Sleep Is For the Weak

Good Cop, Bad Cop Novels/Drama CDs/Extras and Spin-Offs /Fandom Reviewed by: Lianne Title rating: 18+ only for graphic prose sex scenes and a few graphic illustrations, violence, language, some torture, etc. - 4 novels (2005-2006), in English via DMP, complete - 4 Drama CDs (2005-2007), complete - 2 spin-off Drama CDs (”I’m Not Your Pet” and “I Swear”) (2007-2008), complete? - Various spin-offs and doujinshi novels (ongoing)

EDIT: Yes, the main four novels of this series are available in English. I AM NOT CLEAR, I AM NEVER CLEAR.

Yaoi light novels are to literature what macaroni and cheese is to a balanced breakfast: they’re decidedly out of place, but delicious in a craptastic kind of way. If you took a Harlequin romance novel, switched the gender of the passion-enslaved lead, and then made the whole thing a bit meaner, you’d get half of the yaoi novels out there. Of the remaining 50% that try to incorporate more of a premise or story (science fiction, prison stories, etc.), you get about half batshit insane and the other half reasonably thought-provoking with some added boy x boy fluff.

But in your healthy breakfast, S is the banana nut muffin. It’s delicious and fattening but still has something real in it. When I peruse most yaoi novels, I’m lying in bed and kicking my kittens absently, reading about insipid office politics and waiting for a gratuitous sex scene to turn all the characters into (bigger) idiots. I’m not lying when I say that I had to read S sitting up because I was genuinely afraid that everyone in it was going to get shot and I was going to cry. And I think the same would apply to any who like “bananas” and “nuts” in their sexy fiction even if they hate them in their muffins.

…Shit, my metaphor just got ahead of me.

Novels

S, a four-volume series, is a crime drama about an undercover detective named Shiiba with a huge chip on his shoulder who infiltrates organized crime by club-surfing and utilizing a connected “S,” or “Spy” (informant). He’s about 5′2″ and in his late 20s, dies his hair “brassy blond,” wears flashy clothes, and swiftly discovers that playing hard-to-get gay bait tends to work well with closeted gay or even just sexually bored gangsters who like being pushed around by an angry little cop. He falls just short of prostituting himself until he meets Munechika, an allegedly straight yazuka head who calls Shiiba on his sex games and refuses to be an “S” unless Shiiba can prove how much he wants it. The resulting sexual (but not sex) scene is both very angry and strangely funny.

Once Shiiba and Munechika are in cahoots, they start investigating a number of gun-related crimes in an attempt to shave down the illegal gun networks on the streets. The situation is, obviously, extremely dangerous for them both, and is further worsened by cop politics (Shiiba), mafia politics (Munechika), family problems, and of course the dead loved ones that made Shiiba and Munechika the bitter men they are today. Munechika does start requiring that Shiiba sleep with him to keep their cop-informant relationship functioning, and despite that making Shiiba even angrier and more bitter, he soon discovers that he and Munechika get along surprisingly well outside the bedroom, which then starts leaking into the bedroom, which makes Shiiba impossibly angrier. But despite his desire to not relate to the man he’s selling his body to, both he and Munechika are lonely people trapped in dangerous worlds, and “trust” is such a precious commodity that they can’t deny that they bring each other an important comfort in the web of intrigue. Or, rather, Shiiba can attempt to deny it. Repeatedly. While pillow biting. But yaoi complications aside, these books are best for their plots. Yes, I’m going to type that again.

These yaoi books are best for their plots.

The crime drama stuff in the S novels is elaborate and genuinely engrossing. An extremely common problem with light novels (especially those heavy on plot) is long-winded prose, where unnecessary details and useless conversations bog down the story. S is actually pretty succinct. The details provided about the politics in Shiiba’s detective department or the construction of the yazuka heirarchy, for example, are both interesting as background information and become essential as the plot thickens. The story twists don’t come out of left field. S is even exciting at times, especially in the later volumes. The conspiracies are interesting without being confusing, the characters are vicious without being completely unsympathetic, and EVERYBODY GETS SHOT. Major characters come and go frequently, and they often “go” in body bags. And say what you will about hot male cops and yazuka boinking - when you throw sex into this mess, the stakes get higher and things get even more entertaining.

The S series improves its plot and drama quotient with surprisingly good character stories. Shiiba is a sympathetic lead, and even with his tendency to break down into angry crying every once in a while, his masculinity and capability are rarely called into question - a far cry from most too-stupid-to-live uke types. Although I can`t remember if it`s ever explicitly stated, he seems to have taken past trauma - the gun death of his sister by a member of the yazuka - and obsessed over it to the point of turning it into a fetish. He despises guns and organized crime, yet he’s drawn to them; he hates cops for mishandling his sister’s case, but he still joins their ranks, specifically taking a job in the undercover unit that’s most hated in the department. There’s even a powerful scene where he tries to seduce a yazuka by mimicking fellatio on a gun. This sort of fetishizing of trauma isn’t unusual in the BL genre, but it’s only the better writers who pull it off believably, and I completely believe that Shiiba’s taken the “honorable” path of a police officer only to hide his true intentions of spiraling down into his own destruction.

