Finder

Plot 8.5/10
Art 9/10
Romance 8/10
Eroticism 9.8/10

This is a manga that every yaoi fan has to read. I only read oneshots, and I adore this one. I actually am loving the plot, and the sex is graphic enough to be enjoyed (also frequent enough to please me). The uke is masculine enough not to creep me out (I don't read ones with what look like boys under 16), and the bishounen are divine. Read it. Love it. Have sweaty dreams about it.

P.S.: Be prepared for rape, almost all of the sex is either rape, or a little forced. If you hate Stockholm syndrome type romances (Raped until he likes it), then this won't be for you!

PPS: The threesome scene...is more than I could ever ask for. o

Oh and BTW: Who ACTUALLY reads Yaoi for the plot?!?! Go read a novel for god's sake, as this stuff is for kinky sex and basically porn.

Here's the thing. If you like the traditional spunky, resisting uke, and the strong, sultry, forceful seme...this is YOUR manga. This series defines those roles and takes it to a beyond perfect level.

But if you're looking for a serious, realistic, angst-ridden drama that flowers into a beautiful and meaningful relationship that comments on the human experience...well, I don't know if this is for you.

Ayano Yamane is brilliant not only in her art (my FAVORITE style...gorgeous), but in her ability to create these endearing characters that we come to care about. Yes, there is a lot of rape. Yes, some of the plot is contrived and unrealistic. But it's a fast-paced, mafia vs. yakuza story with an irresistible uke caught in the middle. If that sounds even a little appealing, you will LOVE this series.

It's a classic.

About the only saving grace for this manga is the art--I'm a huge fan of Ayano Yamane's art style, and despite the horrific content of this story and the cliched BL plot, the art will always get a nod from me.

That being said, this has got to be one of the most overrated series of all times, with people panting for the art style while handwaving all the horrible crap that's included--rape is a successful trope in BL because idiot consumers keep supporting it. How about giving more credit to the series that treat rape as a horrific incident (see: Nekota Yonezou's 'Michiru Heya' for example) rather than a stepping stone to a beautiful relationship?

Yeah, it goes without saying since everyone in the yaoiland must (or should) have known Ayano Yamane and her amazing works. This series so far is the 1st in my list. The art is the first thing that attracted me, it's so smooth, cute but not too cute like some shoujo or shota. The story lines are brilliant and the plots are just...the best.

Takaba - the main uke - is just my fav type of uke. He has well-build, a little muscular but not too much. His personality is very interesting and hard to read. His will is strong and I just loveee his stubbornness. Although he always acts like a man but i think he's nothing more than an arrogant kid.

And Asami - the seme. He must be the top of the top semes in yaoi world. I mean really, who could win over this person? He is like...perfect, from the look to the personality. And the best thing is, he's not the type of guy who is always overprotective his lover. The way he shows his love to Takaba is so cute (and sick sometimes). I just so so so love this man.

I also love lots of other mangas such as Crimson Spell and Nekota Yonezou's works (especially Elektel Delusion and Otona Keikenchi) but i guess there will be no other yaoi manga that can take away the 1st place from Viewfinder in my list.

LOVE AYANO SENSEI!!!!

I have to admit, despite repeatedly hearing about this series I didn't pick it up for a long time, and then when I did I was very much turned off by the first volume. I figured it would be pretty much an endless series about pointless rape and how the uke is supposed to fall in love despite that. I don't know why I eventually decided to try it again but this time I had 4 volumes with me. As soon as I got to the second volume, I was pleasantly surprised by the shift to a bit more plot with Fei Long's back story (actually volume 2 has almost no sex in it at all).

If you want a series where there's no rape-- well, you'd be able to tell pretty much immediately this isn't the series for you. And I do have to agree with another reviewer-- I don't see much of a difference between Fei Long and Asami forcing themselves on Akihito, other than the fact that Akihito slowly develops feelings for Asami. I actually think it's kind of silly that there's always blood when Fei Long rapes Akihito but rarely when Asami does. It's like they're trying to reinforce that it's ok when Asami does it.

That's an aside, though. The point is-- I'm not a fan of stories revolving around rape, and I get pretty tired of this idea that the uke should fall in love with the seme who's always hurting him. But that's why I was surprised by this... I don't know what it is about it, exactly, but I actually believe the love story in this. I mean it's definitely twisted and all about a power play especially in the beginning, but I believe that they have feelings for each other by a few volumes into it.

I was skimming comments and I guess a number of people don't like Akihito. To be honest, I never had a problem with him. And by the latest volumes, I outright love him. He's a normal guy put into a super messed up situation... I don't imagine many people would be able to react properly in situations he's thrown into.

I mean, seriously. Imagine being in that position; imagine accidentally catching the eye of someone who's so powerful he could literally have you killed at a moment's notice and nothing could stop it. Imagine other equally influential people keying into that and using you to their advantage like a pawn in a chess game. Imagine everyone deciding it's okay to rape you repeatedly. Imagine constantly being hurt and not being in control of your life at all. It would really suck. Normal people are not ready for that sort of twisted world being thrown on them out of nowhere. And normal people would be really confused by realizing they're starting to develop feelings for the very person who initially terrorized them. Now whether those feelings are true love or if it's all some twisted psychological thing based on the fact that his initial tormentor ends up sometimes being his savior too, I couldn't say. That's mostly up to the reader.

So, myself, I actually really like how Akihito tries to deal with everything. And I loooove him in the 5th volume. I will say nothing about plot but I think he's awesome there.

Anyway, I wanted to leave a comment about this series because if you were turned off by the first volume like I was, there's the possibility you may end up still liking the series. It certainly has aspects that are commonplace in a lot of BL but I guess given the fact that I did a total 180 in my opinion of the series between volume 1 and 5, I can't say I find it to be typical overall. Usually I don't go from disliking a story so much I put it down for probably years to suddenly liking it so much I can't wait to buy the next volume. To me, that says something about how well this story is told. Whether or not you like the story itself is up to you.

This would've been a great series if the mangaka stuck to the dark tones of the first volume, with Akihito acknowledging the wrongness of his relationship with Asami and the series going to how he has to deal with it. It already laid the groundwork for it, the unequal dynamic was great (and so darn interesting), but the story fizzled out

(yes, I found the contrived mafia war pointless).Instead, Akihito turned into this passive plot device who's all bark and no bite. Heck, how the series panned out is even more disturbing than the disturbing elements in the first volume.

There's only two saving graces on this series: the artwork and the chemistry.

When I first started reading this I thought "ugh, the most awful rape scene right off the bat!" and almost stopped right there. But the fantastic art kept me reading and I'm so glad. By the end I'd completely fallen in love with the series and all the characters. I think Akihito has gotten quite a bit of criticism but I don't really agree with it. Sure he's not the most agentive uke ever but I think the whole point of this manga is the emotional development and whether or not Akihito can give in to his feelings. I also liked it how Akihito had aspirations to be acknowledged as a man and make Asami submit. 🙂 So as an uke I can't call him typical either... I didn't like Asami much to begin with but as the depth of the relationship grew I started to like him a lot better till the end where I really already liked him lots. The extra "temporary paradise" is my favorite of Asami. It's cute really! And I love Asami's vacation hair... x) The side characters weren't bad either and I enjoyed the whole backgroud on Asami and Feilong. The relationship between Feilong and Akihito was interesting as well. I kinda felt bad for Feilong though... Anyway, if you haven't read this, do it NOW! Hah.. And don't stop in the middle or you'll miss out I tell ya! 😉 Can't wait for the rest... Should be good?

Lots of cliche porn featuring a macho criminal who needs a good kick in the nuts and a secretly mazo photographer who must give off some incredible pheromones because everyone wants to rape him. Most of the time, they succeed.
Asami’s personality makes you want to kick him in the nuts, oops, I have already said that. Akihito switches from boring to pathetic and back, he needs to grow a backbone.
Fei Long is the only interesting character in the manga (and the best looking one, too), but the nonsensical development ruins him.
The background is actually rather good, but the central characters and their relationship is such a cheap rape fantasy that you have to really adore that type of yaoi to get to the very last chapter.
I don’t.

