STORYTELLER’S SUNDAY: SASAMORI TOMOE

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Sasamori Tomoe, manga artist, smut writer. We are going to start off my approved Storyteller’s List with one of pure unbridled beautiful filth.

I feel a little self-conscious talking about Sasamori Tomoe’s work as I generally consider myself to have some literary interest when it comes to smut. I like stories and characters that engage me, prurient or not. You don’t get much of either with Sasamori’s works. But he does scratch a few itches very well. Let me back up.

Sasamori Tomoe is a creator of hentai manga, or erotic comics if you prefer the English terms. You can buy his works in English translation at the site Fakku, which provides excellent high quality digital files. His best known work is probably Living with a Succubus, which was released in ten volumes with numerous extras created for the fandom. It even spawned an animated adaptation. That was accompanied by a variety of similar but shorter works such as Mikakino’s Secret Sex Life and Sex with Senpai.

No, creative titles are not one of his strengths but they do get the point across. In each of these the male protagonist is the target of attention from a female, or three in the case of Living with a Succubus. The male is largely passive, allowing the women to initiate sex though not to the degree of being a femdom, which is fortunate as that is not my cup of tea. Of course the male is a bit nerdy, a bit shy, a bit withdrawn and has amazing sexual stamina and capacity to ejaculate. The literary formula is wish fulfilment – a shy guy has cute girls drawn to him that offer endless sexual pleasure. There are worse things to wish for, right?

None of the characters have much depth though what does exist is in the women, not the male protagonist. The most recent series, Gamer’s Harem, breaks this trend. It’s still not challenging Steinbeck for character development but there is more than in past books and I am glad to see the artist growing as a writer. And that brings us to the good, and there is plenty of it.

Let’s start with the art. Sasamori has a distinctive style with strong thick lines and a lot of fluid movement. His women are curvy and exaggerated but don’t become caricatures. It is clear the artist has made an effort to provide detail whether it is in female anatomy or backgrounds, something many hentai manga creators don’t bother with. And what isn’t to like about curvy, nerdy women with strong sexual appetites? That brings us to the setting.

I have nothing against fantasy erotica and have even indulged in writing it myself but I often find erotica fits in a setting modelled after the real world better, where our own experiences play a part in the erotica on the page. While Sasamori dabbled with the fetish of the succubus in one series, it can easily be taken as a metaphor as there is no particular evidence of the supernatural in the story.

The Succubus books are near constant sex as the characters rut and shag nearly continuously. Gamer’s Harem spends more time on characters. But in each, and the shorter works, there is a sense of messy sensuality, sexual fluids and sweat mix, coat people, condoms are the exception and hunger is real. It is a hazy animalistic lust characters get lost in. Sexual consent is replaced by a very casual attitude that makes my free use kink very happy.

All in all I recommend the manga works of Sasamori Tomoe but if a lack of strong plot or characters is a deal breaker you may stay away. Gamer’s Harem may scratch your itch if you are at least okay with a bit more character and still little plot. If you like curvy, sexually needy, dripping women done in beautiful art this may well work for you.

Leto Armitage was born in America under a set of circumstances that prophesied that he would one day unite the lost tribes and return the Ever Summer. Somewhere around twelve, he realized he had been left unsupervised and binged too many Arthurian movies in his formative years and that he was just another kid who accidentally got an education while reading above his age level.

By the time he turned old enough to get a passport, he started finding excuses to travel determined to find out what culture, food and women there were to experience. After learning to grill in Oaxaca, do kinbaku in Japan, and being banned from several former Soviet block countries, he returned home to settle down and see what damage he could do locally.

After working jobs including being a short order cook, bodyguarding strippers and professionally doing reader’s advisory for erotica he realized the most reasonable path forward was to become a writer. Today he lives with cats, dogs, and humans who seem to like him despite actually knowing him. He prefers to sit on his back deck, listening to the birds and Barry the Bumblebear bee, while he writes cozy, uplit romance and raunchy erotica.