken aback when Mizoguchi gets to the point and asks her to sleep with him just once. In Lovey-Dovey we deal with an obsessive stalker type girl and her cheating boyfriend. Oil & Water and With Lemon are about Shizuka and Kimura. Shizuka is an intelligent girl who has a crush on a fellow classmate, Kimura. Shizuka is kind of a tough chick and all of the guys treat her as one of their own, with the exception of Kimura. He teases her and treats her differently than the other guys and Shizuka likes that. Maid for Love is about a clumsy girl who works in a maid café and her salaryman boyfriend. The final story, Summer Prince, is about a girl who falls for the womanizing foreign exchange student who is staying with them.
Luv Luv has been churning out some good titles lately, like Pretty Poison, Sounds of Love, and Make Love and Peace. But they missed the mark with Object of Desire. All of the men in each of the one-shots turned out to be a cheating jerk with the air of loser hovering around them. The title story of Object of Desire and the Shizuka/Kimura stories of Oil & Water and With Lemon were tolerable and somewhat enjoyable but the rest of them are really quite forgettable and I found the last story of Summer Prince to be the most disturbing of them all. They’re only in high school and she’s already obsessed with having sex regardless of who it’s with. There was also a lot of self-loving going on. You wouldn’t think I’d be all that surprised by reading a manga where pleasuring ones self is present, I read a whole lotta yaoi, but with this featuring women touching themselves I was a bit surprised. I know that sounds really weird but I’m just not used to it like I am with reading yaoi self-satisfaction panels.
Not only were the stories lackluster but the art was not at all pleasing to the eye. I love it when a manga-ka has a unique style if it looks good, but this manga is really disappointing. The nipples on the characters don’t look like normal ones. They honestly look like Playtex baby bottle nipples that we used to feed my niece when she was a baby. Every once in a while you might catch a panel of two that really showed what potential Noguchi-sensei has but most of it is really not at all attractive. The cover is beautiful but the rest, not so much.
If you like stories about girls in some possibly unhealthy relationships with loser guys pick Object of Desire up. But I don’t really recommend it. Wait until January’s Luv Luv release Make More Love and Peace.