The June Manga edition will keep the cover art, but change some of the Japanese copy to English.

Rated “M” for “Mature Audiences 18+”

Glass Sky is a yaoi manga short story collection from Yugi Yamada (Laugh Under the Sun, Picnic), a fan-favorite creator of yaoi manga (boys’ love comics that feature explicit depictions of sex between male lovers).  The 10 stories collected here are, for the most part, a gathering of three storylines following young men dealing with the awakening of their homosexuality.

Yamada uses a loose, cartoony style to depict her characters faces.  It’s a very expressive method that uses caricature and familiar facial poses to accurately convey to the readers both the external and internal states of the characters.  In Glass Sky, those external and internals moods deal with young men engaging in sexual relationships, which are mostly new to them, while they also struggle with coming out.  Love, desire, and humor are juxtaposed with lust, jealousy, and confusion.

Sadly, these stories promise more than they deliver.  The usually deft Yamada seems awkward in Glass Sky, as inelegant a storyteller as these young men are in their relationships.  The relationships just don’t hit you in the head or in the heart.  There are moments in Glass Sky that come across as pitch-perfect genuine, but they are few and far between.

C+