About Opentopia
Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

Kizuna: Bonds of Love

Encyclopedia : K : KI : KIZ : Kizuna: Bonds of Love

|}

Kizuna: Bonds of Love is a yaoi manga, authored by Kazuma Kodaka. Released in 1994, and still ongoing, it was one of the first and most popular manga to feature a homosexual relationship.

The story follows Ranmaru Samejima, a star kendo athlete, and Kei Enjouji, the illegitimate son of a yakuza boss, in their attempt to preserve their relationship through hardships, such as a car accident which cripples Ranmaru, barring him from ever achieving his dreams of being a kendo star. The two must work together through their respective hardships in order to heal their relationship and discover why they loved each other in the first place.

It also includes a side story, in the form of a love triangle involving Enjouji's half-brother Kai Sagano, who is intent on winning Ranmaru's affections at all cost. In one scene, Ranmaru is invited by a professor to accompany him to a gay club. Upon arrival, the professor slips Ranmaru the drug ecstacy, but before he can rape him, Kai intrudes, incapacitating the professor and having sex with Ranmaru first. Kai also eventually ends up involved with one of his bodyguards, Masanori Araki, who rescues Kai from a mob kidnapping. As the story develops, feelings between Masa and Kai also begin to emerge.

From the fourth volume of Kizuna, we are introduced to the character, Tashiro, also a bodyguard of the yakuza and one of Masa's associates. Although he says that he had "sexual relations" with Masa it is not yet determined whether this is true or not. Tashiro also has a lover called JB.

The manga, currently ten volumes long, is released in English by Be Beautiful, though many fans prefer to also purchase the Japanese editions and read them by way of fan translations, because of censorship and translation issues in the official English version. An example of the latter is the use of the use of Enjouji's first name; in the Japanese version, everyone, even his lover Ranmaru, refers to him by his surname, but the English translation uses his first name "Kei". Some fans say this alters the depiction of their relationship and Enjouji's personality.

In regards to censorship, the target in this regard has been certain scenes depicting memories of Kai and Masa's early relationship. Two pages from the first volume of the English translation were excised because they contained images of a very young Kai kissing Masa on the lips. While an innocent reason is given on Kai's part for this action, and Masa's reaction is one of shock and embarrassment, it was deemed suitably innappropriate by the editors and removed. A flashback to this memory in the second volume was editted so that a thought bubble obscures the image of young Kai, only showing Masa's face.

Kizuna is also available as an anime, in the form of three OAVs. The first two have been released in the US on DVD, most recently in a new "Special Signature Edition" with Kazuma Kodaka. A third OAV, "Much Ado About Nothing", is harder to find.

Contents

See also

External links

Anime Reviews

Manga Reviews

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles
0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?

E-mail this article to:

Personal Message: