Passion Fruit Volume 1: Sweat & Honey

by Mari Okazaki, Amy Forsyth, Lori Millican

Passion Fruit is a unique, unforgettable collection of stories that examines our inner-most secrets and hidden desires. Here two female cousins learn that living together may bring them closer to each other ... or drive them apart; two friends discover the true meaning of 'loving yourself;' twin brothers share nearly everything, even their nightmarish visions; and a woman's heartbreaking love affair unfolds in silent, breathtaking images. With uninhibited authenticity and pathos, this volume of
Passion Fruit - 'Sweat & Honey' - explores the vulnerability and frailty of the human condition.

Genres: Manga, Comics, LGBT, Josei

208 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2005

About the author

Mari Okazaki (Japanese: おかざき真里, Okazaki Mari) is a Japanese manga artist.
Okazaki was born in Nagano in 1967 and grew up in the region of Kansai. She graduated with a major in Design from Tama Art University and worked in advertisement for a number of years.
Okazaki had been publishing illustrations and short comics since high school, although her professional manga career started around 1994. In the early 2000's she left her day job to become a full time cartoonist and illustrator.
Okazaki comics have appeared in josei magazines (marketed to an audience of young adult women) as well as seinen magazines (marketed to an audience of young adult men). Her longest completed manga series to date are the josei Suppli, serialised from 2003 to 2009, and the seinen A-Un, serialised from 2014 to 2021.

Reviews

[Jillian -always aspiring-]

2020 Read #645

I thought about giving this collection two stars, but...there’s nothing really redeeming about it. The art is whimsical, true; however, the stories are these little toxic nothings that don’t have much depth beyond a kind of nihilism. I just expected better from Mari Okazaki.

[Morgan]

Tl:dr: Ruined by transmisogyny.

I liked this manga a lot when I first bought it, close to twenty years ago.

Having re-read it as a nonbinary person who’s out to myself, I am disappointed and disgusted to find that the core story of two girls engaging in an intimate, sexual friendship, is ruined by blatant transmisogyny on its final page.

Thus, despite its queer themes, I cannot recommend this manga at all. I hope the second volume will no be so painful to revisit.

[usagi ☆ミ]

Whatever happened to Tokyopop's 'PassionFruit' label, anyway? This was good, but could have used more explicit sex.

[Sam]

Collection of short, mildly uncomfortable josei manga stories about unconventional (dysfunctional?) relationships, mostly sexual, most with a some hint of incest, significant age difference or other twist. I say "twist" instead of "kink" because these things aren't played for eroticism - just texture. Expressive artwork.

[Arky]

Sarò onesto alcune storie non sono particolarmente didascaliche. Tipo la seconda, alla quale ho dato un interpretazione, ma non sono sicuro che sia quella giusta 😂. Altre (ad esempio l’ultima che è più lunga) le ho capite meglio. In ogni caso il tratto della Okazaki è bellissimo.

[Samra]

Sexy and seems to introduce older teens to erotica

[brightredglow]

I've read this volume a few times over the years. The stories are unsettling although the artwork is striking. I don't think I've figured it out. Maybe it isn't meant to be figured out.

[Martina]

2.5
Dolce amaro e molto criptico. Rapporto qualità-prezzo buonissimo.

[Judyth]

~1.5/5

I was really hoping to like this. But maybe I just need to give up on finding a good, smutty manga. Because just about every time I try one, it sucks.

I was hoping this would be good. And it wasn’t. This might actually be a short review, but I don’t have a lot to say, and what I do have to say, isn’t very good.

The artwork isn’t good. Perhaps other people will disagree with me, but I did not like the artwork at all. It wasn’t pretty, the people were a bit oddly shaped. Just, it wasn’t good, and I did not enjoy looking at it in the least.

I also really didn’t like the storyline to any of the stories. Well, I suppose the first one was okay, in that it was a very different, interesting idea. But the others were just odd, and weird, and I didn’t like them. I wasn’t a big fan of any of the characters, and didn’t relate or connect with any of them.

This just wasn’t a good book. I didn’t much like it at all. I’m glad it’s over.

Oh, also: Passion Fruit. Apparently this was a label off of Tokyopop? I’d never even heard of it. I’m pretty sure it was short lived. Were there even any other titles released off of it? Maybe one or two?

I just found it odd to find out that Tokyopop tried releasing another label, especially for josei-ish, ‘edgy’ manga. But, then again, Tokyopop did try a lot of different, ‘innovative’ methods of releasing manga.

[This review is also available on my blog, among many others.]

[James Crawford]

This is a series of unrelated stories about love and sex, basically. The first story, "After sex a boy's sweat smells like honey," deals with one woman's view of men; the second story, "About Kusako", is a fantasy story about a woman finding a living woman born from the grass.


The third story is entitled "Sister" , is a story about a woman and her next-door neighbor. The fourth story is "Passion Fruit" is about one girl who stops going to school and decides to stay in her room all the time, surrounded by things she likes, and another girl who ends up being attracted to the first. The problem with this story lies in its artwork. In many frames the girls are drawn with noses; in many frames the girls are drawn without noses. It may be kind of picky of me but I would expect the artwork to be consistent. There's also a spelling problem in that the first girl's name is Kaya, but at least once it's spelled Kayo which is the name of a girl in the previous story.


The stories themselves are rather strange but still very interesting. Different and worth reading.

[Baci]

Il s'agit d'un recueil de nouvelles. Très différentes, très inégales. J'ai beaucoup aimé le découpage, la mise en scène, le trait de crayon. C'est doux, très précis ou au contraire très flou, plein de détails.

MAIS car il y a un mais de taille, si l'aspect esthétique m'a vraiment emballée, le contenu, lui, est donc très inégal. Des nouvelles toutes poétiques côtoient des trucs sans intérêt aucun. Parfois même, je n'ai pas compris du tout de quoi il était question. On va dire que malheureusement, ça va de crescendo. Les 1ères m'ont beaucoup plu et plus on allait vers la fin, moins j'aimais.

[Jamie]

Literary short stories by Mari Okazaki echoing themes of loneliness, sensuality, and the anxiety of desire. The writing is elliptical and elusive, but the art is gorgeous, and the true power of the work lies in the creator's eye for small, everyday details and the way her pen zeroes in on them, lovingly rendering life at its closest values.

[Ciera]

Three little collections of stories. It was kind of hard to follow and a little strange. Also had some incest vibes which was entirely unwanted. Overall the art was pretty but the book was not for me.

[Carol]

The drawings were lovely, but the stories didn't really make much sense without a context, rhyme or reason. Don't be mislead, it's an adult book.

[Linda]

What a tease!