Better Late than Never: The June 2006 Lemon Contest

[Nate Hunter]

Sorry about the delay here, but I had some errands I needed to run. Anyway, our winner, and still champion, is none other than Mr. WISEMON. Because of this story, I took a different approach to reviewing it than normal, so... here's my Review -- totaled scores at the end:

Wisemon "Gump"

I suppose this is a unique take on the typical Wisemon. Referencing beyond the song, he goes to the degree of the movie. Or perhaps he goes further by simply following the lyrics in a way... Instead of judging in my straightforward, I think I'll do a running commentary of this one instead of the section reviews before.

I like the opening. Sitting on the bench... running into Sora, and catching up a bit. The flashback method reminds me of my own Takeru's Future Life, where I interposed two lemon scenes with each other, one past and one present... but at the same time this is different, as the present is waiting for the bus, and not having sex. We see a bit of Wisemon's take on where these two are before Sora begins telling what she's heard...

The fight looks good, but it seems a bit out of contest to the series. Still, this is fine as it's only the event through one point of view. What one remembers another may forget and all that. What happens next is the start of some fun. It's all rather tasteful, not completely unlike some of my more recent writing, and it addresses a problem in Japan of children having sex younger and younger -- not unlike America or Britain, but perhaps happening more quickly there.

The lightness of detail combined with the knowledge of what's happening flows in Wisemon's style to paint a tasteful image that is more erotic than arousing, and more tasteful than pornographic. We see an image from Mimi's mind that she's honorable and controlling, we see her as intelligent in a way the show doesn't ever quite give us, intelligent of things she ought not yet to know.

Then we go back to reality. This is Mimi's image and dream of what happened, and it's what she believes happened then. Admittedly farfetched if not impossible, and they discuss it.

And here we move into the dark territory of self-identification. An author may not intend to over-identify with a main character but still do it, or they may realize they're doing it all along. Whichever is the case here, Wisemon is doing it to what can become a dangerous extent. The 23 year-old virgin may be written as Jyou, but it could as easily be me, or Wisemon.

The man who has never "met" any women could be any upstanding young man, but the first assumption given Wisemon's past work is that it's reflecting himself upon the character. Yes it's said for credibility, but when the author is known to be such a person, it weakens the story...

And now our Gump tells his own version of the story. Now one thing I enjoy when I watch Gump is that this is a plain, simple, down to earth story -- yes it may be a bit farfetched to think of it, but at no point is it laden with detail, nor are the exploits or Mr. Gump given to be fantastical, like some people who would try to have you believe they fought Nazis and the Japanese in WW2.

Will Mr. Kido match up with this? So he begins by letting us know to disregard the fantastic elements of what Mimi had told Sora. Saber Leomon died. That is true. Mimi didn't retaliate, though -- she cried. And Jyou offered consolation and companionship. Simple and down to earth, we even see that Jyou thought over the potential implications.

We see a simple story, with soft metaphors in place of explicit information, and with the same sort of down to earth storytelling that we see in Forest Gump. We see the anger that this girl is not what he thought she was, we see him confront her. We even see that she would never do this normally, and he knows it. She offered him sex, but with my honor, even I couldn't do it. I see the same code of honor in Wisemon, and this is again, a reflection of himself onto Jyou. Perhaps indeed it would have happened, but perhaps, also, Mimi was the one out of character in the offer. Whichever may be true, we have a reliable response from a Wisemon story -- masturbation > uncommitted sex.

And that, we learn, is what happened. There was no fellatio, no cunnilingus, and nothing else between them after the fight. I like how the scene plays out and how Wisemon's understanding is reflected to Jyou, even as much as it hurt my experience. And then we move on to the incident.

Mimi wanted to see Jyou, which is interesting in its own way. Given what we've seen, and that it's considered an incident, we know it can't be good for either party involved. Jyou may have lacked foresight, but everybody needs a healthy amount of paranoia, and it saves him from being used. Wisemon reflects his knowledge of pop music sales into the story, as well as his taste for lesser known punk, grunge, and others of the heavy alternative side of music. I thank you for pointing me towards a new song, Wisemon.

All in all, I enjoyed this story. It was flawed but by far the most unique of the three entries I received. Unfortunately, if the scores can't back that up, he can't be the winner, but I can't see too much trouble in that. This is a top-notch piece of work, and even imperfect, it reminds me of why my generation is both the best and the worst of generations. One 23-year old virgin to another, top-notch Ben.

Scores

Plot: 37 - 92.5%
Characterization: 35 - 87.5%
Semantics: 39 - 97.5%
Lemon: 29 - 72.5%
Overall Writing: 38 - 95%

Total Score: 89% - B+

A pretty good story, especially out of the three we got, and a worthy winner. Recommended reading if you want to see some good writing in place.