Zetsuai 1989

Synopsis

Kōji Nanjō is one of the most successful rock stars in Japan, with his hauntingly beautiful voice and very attractive features. But beneath all the fame and glamour, he is a damaged and hurt young man who has absolutely no happiness or interest in life.

One night after a string of bar-hopping, Kōji passes out in a heap of trash in the rain. He is found, taken in, and cared for by Takuto Izumi, a soccer prodigy. Despite the fact that Izumi is a complete stranger, he moves Kōji deeply, and Kōji soon develops an intense obsession with Izumi. It is later revealed that the reason Kōji sings is to find the person he fell in love with at first sight six years earlier, whom he remembers for showing extreme ferocity on the soccer field and for a particularly penetrating gaze. Kōji knows the person's name is 'Izumi,' but he thinks the person he saw was a girl, so initially he believes it was Serika Izumi, Takuto's sister. It is only when Takuto looks at him angrily that he realizes Takuto is the 'Izumi' he was looking for. His body goes into shock, and from then on his obsession with Izumi knows no bounds.

As Kōji forces himself more and more into Izumi's life, he exposes Izumi and his loved ones to his dangerous lifestyle and extremely dysfunctional family. When Takuto's little brother asks Kōji if he is gay, Kōji replies, 'No, I am not gay. I am only in love with Takuto. Even if you were twins, I could only love Takuto.' At times, the hurdles the relationship faces become too difficult to bear. In the midst of it, Kōji temporarily loses his voice and is forced to go back to his brother and family.

Due to the manga artist's illness, the manga ended at volume 19 without a proper ending. When she recovered, she drew the dojinshi Ai ni Obore, Ai ni Shisu (愛に溺れ、愛にしす, lit. Drowning in Love, Too much Love, also known as Dekishi (溺死, lit. Death by Drowning)), to give readers a proper 'final meeting' scene.

Characters

Kouji Nanjo (南城市 浩二, Nanjo Kouji) Voiced by: Sho Hayami

Takuto Izumi (泉 拓人, Izumi Takuto)

Serika Izumi (泉 芹香, Izumi Serika) Voiced by: Kumiko Nishihara

Yugo Izumi (泉 ユーゴ, Izumi Yugo) Voiced by: Etsuko Nishimoto

Nanjo Akihito (明仁 南城, Akihito Nanjo) Voiced by: Masami Kikuchi

Madoka Shibuya (渋谷 まどか, Shibuya Madoka) Voiced by: Omi Minami

Mieko Minamimoto (皆本 美恵子, Minamimoto Mieko) Voiced by: Rei Igarashi

Toshiyuki Takasaka (タカサカ 俊之, Takasaka Toshiyuki) Voiced by: Tohru Furusawa

Takuto's Mother (拓人の母, Takuto no okasan) Voiced by: Tomoko Munakata

Publications

While the series has been published in several languages, it has not been published in English.

It was started 1989 as a legitimate spin-off of the author's Captain Tsubasa doujinshi Dokusen Yoku. The pairing between Tsubasa's Kōjirō Hyūga and Ken Wakashimu, the pairing featured in Dokusen Yoku, is immensely popular and has been compared to the classic slash fiction pairing of Kirk/Spock. The usual dynamic in Kōjirō-Ken doujinshi is that their relationship is "based on trust". Kōjirō is the man of the family due to his father's death. Ken, on the other hand, is heir to a martial arts school, and is constantly under pressure to quit soccer, and suffers an injury from trying to be the best in both fields. The boys support each other, and eventually their deep friendship becomes love. The series Zetsuai was abandoned after 5 volumes. The author, or manga artist, Minami Ozaki picked the story back up after a few years with Bronze. So far, Bronze has outpaced Zetsuai and has 14 volumes. The story arc it is currently in is called Restart.

Two OVA's were made, one taking place in Zetsuai [Since] 1989, and the second during Bronze: Zetsuai since 1989 (also called Bronze Zetsuai or simply Bronze). Koyasu Takehito plays the part of Izumi Takuto, and Sho Hayami plays Koji Nanjo. Radio dramas and CDs (with some lyrics composed by Minami Ozaki) were produced. The actors themselves often provided vocal parts for music. Five original music videos were made and compiled into a video called Cathexis.

As of 2003, fan translations of the first eleven volumes of Zetsuai / Bronze were available.

Zetsuai 1989 was licensed in French (by Tonkam), German (Carlsen Verlag), Korean, Spanish (Glénat España) and Italian (Panini Comics) languages.

Zetsuai 1989 was the first shōnen-ai manga to be officially translated into German.

Soundtrack

Several albums were released relating to the Dokusen Yoku doujinshi, Zetsuai 1989 and Bronze since Zetsuai between 1988 and 1996.

Light novels

Several light novels were published by Shueisha. They were written by Akiyama Rin with illustrations by Minami Ozaki. The plot of novels is mostly connected to Nanjo family (Kaen Danshō series in particular), for example Kouji's elder brother Nanjo Hirose.

Reception

At the time of its writing, the genre as a whole was not commonly recognised by those not creating it, but Zetsuai 1989 is considered one of yaoi's "major works" and "one of the greatest icons of shōnen-ai". Koji and Izumi have been described as shōnen-ai's Romeo and Juliet. There is little explicit sex in the series. Instead, the series is "angst-ridden", and includes "a lot of blood" via themes of self-harm and accidents. Ozaki's works have been described as "prolonged erotic psychodramas", and Zetsuai 1989 is the "most famous" of these. The depiction of love in the series has been described as "nearly violent", which is regarded as a "true revelation" for female readers. The character of Izumi's mother has been criticised by Kazuko Suzuki as an example of yaoi showing "extremely negative images of mothers". Anime News Network has criticised the melodramatic tone of the OVA Bronze: Zetsuai Since 1989. Aestheticism.com describes the art style of Zetsuai as being "like a fashion designer's workbook", but Anime News Network says that the character design is "horribly mutated" and "disgusting". Matt Thorn describes the relationship between Koji Nanjo and Takuto Izumi as an "intense and often grim love story", saying that "if you like your shônen-ai (or "slash") intense, look no further." Jessica Bauwens-Sugimoto describes Zetsuai 1989 as being a controversial work, noting that it was one of the early yaoi works to "enjoy widespread popularity abroad". She labels it as being bad when read through a gender studies perspective, and not representative of the yaoi genre. She characterises it as showing "violent, obsessive and abus[ive]" sex scenes. She notes that it was written during a period of yaoi history where most stories ended in tragedy. Bauwens-Sugimoto posits that because of the time gap of ten to twelve years between publication and when it was translated into German and French, audiences who read it in translation would have found it "out of touch with the times", and thus extrapolate to the yaoi genre as a whole being "backwards".