But S does have its own weak points, ones that are particularly obvious to fans of non-yaoi crime drama. The writing is definitely a bit stilted and simplistic compared to a Western novel, but that’s standard within yaoi novels that don’t feature an extremely dedicated/slightly masochistic rewriter. S definitely isn’t the worst prose adaptation out there, and the story is so intense that it’s easy to overlook a poor writing style in a fervent desire to find out what happens next.

And with all the good character development, the sexual stuff is still pretty unbelievable yaoi fare, which stands as a sobering reminder that these books were originally written as erotica for a genre that loves ridiculous sex. The sex scenes themselves aren’t that bad in S, and the characters do talk about broader sexuality a lot more than most yaoi, but still…the “straight” hot men enjoy the other hot men a bit too much and a bit too quickly. Had the romanticism and fanservice been toned down a bit, I actually think the S series could have fit in genres outside of yaoi. As it stands, at least it’s toward the top of its own niche. (Oh, and the rape/torture scenes are pretty vicious, especially in Book 2, but considering the brutal tone of the books, they’re not completely out of place.)

Drama CDs

With the exception of Ai no Kusabi (which was animated years ago and is getting a longer remake soon), the real performance stage for yaoi novels is in the very developed BL drama CD industry. When I heard the cast for the S drama CDs, my inner fangirl squeed, because it’s Katsuyuki Konishi x Hiroshi Kamiya. That’s essentially this:

I’m convinced that yazuka S Munechika is the part Konishi was born to play, and he performs it as such: he’s dangerous-but-touching, clever-but-grounded, nice-suits-and-fine-wine perfection. Munechika is a decently written character and all, but he absolutely comes alive with Konishi’s performance. Kamiya’s performance as Shiiba, though, is a bit of a disappointment. He’s excellent in the first two CDs, but for whatever reason, his performance drops off at the beginning of the third and never really recovers. Ah, well…he was still better as a hot-headed cop than I expected, considering he usually just makes me think of zen people being zen.

The production values are more than decent in the CDs, which means all the shoot-outs and screeching limos and burning buildings are represented well - and ups the OMG IS EVERYONE GOING TO GET SHOT?! sentiment. If you at all like these books, the CDs are a must-buy. (Just keep in mind that although the novels are available in English, the CDs are Japanese-only…although the SFX of screaming cops and MULTIPLE PEOPLE GETTING SHOT doesn’t require much translation.)

Extras and Spin-Offs

Although I haven’t been able to sample them all, author Saki Aida wrote some doujinshi novels for S, and another one of her novel series, DECOY, supposedly takes place in the S universe and features cameos. At the very least I can comment that the extra original drama CD “I swear,” which takes place more than a year after the end of the S series, is an excellent character piece that managed to do in 30 minutes what some CD series can’t pull off in four times that length. I’ve heard it half a dozen times and I’m still not sick of it. I *heart* that extra CD.

Fun fact: Aida has sorta made crime drama yaoi “her thing” in Japan, reflected by the fact that she also authored, among other hits, the fan-favorite series DEADLOCK, which features espionage, drama, and violence in a US prison. Crime drama yaoi is a niche that needed filling, so Aida made herself your go-to lady for that sort of thing. And if that wasn’t cool enough, right now she’s working on a manga serial about a single dad’s connection to the mob with Yugi frickin’ Yamada as her artist. Whoa.

Fandom

S and its CDs doesn’t have a huge following in the English-speaking otaku world, but that’s no surprise, considering it’s niche upon niche upon niche. But for the English speakers who also dabble in Japanese, the S series is a classic. Since the majority of S fans are hidden deep within yaoi forums and are too busy getting hot and bothered over DEADLOCK these days, I don’t have many links for you. Still, there’s a great review of the English-language novels on Aestheticism and a little fanlisting here. And here’s the author’s blog in Japanese, just for funsies.

Overview: Every time I read a crappy yaoi novel, I go back and read all four volumes of S to renew my faith in the genre and medium. The series made me laugh, it made me tear up, it made me stay up late just to finish it…the only thing it didn’t make me do was want to be an undercover cop. I couldn’t help but wonder while I read these whether or not Shiiba was getting a decent retirement plan from his job. Because seriously - if he didn’t end up full of bullets and dead, he earned that freaking 401K. 4.25 stars out of 5.

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