As much as I don’t like the brother/sister taboo stuff, I can’t deny the fact that Kotoyoshi draws some seriously hot sex scenes.
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Yumisuke Kotoyoshi
Translation/Adaptation: Ex-S Woo
What They Say
From the artist of Saber Marionette J and erotic manga best-seller, Midara! Love Affair News ” a cameraman’s admiration for a beautiful reporter turns into loathing when he discovers her dirty secret. Unhappy New Years ” a pervert has his way with his drunk, and very busty, big sister.
Packaging:
Much like the variety of colors juicy fruit candies come in, the cover for this book is an explosion of bright colors. I like the cover; the way the girls breasts are squishing together is just plain mesmerizing. I just can’t look away, maybe it’s the strange physics involved or the fact that this might be the most clothing I’ve seen on an Icarus cover. Enough with that, this is another great reproduction from Icarus and a trend that started earlier this year when they switched to new printers that use thicker paper. Extras include a glossary for honorifics and both the original and translated sketches and letter from the author. Of course, my only complaint is the absence of the color plates. I wonder if Simon could make a section on the Icarus website that collects all the color plates for all their releases?
Artwork:
Kotoyoshi is great at using a variety of panel shapes and layouts combined with speed lines to create a dynamic sense to his sex scenes. I also like the way he combines screen tone and cross-hatching to create shading and a sense of depth. His character design may all look the same when the girls are naked, but if you look close enough you will realize it’s just that all the girls have the same breasts. The women all have very different ‘heads’ and naughty bits, so I can forgive his obsession with massive boobs, especially when Kotoyoshi quite possibly draws the most realistically shaped/moving breasts in ero-manga (probably my biased opinion). Something else about his character design is the nearly solid black eyes. At first it seems like a quick and easy way to draw but because of that, he can draw some incredibly expressive eyes when woman are in the throws of ecstasy. He also does a good job of expressing humor when characters are joking around.
Text/SFX:
As long as Simon keeps bringing me uncensored translated ero-manga, I can’t say I really care that much about the small grammar errors frequenting Icarus titles. This translation felt like it read a little better than some of Icarus’ older titles. Honorifics remain and the Japanese SFX are un-translated.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Out of the ten short stories in this book, three are about incest, which usually turns me right off. However, the stories are funny and told well enough that it didn’t bother me as much as the ones in Kaerimichi. With that said, the hardest part about reviewing a book of short stories is picking which ones to discuss, at least in a book full of good stories like this one.
Greedy Generation: I have to start with the first story because despite the incest, the characters facial expressions in this story are just plain hilarious. Shingo is an average looking dude, but because his little sister, Chinatsu, is super hot with huge knockers he gets invited to a lot of parties. Today Shingo and his sister have joined friends at a cherry blossom viewing party. As usual, the siblings argue until they move to opposite sides of the party and drink apart from each other. Chinatsu gets so hammered she wanders back to Shingo and rests her head on his lap while he’s trying to talk to another girl. After putting a blanket over his sister, Shingo proceeds to badmouth her as usual. In a strange act of revenge, Chinatsu starts blowing him under the blanket. Shingo’s expression of shear terror mixed with ecstasy is priceless, especially when the other woman is asking him what’s wrong.
I’ll Show Her!: This is the required student/teacher sex story. Akane is a private tutor and she’s so freaking hot with her librarian glasses that I had to use her as my avatar for a while. Anyways, the student is so preoccupied with staring at boobs that he blames his bad grades on her. His frustration reaches its limits when he decides to throw caution aside and unbutton Akane’s blouse. She doesn’t put up much of a fight and after some hot sex the student wakes up to Akane yelling at him for falling asleep during her lecture. So was it all a dream?
Love Affair News: This story is wonderfully kinky and Kotoyoshi admits that the news anchorwoman is based off the real life anchorwoman she resembles. One studio cameraman has a huge crush on Miss Kitagawa, until he catches her in an extremely compromising position. It seems woman get ahead in this station by submitting to the whims of the station director. For example, one of the director’s favorite games is to make Miss Kitagawa wear a vibrator tapped inside her while she’s on the air. The cameraman flies into a rage, but is he angrier with the director or Miss Kitagawa for her submission?
In Summary
Alright, I’ve been a fan of Kotoyoshi’s buxom character design since Saber Marionette and a fan of his ero-manga since Icarus introduced me to Midara. With that said, I’m not a fan of incest stories, but for some reason that aspect of Juicy Fruits didn’t bother me that much. Maybe it’s because Kotoyoshi is talented at drawing attractive characters that appear ‘older’ and the scenarios are either hot or funny, or both. Like Midara, there is actually a bunch of funny stories in this book, which is a nice contrast to something like Pet Humiliation Diary. At this point Icarus’ catalog is starting to round out and it’s nice to see Simon tapping into more books by authors they have already published (more Tuna Empire!). Although I’m still waiting for a fantasy ero-manga with swords and elf’s and stuff.
A cool extra in this book is the letter from Kotoyoshi. He talks about writing this book and about how he based a bunch of his girls (heads only) on real life Japanese models and celebrities. I’m sure it means more to Japanese citizens, but it would be cool to see pictures of the celebrities to see how much they look like Kotoyoshi’s characters.
Overall Hotness (1 to 5): 5:G-spot Rocker!!
Content Grade: B+
Art Grade: B
Packaging Grade: A-
Text/Translation Grade: B
Age Rating: 18+
Released By: Icarus Publishing
Release Date: August 28th, 2007
MSRP: $19.95
