Taken from Dictionary.com (British definition to be exact) |
Yep, never saw that word before I found out about this manga. Comics are educational, after all!
When it comes to seinen manga, Kodansha has the Young Magazine series. Most people know about the Weekly & Monthly productions, but in 1998 Kodansha debuted a third entry, Young Magazine Uppers. Debuting on April 1, 1998, the magazine ran semimonthly & lasted until October 19, 2004, but in that time it featured a few notable titles in its pages, like Garouden, Rose Hip Rose, Seizon ~LIFE~, Hagane, & Basilisk. What I'll be reviewing, however, is one of the manga that debuted alongside the magazine, and it's one that I'm sure almost no one has heard of; even searching in Japanese gives barely any results. Still, it's short, it's funny, & it's absolutely bonkers.
Kazumasa Kiuchi is a manga writer who works with artists to tell his stories, with his most iconic work being Emblem Take 2 alongside artist Jun Watanabe (who would go on to make cult boxing favorite RRR: Rock 'n' Roll Ricky). Emblem is the story of a pathetic yakuza who winds up going back in time to potentially fix all the wrong decisions he's made in life, but is too hopeless to actually change anything. Debuting in 1990, the manga would surprisingly run until 2004, lasting 62 volumes(!) as well as seeing both a live-action movie & a 2-episode OVA (which Justin Sevakis complimented in his Pile of Shame review in 2013). During this time, however, Kiuchi would team with Yutoku Inoue to create a new manga for the debuting Uppers magazine in 1998. Said manga would be Para - The Parabiotic Guy, a 3-volume series that takes the old body swap concept & uses it in a way that's silly, ridiculous, & even a good bit dirty, all while still having an amazing sense of decency to it.
Toshihito Hara is a 22 year old man who works as a carpenter, though he prefers to call himself a "Wandering Yakii" & dreams of becoming "big" one day. A visit by his girlfriend Shizuka at work winds up being interrupted by a bunch of yankiis, but Toshi scares them off with a chainsaw (which acted as his "knife" for a fight). While being held back by his boss, though, Toshi falls backwards & whacks his head on a rock; the doctor tells him he'll recover. That night he asks Shizuka to help him feel better him with a kiss, which winds up becoming full-on sex. After passing out post-climax, Toshi wakes up, but something's wrong... He's inside Shizuka's body! Returning to his body later that night by masturbating as Shizuka, he finds out that he can possess (or would it be parabiose?) people after climaxing, but with one big restriction: He can only possess women that are close by. Turns out this ability will come in handy for Toshihito, though, as he eventually winds up becoming a spy for the CIA (because that's what you do) & gets involved in a terrorist action that leads all the way up to the Araqi Army.
*Yes, the country is named Araq, likely after the Levant vodka... I never said that this was a thinking man's manga.*