I also don’t get the so-called difference between Asami forcing Akihito to have sex with him and Fei Long doing the same. People seem to think that being the official seme gives Asami some divine right to rape his uke whenever he pleases or something.

Viewfinder was actually my 2d yaoi ever, (right after Trigger), and that's, some would say, oh! such a bad 2d choice. The kind of read that makes you hate yaoi forever, right? Well, as for me, it got me soooooooooo completely hooked on yaoi !!
It's kinda hardcore, yes. Contains rape & a lil'bit of bdsm, yes. What can I say?
Even though, Viewfinder is a really great series, and I really really ! do not regret picking it. And I love yakuza plots, strong-willed ukes, dominant & possessive semes, and Yamane Ayano's drawings, oh my! drooling
Yaoi forever, and this one is a must-read !

This manga seemed to be something many people recommended to me, so I decided to give it a try. And well...here I am..... Disapointed and with the feeling of " Not this type of plot....again"

Here´s the thing, you either love this one, or you don´t. I´m somewhere in the middle. The plot was really cliché. We have this ambitous uke with righteous ideal who stumbles upon a Yakuza. The yakuza rapes the uke, uke hates him.....then when this kinda shit goes on for awhile the uke falls in love with the yakuza...and yaddayaddayadda. We should also not forget the man that comes between them and kidnappes Takaba ( Ohmygod, that wasn´t prediiictable at all sarcastic ) because he has some unsolved issues with Asami.

This manga is a bit too overrated I think, maybe it´s because I´ve read alot of manga and seen this kind of plot many times before....so I can´t get why it´s so hyped. But I gotta admit that the sex scenes was hot, sometimes a bit to disturbing ( I don´t like when the uke gets passed around too much, you will get what I mean when you read it )

2 me this manga isnt your average o0o im going to rape you cause your annoying then well fall for eachtoher. O0O0 ITS NOT!!! its totally diffrent to me, when i found this by reccomendations i said o0o finder huh and got hooked right away. i dnt get how sme say its not better then totally captiaved..... THEY R TOTALLY DIFFRENT this is about a middle aged yakuza n a photogher (undercover cop type) , n totally captivaed is about a college guy n a yakuza who should be in college!!! DIFFERENT PPL! well anyway I LUV IT. YOU SHOULD READ IT, IM WAITING 4 SCANS IF IF NONE CME ON IM OFFICALLY LEARNIN JAPANESE!!! 😀

All right, I found this when I was manga-surfing, the equivalent of channel-surfing, through a whole list of Yaoi, and I wasn't really looking for much, basically, smut, eye candy and pretty drawing. I'm not particularly picky about the plot as long as the drawing's good, if I wanted a stunning plot, I'd go hunting down a thriller novel, so essentially I was looking for something frivolous.

But then I came upon this, and my pal, who shares similar tastes as me, had recomended this sometime ago, and I remembered when I saw it. So I thought to myself, 'Cool, why not?' and I clicked the button that said Start Reading. The first chapter was exactly what I was looking for, intense and beautiful in a purely simplistic way, I liked it, in an 'I'll just read this cause my brain's dead and I like looking at pretty pictures when I'm brain dead' kind of way. So I continued.

What I didn't expect was character development, the kind that smacks you in the face and says this isn't just another smutty yaoi, it literally hauled me by the throat and forced me to give my attention. Personally, I like Akihito best, and that's rather strange, since I've always leaned towards the ruthless characters, like Asami.

But in some fundamental way, I believe Akihito's pretty ruthless himself, in the sense that he'd do anything to protect what he places importance on, his friends for one. And he doesn't seem to shy away from the blood and darkness in life, he doesn't quite like it, no one would, but he's able to see reason where all those righteous idiots often don't.

Akihito in essence is, I quote Harry Potter, 'a very good person who bad things have happened to'. And Asami is, in all accounts, ruthless and practical and real. He's flawed in a very perfect way, which inspires a lot of respect on a purely idealogical level. Capable, pragmatic and determined, it's the basic things that'd pull one all the way to the top of the food chain, and ficitonal he may be, Asami's definitely at the top of this food chain.

