A long time ago, Fujishirou Kosuke confessed his love to his friend. He vowed to remain pure until they could be together so he could experience his first time with her. Years later, the boy wakes up in a prison cell and realizes that he has been kidnapped. A beautiful woman appears in front of his eyes and tries to seduce him. Her only goal is to rid him of his virgin status. Kousuke manages to smooth his way out of the situation, but the mysterious girl tells him that one day she will break him anyway. He is then thrown into a room with several other men his age who have faced similar fates.

I recently finished the manga Desuraba / Destiny Lover. At the outset, I would like to inform you that some of the material used in this post is not intended for younger readers so I kindly ask you to stop reading here if that’s the audience you fall into.

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Desuraba / Destiny Lover – Visuals

Tomohiro Kai is responsible for the drawings – I’ve been following him for a long time on pixiv, so when I saw his name on the cover of this manga, I decided to check it out. His character designs are full of detail, but what draws special attention are the emotions expressed by the characters in each frame. He devotes a large part to faces, which positively affects the perception of the whole. His onomatopoeias are also significant, giving the scenes a lot of dynamics.

Desuraba / Destiny Lover – The plot and characters

The story written by Kazutaka is not a complicated one. A group of young men are kidnapped and put in prison, then attempts are made to seduce them and strip them of their virgin status. Sounds terrible? Maybe so, but no matter how abstract the author begins his work, what matters most is the style and the idea to show his vision, not dry facts. A lot of things happen in the background. Not much information from the outside world reaches the prisoners, which already from the beginning gives the impression that something is simply wrong, because no one just kidnaps a group of young boys in order to deprive them of their romantic dreams of spending the first time with the love of their lives. The subsequent chapters laboriously unravel these mysteries through a variety of means. Each day spent in detention is long hours of fighting their urges. In addition, the main character’s girlfriend, whom he hasn’t seen for a long time, takes part in the whole project – she becomes a motivation to persevere. One day she tells him a secret that soon saves him from death.

Many people refer to Desuraba as a cheap copy of Prison School. In fact, there are some similarities in certain aspects. The drawing style is somewhat reminiscent of Prison School, even some of the characters look similar, and of course there is a strong emphasis on female charms. But that’s where the similarities end. Desuraba is an erotic post-apocalyptic thriller with a touch of comedy and romance. Although the protagonists are relatively safe as they stay on a deserted island for most of the time, the fruits of world events are still there and often become a real threat to their lives. Speaking of the characters themselves – we meet many of them. Apart from a group of boys, with whom we get acquainted at the very beginning, there are quite a few ladies. About halfway through, almost the entire female cast is replaced because of a new plan devised by the organization behind the kidnapping. I don’t want to give away the details because unraveling this mystery is a key aspect of this title and it’s really worth experiencing for yourself while reading the subsequent chapters.

There remains the rather controversial issue of the ending. The title ended with a huge cliffhanger. The penultimate chapter of the manga is the first chapter of the next title called by the author – Destiny Lovers. But wait, on the cover of the English edition it says Destiny Lovers – well, something went wrong here – but more about the title itself below in the translation section. Going back to the previous topic – the author decided to write the story in the same world – this time, from the point of view of a completely different character. However, he made it clear that both manga will merge at some point and then, having a broader perspective of the events, we’ll be able to learn more about the Destiny Lover characters’ fates. I’ll be honest, I haven’t seen anything like that before – so instead of complaining about the ending, I’m willing to read Destiny Lovers, because it may turn out that I’ll have to deal with a really successful title, served in a rather unusual way.

The name of the monsters in Desuraba is Reajuu. Warning quite a spoiler.

Erotic aspect

The scenes of intimacy are presented in such a way as to strongly stimulate the reader’s imagination. A lot of frames expose certain parts of the body, breasts are shown in all their glory, as well as erotic underwear, but not all the details of close-ups. This is something that often happens in manga of this type, and it really gets the imagination going at full speed – definitely more so than in hentai manga, where everything is exposed.

Desuraba / Destiny Lover – Rating and Summary

Desuraba / Destiny Lover is a title that I find quite difficult to rate without knowing the full story. I think it’s important to do so in some way because the sequel is shown from the perspective of a different protagonist, so for good measure, even though the plot will merge at some point, Desuraba still remains completed in one way and not another. The manga reads quite quickly. If you like this kind of atmosphere – you certainly won’t be disappointed, because the visuals can impress and the plot – even though it doesn’t belong to the more complicated ones – keeps moving forward, dragging behind it a scent which forces you to consume successive chapters, time and again revealing secrets of the presented world. A lot of pages were devoted to close-ups between characters – but if someone reaches for this title consciously, it will be an advantage. My score: 7/10. I’ll definitely come back to Desuraba (or rather Destiny Lover) when I review Destiny Lovers, but I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon because the manga is still being released and it’s not likely to end anytime soon. This rating reflects how I would rate the whole thing if the manga permanently ended the way it did.

How does the official English translation turn out to be?

The manga was published under the Ghost Ship imprint as Destiny Lovers – unfortunately, this title created incredible confusion. The manga in the original is written in katakana – デスラバ (Desuraba), which the author expands as Destiny Lover. The problem is that this sequel is called Destiny Lovers.It’ll be interesting to see how Ghost Ship (if they decide to publish Destiny Lovers at all) handles this, but their translation is no different from how Seven Seas Entertainment does it. I can’t really complain about anything (as usual). The larger onomatopoeias clearly drawn by the author are left in the original with the translation added in smaller font, while the small ones in plain text are replaced. All honorifics (including those used by siblings) are left in the original. As always – the original order of names and original pop culture references have also been retained. The translators did not add footnotes (probably assuming that in most situations an older reader would not need them). I do, however, greatly respect them for leaving the monsters’ names in the original, rather than pointlessly translating them by force. Overall, I definitely recommend this edition.

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