Book-A-Day 2010 # 4 (2/7) -- Sundome, Vol. 6 by Kazuto Okada

Okada's Sundome series is possibly the most accurate -- and thus most disconcerting and occasionally creepy -- depiction of needy adolescent sexuality in comics form, and I've reviewed the previous five volumes, to varying levels of detail, over the past two years. (Obligatory links: one, two, three, four, five.)

I don't know that I have anything more to say about this series that I haven't already said three or four times -- though it does hit a peak of creepy manipulativeness in the second volume, so if there's anyone out there reading it, know that it doesn't get worse from that point -- but I'm still reading it, despite the occasional squick factor. (And this was the oldest thing on my already-read pile, which is the way I'm planning to run Book-A-Day until I finally catch up with myself.)

Sundome is probably best for readers who can remember being teenage boys -- particularly those who were obsessed with one girl, or girls in general -- rather than for those who still are teenage boys (and might be way too close to the material for comfort). I wonder what a woman's take on it would be, actually; the main female character is entirely seen through the eyes of the male character -- and that's the point, that he's seeing his own obsession and desires rather than an actual human being -- but that might be disconcerting and unpleasant to some female readers.

Anyway, this is creepy in the good way, making the reader think about things he'd usually just ignore or shove aside. And it's quite funny along the way, with slapstick that works and is not always sexually-related. But this is inescapably a series about teenagers and their sexual longings (subcategory male, sub-subcategory quiet geeky uncommunicative type), so a reader has to be ready for that going in.

Book-A-Day 2010: The Epic Index
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Listening to: Barzin - Look What Love Has Turned Us Into
via FoxyTunes