What really strikes me as simply amazing, is how this author is able to twist cliches and cliffhangers to something actually believable. We have the jaded badass businessman, and the idealistic photographer, they're very sexually compatible and after a series of events, they find trust and on some underlying level, yes, the L-word, love. Frankly, that doesn't seem quite possible if one puts it that way, but Yamane Ayano has managed to make this utterly real.

And in one of the latest chapters, Akihito gets shot, major cliffhanger, of course we find in the next chapter, that the bullet simply grazed him, and it's all really fine and dandy, now that seems like a cliche but it wasn't phrased as a cliche, rather, I'd say it's an extremely telling moment where we scratch the suface of what may be the depth of Asami's feelings for Akihito, and Akihito, clearly vulnerable here, after being kidnapped twice and almost killed a couple of times, also chooses to show the extent of his feelings towards Asami, whom he originally detests.

It's an amazing read and I'd recommend this to anyone, I'm also utterly thankful that my pal knew me well enough to recommend it to me.

UPDATE: Now that I've just finished Pray in the Abyss, I thought it'd be a nice time to update my review of Viewfinder, and as much as I hate to say it... Really, I'm hopelessly addicted. Viewfinder is my drug. (And while this brings us back to Twilight, that reference was purely unintended.) Also, as a response to the recurring theme of certain reviews: Rape, cliched plot, et cetera. I feel compelled to defend the manga, as a loyal fan.

That said, I do not condone rape in the true sense. Rape as a fantasy, on the other hand, is a completely different thing. The line that separates one from the other is something Laurell K Hamilton deals with plenty in her novels. (The fact that I started on her books at the age of thirteen says something about my views on several controversial subjects.) Rape as a fantasy is certainly distinct in Viewfinder, I will, however, concede, that there are some instances where the line is crossed.

Mainly in the Naked Truth Arc, and probably, in the first chapter of the series (a helluva way to start the series with a bang, isn't it?). And in those instances, I believe it was dealt with as rape, Akihito did feel an emotional, partly psychological, impact. Of course, certain readers may feel that the issue was glossed over too easily, Akihito should be traumatized for life, if not for life, for a longer span of time surely... Personally, I've no problem with Yamane Ayano's plot, Akihito, I would peg, as the type to mentally shy away from the bad things in life.

It's not weak, it's a way of survival.

As I've mentioned in my review previously, I believe Akihito an incredibly strong character, with iron-clad faith in what he believes in. What I fail to find any sense in, is the claims of an overused cliche. Firstly, (I believe I've said this in a review somewhere, so if it's a little familiar, bear with me please) I see no reason why people cry foul at a plot supposedly cliched. There's a reason why certain story lines come off as overused, they work.

Why would authors use it repeatedly, if the plot had been proven a failure to gain a good audience. It's not shallow, it's purely economics. Think comparative advantage. If I've a comparative advantage in this line, clearly I'd direct my resources to it. Opportunity Cost: The opportunity cost of not following the conventional (going unconventional, while heralded as brave by some, and it is brave, I will concede) could mean larger losses if the manga doesn't sell.

And now that I'm done defending all things labelled with 'The Cliched Plot' out there, (Yes, Harlequin, your books are probably it, but I still love them to bits.) Viewfinder is hardly overused. Yes, we have the possessive, sadistic seme, and we have the cheerful, and sometimes a little dense, uke. But Viewfinder's got a gorgeous character arc. No, I didn't mis-type. Character arc. Not art. (Yes, we have gorgeous art too, but that's been mentioned hundreds of times.)

If it was like every other cliche, and I don't use cliche as an insult, mind you, they would have continued to stay as they are, Akihito wouldn't have been tested to his limits, he wouldn't have shown potential to be a tragic hero as much as he's an idiotic one. Asami would have simply remained a thorn in Akihito's side, he wouldn't show so much affection, (I see affection, maybe you don't. Call me shallow and romantic.) or concern over Akihito's well-being. He's got a soft spot somewhere.

Bottom line: I love Viewfinder regardless. I acknowledge the views of others, but ultimately, it's still my drug, isn't it?