Manga Monday: Black Knight

Black Knight (Volume 1)
Kai Tsurugi

Black Knight is a yaoi manga published by Blu Manga a few years ago.  I flipped through it at a used bookstore and couldn't resist purchasing it.  Yaoi manga are a sort of guilty pleasure for me.  This particular work follows Chris, a young prince who's a real pretty boy, and who has been sent to a training academy by his father, where he learns to fight alongside commoners.  One of the trainers, Zeke, looks out for him and eventually the two begin a romantic relationship, despite the difficulties it presents.  Zeke is the black knight that the title is named for, and is destined to become Chris' guardsman with the high honor of Black Knight.  For a title pretty heavy on action, the action scenes aren't executed very well.  It's sort of hard to tell what's going on and where people are in relation to each other.  What Tsurugi does well is flush out the relationship between Chris and Zeke.  A few supporting characters stand out as well, but there a lot of throw-away characters populating this book, keeping the focus on the two at the heart of the story, and the difficulties they endure as they become lovers despite their different social rankings.  Compared to a lot of the yaoi out there, the sex scenes in this title are pretty tame, with an arched back and some fuzzy licking being the most exciting things readers will see.  Things are implied more than they are explicit.  But overall, this is a pretty sexy title, with the stoic, manly Zeke enough of the tall, dark and handsome type to melt readers' hearts.  but if you're looking for action, you might be a tad disappointed, as the crux of the book is the budding relationship between a prince and his protector.