Love Mode, Volume 11

I can't believe I nabbed the first 3 volumes of this series in a bargain box for 9.99! I wasn't expecting much especially from the cover, but I figured if I didn't like them just trade them back in, but my goodness was I pleasantly surprised! Although I wasn't impressed with the art, the well paced and beautiful stories pulled me in. It is rare for me to look past the art in manga, and still find the artwork crude, sketchy and almost amatuerish, but the stories in Love Mode are well written, superbly paced and absolutely wonderful! I especially love volume 3 with Izumi and Arashi! This volume is a great end to the series - very romantic, and bittersweet. I really wish there was more! A definite must read for yaoi fans!

Yuki Shimizu's signature title goes out on a somber yet emotional note. The story has come full circle from the questionable first meeting of Takamiya and Izumi, and the slow and steady bond built between Aoe and Naoya, to show us the events in the past which shaped what would allow for these beautiful relationships to finally find fruition. I'm sad to see the series end. I remember when I read the first volume it wasn't all that great (I took issue with the way Takamiya pretty much forced himself onto and into the life of Izumi), but I kept buying the subsequent volumes because it was so highly praised, and, well, at the time there was a much more limited availability of BL in English. I'm glad I stuck it out. The Aoe/Naoya arc alone was worth the read, but the fact that the story fleshed out so many more characters and told such a rich story was something that makes the difference in this series being "good" to being "great." The final volume of Love Mode focuses around the story of Shiki, the mysterious shadow that has haunted and been the long-lasting bond between Aoe and Takamiya. The story takes us to England, where a vacationing Aoe, escaping from the burden of his family and resigned fate, meets Takamiya and Shiki through a series of coincidences. They stay together in a bed and breakfast in the English countryside and form a bond of friendship that has a transforming effect on Aoe's bitter and tortured personality. Aoe finds in Takamiya a friend who shares the same burdens of family as his own and in Shiki he finds someone he can care for outside of that same burden. The resulting tragedies that unfold are carefully executed and the resolution of the characters, bringing the story back to the present and the now content lives of all involved, is nothing short of perfection. There are virtually no love scenes to be found in this volume, just one very tasteful and appropriate one towards the end. Shimizu even comments in the notes at the end of the book how she had wanted to include some in the extra story at the end, but decided not to because the rest of the story was so serious. I think I'll have to reread the whole series again now, however. There were a lot of characters mentioned in this volume that I am embarrassed to say I had trouble remembering. Even Shuhei was a blank for a couple of minutes, especially when they kept switching between his first and last name when addressing him. I don't regard wanting to reread the series a bad thing, though. I'm actually quite looking forward to it, even though I still have other, unread titles waiting for attention. This volume constitutes a fantastic finale to a fantastic series and I highly recommend it to anyone who has read the previous volumes. I highly recommend rereading the entire series anyway after finishing the last volume and re-experiencing all of the stories that made this such a rich and rewarding experience.