Yuuri Eda is a Japanese Light Novel writer. The genre of her works is Boys Love (BL). Her debut novel is「夏の塩」(2000). Yuuri Eda was one of the disciples of Azusa Nakajima ( 中島 梓, pen name of Kaoru Kurimoto / 栗本 薫. She uses the pen name 榎田ユウリ for her general audience (not BL) works. ※Her two names in Romanization are the same.
While exploring the world of BL novels, I've come across this series by Yuuri Eda before, but especially after being disappointed by the developments in "Ai to wa ienai" I hesitated with buying another series by her. But since I loved "Yasashii S no sodatekata" so damn much I figured I'd try this as well. And it falls kind of in the middle.
The plot: Mebuki is a negotiator running a small office in the territory of the Suoh group. One of the top yakuza turns out to be a former kouhai of Mebuki's, Hyoudou, who proclaims that Mibuki is "his". And off the story goes.
The thing is, Yuuri Eda is really good at creating a believable fictional world. Not only is the background vibrant, the side characters feel like more than mere cardboard cutouts. In fact, I often feel like knowing more about those. And in this case, the main characters - especially Mebuki - are great as well. Both Mebuki and Hyoudou's past turns out to be more complicated than it first seems, and the first volume only scratches on the surface of that.
What I didn't like were the usual BL tropes I never like - there were several rape scenes, for example. And while the rape wasn't romanticised, the fact that one was apparently less bad than the other left a bad taste in my mouth.
And I have to say so far there aren't enough feelings for me. I found it intriguing enough to order the rest of the series - yeah, I'm an all or nothing kind of girl - but I hope there's going to be more to Hyoudou's and Mebuki's relationship than their physical attraction.
What made up for the not so good aspects was the banter and the humor. I had to laugh out loud several times, and apart from the two scenes in question I really enjoyed myself, and this being BL I'm going to keep reading for now.
I don’t like reading stories that feature yakuza because they all inevitably sanitize yakuza by various degrees. But this Negotiator series has great reviews, the first 2 volumes are on kindle unlimited and Amazon Japan is doing 50% points back for the entire series, so I borrowed this from KU. I was immediately fascinated by the eloquent negotiation by MC with a low-lever gang member in the prologue.
Pros:
* the banter between MC and ML. It’s been a while since I smirk so much while reading. * how MC takes pride in his negotiation skills and tries to solve every conflict with eloquence. * the message this book lays out near the end: it’s important to talk openly, so that both sides can understand the other party’s position and move forward accordingly. I hope that would means this series doesn’t have much miscommunication as plot drivers?
Cons:
* it does sanitize ML as an yakuza whose sub group doesn’t touch drugs and treats the sex workers under their employment well * MC and ML have this inexplainable mutual attraction to each other since they were in high school even though they had only talked twice in high school.
I ended up buying the rest of the series anyway because the pros outweigh the cons.