Sensual Phrase

(Viz, 2004-2006)
™ and © 2004 Mayu Shinjo
Right to left reading format. Black and white.

If this was a boy’s manga, to fulfill his dreams he’d have to sweat, suffer, and relentlessly train to achieve them, but all Aine has to do is enter a song-writing contest and almost get hit by a car.

The car belongs to Sakuya, the exotic blue-eyed lead singer Aine develops an instant obsession with. Though she knows nothing about rock and couldn’t care less about becoming a professional song writer, Sakuya appoints the teen-ager as the band’s lyricist because her desperate virginal lusting for him (Sakuya) produces hot lyrics.

So stripped of self-worth by her “love,” Aine’s main thought as she is about to be gang-raped by the singer’s deranged fan club is: “I’ll no longer be of use to him!” I know girls like to fantasize about relationships with dark, unavailable older guys, but this pretty manga suggests that love means surrendering every last shred of your dignity: not exactly the message I’d want to send to impressionable girls.

— S.A. Bennett

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