Ryan Cecil Smith

The Rules of Love is a short but not sweet romance comic about a girl and a boy and their very bad, brief relationship one summer. I’ve read very few girls’ manga, so I picked this out because of its unfamiliar style and explicit label, just hoping for the best. I didn’t expect such a layered and dark story, and I ended up really liking it.

Erica Sakurazawa has really stylized drawings, like sparkly princess manga, but without all the decoration. Her figures are like blocky wire sculptures with a strange life that springs from their fast execution. It’s so weird and I really like it. It’s the same with her screentone, which often looks dashed off but very effectively produces depth and atmosphere.

The page layouts are pretty simple but some panels are always cut at an angle and popping to the border. It’s fun to read. Whenever the characters are talking to each other and things are happening, everything is very clear and nice. But a lot of the storytelling happens in the characters’ heads, so pages are often very sparse as the text floats into the sky or the white of the page. This kind of thing is hard for me to get used to but it’s real good. I had to sit down and really concentrate to get through the whole book, like when I read a Chris Ware comic for the first time, and just like with Ware’s stories I have a really strong impulse to copy this language in my own comics. It’s strange and beautiful.

In contrast with the light and breezy layouts, the content of the story is dark and “mature.” It’s a simple setup: Chizu is a naive girl looking for someone to fall in love with, and Taku is a player who knows how take advantage of women’s infatuation with him. Passion and trouble (and some really hot sex scenes) ensue. She’s suspicious of him from the beginning, and we slowly learn more about how bad he is until a disturbing climax.

Where can I find more manga like this? I thought all girls’ manga was schoolgirls and sailors and princesses!? Basically, if someone is reading this and you’re like me and not already really into manga, then I think you should check this out because you’ll be surprised by how good it is.