More and More of You and Other Stories

Creator: Takeshi Matsu
Publisher: Bruno Gmünder
ISBN: 9783867877930
Released: November 2014

Takeshi Matsu is a popular creator of gay manga in Japan, his work appealing to both male and female readerships. He initially started out working for shounen magazines, at one point even winning an award for his manga. Matsu moved on to creating erotic gay manga around the age of thirty and was successful enough that he was actually able to make a career of it. It wasn’t until 2014 that any of Matsu’s work was officially translated and released in English. He was one of the nine mangaka featured in Massive: Gay Erotic Manga and the Men Who Make It which included his short manga “Kannai’s Dilemma,” and he became the first creator after Gengoroh Tagame to have a major release of gay manga printed in English. More and More of You and Other Stories, published by the Germany-based Bruno Gmünder as part of its Gay Manga line, collects several of Matsu’ self-published doujinshi in a single volume for the very first time. Although the individual manga are available in Japanese, the anthology itself is an original English-language release.

More and More of You and Other Stories collects four of Matsu’s manga, beginning with the titular and longest, “More and More of You.” It’s a surprisingly sweet and even romantic story about a young man named Kosuke who is in love with his childhood friend and neighbor Shokichi, who just so happens to now be one of his high school teachers as well. Sho actually returns his feelings, although neither one of the men has admitted it to the other, and the romantic inclinations of some of Kosuke’s classmates only complicate matters further. “Go West” is an erotically charged parody of the Chinese classic The Journey to the West, following the sexual escapades and battles of Sanzo and his small crew as they cruise their way through the gay clubs from Ni-chōme to Doyama-chō. Things get a little heated in the kitchen and in the bedroom when two cooks of rival cuisines begin dating in “Recipe for Love” while “Tales from the Kitchen” features several autobiographically-based gag manga.

Because More and More of You and Other Stories is a collection of erotic doujinshi, it’s not too surprising that each chapter somehow incorporates the characters’ masturbatory fantasies or other sexual encounters. Matsu’s men tend to be lanky, muscular, and very well-endowed. More and More of You and Other Stories can be explicit, but there’s also a lot of playfulness and humor to the sex. Even when the plot includes drama and conflict, ultimately Matsu’s manga is delightfully upbeat and sometimes even hilarious. As just one example, the absolutely ridiculous pillow talk of “Recipe for Love” as the two men rhapsodize about their lover’s body in terms of food is highly amusing. A few of the jokes and references made in “Go West” will make more sense to readers who have at least passing familiarity with The Journey to the West, but no prior knowledge is needed to appreciate the impressive sexual prowess and the rather interesting, psychically-enhanced sexual abilities and powers of the characters.

It’s very clear that Matsu enjoyed creating the manga collected in More and More of You and Other Stories. Because the selections were originally all self-published, he had the freedom to develop the works exactly in the way that he wanted and chose to do. As a result More and More of You and Other Stores is both a fun and funny volume. Even the manga included that aren’t primarily comedies have humor and charm to them. The characters are likeable and by and large are obviously enjoying all of the sex that they are having. Another thing that I particularly welcomed about More and More of You and Other Stories is that in part it’s a food manga, which I love. I also happen to have an interest in The Journey to the West in its various incarnations, so it was as if More and More of You and Other Stories was made with me in mind. In the afterword Matsu mentions that he hopes to have the opportunity to release additional collections of his manga in English; I know that I’d certainly like to see them!