Smut That Doesn't Suck: Tableau Numero 20
"est em" is not a name you’ll hear on the lips of most manga
readers. She doesn’t have the
multi-million sales of someone like Yuu Watase or CLAMP. She works in two genres that are decidedly
niche in the North America manga scene – boy’s love and josei.
Even her name is low-key, being purposefully lower case like e.e.
cummings. Her name may be small, but
within the boy's love fandom, she is a giant. Few of her works have seen any sort of
release here, save for a few one-shot anthologies from Aurora Publishing and a
few of her josei works appearing on the late, lamented JManga site. You can only imagine the excitement amongst
those in the know (myself included) when one of her latest works was picked up by Viz via their
SuBLime imprint.
Editor's Note: While this series shows nothing explicit, and does not go over porn or hentai, the works covered are highly sexually charged, and some images used will reflect this. Reader discretion is advised.
Like the other works that got physical releases, Tableau Numero
20 is a one-volume anthology of stories, with no real theme tying them together
beyond est em’s usual fetishes – her fondness for Europe (especially Spain),
tortured artists, old men reminiscing to younger observers, etc. The best of the lot is by far the titular
story, where an art conservator discovers a lost masterpiece, and in turn
discovers the subject of said masterpiece standing naked on his apartment
balcony. The naked man in question,
Yves, turns out to be both the key to the mystery of the artist’s works as well
as the center of a tragic love story.
Honestly the story here is so good that when the conservator and Yves do
end up sleeping with one another, it feels almost perfunctory. I’d say she was adding it solely to appease
the fujoshi, but it’s so brief and non-explicit that it doesn’t even really
work as fujoshi fanservice. There’s also
something of a follow-up to this story at the very end, but the ending for that
just falls flat. It’s fine to spend a little more time with these two again, it doesn’t add anything
to the previous chapter. Still, these
are naught but a couple of minor blemishes on an otherwise sterling story.
The other highlight of the volume is “Rasgueado,” a story of Jesus, a flamenco dancer dissatisfied with a life of dancing for tourists for money while blowing a few of them on the side. His partner/guitarist wants him to move on to bigger venues where his talents would be appreciated, but for Jesus dance is a physical expression of all the emotions and frustrations he pens up. That sounds horrendously pretentious, but est em somehow manages to actually convey it in her art. It culminates in a montage – the swirl of feet, a well-worn hand strumming a guitar, Jesus’s hair flying out as he tosses his head back – there’s just a beautiful, intangible sense of motion and emotion in this simple two-page series of cuts and poses that it takes my breath away.
Mind you, the art is top notch throughout the whole
volume. est em’s art style is one I
would usually liken to Natsume Ono, another mangaka with a fondness for
Europeans and older men. Both of them
have a sort of unpolished sketchiness to their work, but where Ono’s art tends
to be flat and oddly froggy, est em’s characters are polished and highly
realistic. It’s so rare and refreshing
to find a BL work like this where the men actually look like human beings. They have weight, dimension, musculature,
fine detail, and subtle motions. They
even have body hair, down to the fine long lashes on Yves or the happy trail on
Jesus. When was the last time you saw a
BL character have hair anywhere other than on their head, in a messily abstract
pile of points?
Editor's Note: While this series shows nothing explicit, and does not go over porn or hentai, the works covered are highly sexually charged, and some images used will reflect this. Reader discretion is advised.
The other highlight of the volume is “Rasgueado,” a story of Jesus, a flamenco dancer dissatisfied with a life of dancing for tourists for money while blowing a few of them on the side. His partner/guitarist wants him to move on to bigger venues where his talents would be appreciated, but for Jesus dance is a physical expression of all the emotions and frustrations he pens up. That sounds horrendously pretentious, but est em somehow manages to actually convey it in her art. It culminates in a montage – the swirl of feet, a well-worn hand strumming a guitar, Jesus’s hair flying out as he tosses his head back – there’s just a beautiful, intangible sense of motion and emotion in this simple two-page series of cuts and poses that it takes my breath away.
Mind you, the art is top notch throughout the whole
volume. est em’s art style is one I
would usually liken to Natsume Ono, another mangaka with a fondness for
Europeans and older men. Both of them
have a sort of unpolished sketchiness to their work, but where Ono’s art tends
to be flat and oddly froggy, est em’s characters are polished and highly
realistic. It’s so rare and refreshing
to find a BL work like this where the men actually look like human beings. They have weight, dimension, musculature,
fine detail, and subtle motions. They
even have body hair, down to the fine long lashes on Yves or the happy trail on
Jesus. When was the last time you saw a
BL character have hair anywhere other than on their head, in a messily abstract
pile of points?
est em isn’t a big name with big sales, but her art and
storytelling speaks volumes for her.
Work like this gives me hope for BL as a genre, that it doesn’t all have
to be poorly drawn, cliché-driven smut.
It can be substantial, nuanced, even beautiful. Regardless of your gender and/or orientation,
you owe it to yourself to check out this masterpiece of a manga.
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