Kizuna, vols. 1-2.

Anybody who watched television in the '70s can instantly bring to mind the distinctive look of Japanese animation. Headed by cartoon hero Speed Racer, popular Japanese imports such as Gigantor, Battle of the Planets, Marine Boy, and Kimba lit up America's early '70s Saturday morning schedule.

Always judged among the finest in the world, Japanese animation has also distinguished itself from Walt Disney-style fare with more than just style. Adult Japanese cartoons have traditionally contained sexually explicit material, and now a surprising new trend is gaining popularity: boy love, or shounen-ai, comics featuring pretty Speed Racer look-alikes in melodramatic tales of gay romance. These gay male comics are created primarily for young female audiences; apparently they appeal to Japanese women because they represent softer, more romantic images of men. For this reason the shounen-ai comics are controversial in Japan's gay communities because although they increase queer visibility, they foster unrealistic images of gay lives.

To Americans, however, the idea of erotic gay comics and cartoons sounds both kitschy and tantalizing. While a number of Japanese comics, animated series, and animated features (Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Dragon Ball, Sailor Moon, etc.) have been available in the United States through specialty stores and film festivals, the first shounen-ai animated series has only just arrived stateside, distributed by mail order through the gay-owned company Phoenix Distributors, based in Phoenix. The series, titled Kizuna (which roughly translated means "bonds"), is as accessible as the usual gay art house film is eccentric and experimental. Created by a woman cartoonist named Kazuma Kodaka, Kizuna's hero, Ramnaru Samejima, has a classic swimmer's build, big weepy eyes, a windblown shock of hair, and about as much personality as Barbie.

A fencing champion, Ranmaru is also the beloved boyfriend of Enjoji, who makes love to him in the steamy, soft-porn opening scene of volume 1, while muttering: "Your hair, your hands, your heart ... are all mine."

Unfortunately, Ranmaru is the victim of a hit-and-run auto accident planned for Enjoji, who is the illegitimate son of a powerful yakuza (mob boss). With his fencing career in ruins, Ranmaru becomes a beautiful, bedridden martyr. A year passes, and after Ranmaru's difficult rehabilitation, with loyal Enjoji by his side, the boys are living together peacefully until Ranmaru mistakenly accepts an invitation to have a drink with his college professor. The lecherous man, a closeted homosexual, takes Ranmaru to a local hustler bar and drugs his drink. This makes it necessary for Ranmaru to be saved from debauchery by a handsome stranger named Kei Sagano, who turns out to be Enjoji's bitter half brother. As you can imagine, much Harlequin romance-type drama ensues when Kei reveals that he too is in love with the saintly Ranmaru, who, you soon realize, can always be counted on to do the right thing.

Although the subtitles, which whip by at the speed of light, require a very active viewer, the styling and creative effects of the animation are pleasing if sometimes apparently low-budget. The relentless cheese of the content is hardly beyond anything that happens weekly on Melrose Place (the realization of which may help check the international tendency to poke fun at the perceived extremes of Japanese culture). And by Western standards, the gay relationship portrayed in Kizuna may be considered idyllic: two handsome young men who live together, love each other, communicate well, and have lots of sex. We see them suffer average family problems, such as having to reconcile with an obnoxious little brother, but never once is their gayness questioned or explained.

Whether or not this means that Kizuna is ultimately escapist or trivializing of gay life seems a less interesting question than whether or not the idea of a gay cartoon is an exciting and subversive format for gay imagery. And at least at this point in history, the sheer novelty of it justifies its addition to any gay video library. In a broader context, the phenomenon of shounen-ai comics is material rich for fascinating sociological study. Meanwhile, Kizuna stands on its own as enjoyable, campy entertainment.