Boy's Next Door
| Manga | |
|---|---|
| title | Boy's Next Door |
| Original title | 少年 残 像 |
| transcription | Shon Zanzo |
| country |
 Japan
|
| author | Kaori Yuki |
| publishing company | Hakusensha |
| First publication | 1997 |
| expenditure | 1 |
Boy's Next Door ( Japanese 少年 残 像 , Shōnen Zanzō ) is a manga by the Japanese artist Kaori Yuki . Since the main story is about the love of two men, it can be assigned to the Yaoi genre. In addition to the eponymous short story, two more love stories with the titles Devil Inside and When a Heart beats are summarized in the volume. The last story was the first publication of the later series Angel Sanctuary and other very successful Kaori Yuki.
action
Boy's Next Door
Elementary school teacher Adrian Clay does not know his father because his mother was raped by a stranger in a fairground. He found out about this in his childhood, and after his mother had abandoned him at a fair, he saw his mother, a prostitute, being stabbed by a suitor. After the suitor has fled, she promises to take him back to a fair if he calls an ambulance. When he realizes that she will expose him again, the little boy kills his mother. Traumatized, he becomes a serial killer who kills young prostitutes because he considers them unclean. After one of the murders, he meets young Lawrence Hill, who works in a boys' brothel. He sees through Adrian's dark secret and keeps a pendant as evidence to tie Adrian to him. With his help, Lawrence tries to escape from the brothel into which he was forced and which is run by his brother. The two fall in love, but Lawrence's brother's henchmen soon track him down. After Lawrence was beaten up and drugged, he turned a gun on Adrian so that he would kill him and he would not have to suffer anymore. Adrian stabs him and is caught by the police. He is sent to an institution by the court. He cannot forget Lawrence and eventually follows him to death to be with him forever.
Devil Inside
Student Rick Randool is clumsy in sports, shy and threatened by other classmates. His best friend Ralf is completely different. On his 16th birthday, Rick learns that he is the descendant of a vampire and from that day onwards, he is also one. His mother wants to lock him up, but Ralf helps him, but then disappears. Soon afterwards, Rick's classmates are killed and their blood sucked out and Rick fears that he has done the same to Ralf. The girl Rusty, who fell in love with Rick, invites him to her home. But her father is a priest and recognizes Rick's secret, since he already knew his grandfather and killed him, and drives him away. When they meet again and Rusty learns Rick's secret, she wants to help him. They learn that Rick's grandfather was able to suppress his vampiric appetites for 46 years. When Rusty's father finds her, Ralf kills him. This one is also a vampire since he's Rick's cousin and committed all of the murders. When he wants to kill Rusty too, Rick kills him. From then on, Rick wants to suppress the vampire in him like his grandfather did.
When a heart beats
The young woman Doris Redford is about to marry her lover, the wealthy Ray. When she is visited by his unloved wife, she falls dead. The unknown musician Ted helps her to clean up the body, but now Doris is blackmailed. If she doesn't pay $ 20,000, the caller wants to tell the police that she killed her future husband's wife. Now she tries to raise the money and Ted wants to help her. They get into all kinds of trouble and Ted learns that Doris is the girl who was hit by a car because of him when he was ten years old. He has since been controlled by his brother for guilt, but now he knows that she survived. Eventually it turns out that Ray is Ted's brother and has staged everything to inherit his wealthy wife's money and put the blame on his lover. But Ted didn't really poison the woman and wanted to save Doris. When Ray is confronted, he falls from the balcony. Doris and Ted can make up and confess their love to each other.
Publications
Boy's Next Door ( 少年 残 像 -Boy's next door-, eng. "Afterimage of a boy: The boy next door"), which takes up the main part of the short story volume with 98 pages, was written in 1997, while Devil Inside ( デ ビ ル ・ イ ン サ イ ド , Debiru Insaido ; 1988 ) and When a Heart beats (1987) are significantly older. The paperback was published in Japan in 1998 by Hakusensha- Verlag under the label Hana to Yume Comics .
In German, Boy's Next Door was published in December 2003 by Carlsen Comics in a translation by Dorothea Überall. The volume has also been translated into French, Italian and Russian.
reception
Animania magazine writes of a bitter thoughtfulness that remains after reading the main story of the volume. The contrast between brutality and tenderness runs through the entire plot, which draws a profound, bloody psychogram of the protagonist. The other two stories are, however, lighter fare, with clear differences in drawing due to the age difference. Boy's Next Door seems more sympathetic and more mature than the older works. All stories are influenced by the American horror film.