Kuso Miso Technique

Front page of Kuso Miso Technique

Kuso Miso Technique (くそみそテクニック, Kuso Miso Tekunikku, lit. "Shit Soup Technique", Kuso Miso figuratively meaning "mess, muddle", a state where you can't tell the difference between brown miso paste and feces) is a one-shot bara manga by Junichi Yamakawa (山川 純一, Yamakawa Jun'ichi) first published in a manga supplement of the gay magazine Barazoku in 1987. The short manga is a famous meme on the internet (Japanese internet forums especially), largely considered the representative work of Yamakawa and responsible for the revived popularity in his works.^[1]

Plot

Masaki Michishita, a "typical guy" enrolled in preparatory school, is running to the park washroom when he spots a man wearing a jumpsuit sitting on a nearby bench. The man, Takakazu Abe, then unzips his jumpsuit and exposes his penis, asking Masaki, "Shall we do it?" (やらないか, yaranai ka). They then proceed to the washroom and have sexual intercourse.

When Abe is performing fellatio on Michishita, Michishita could not hold his bladder and accidentally urinated in Abe's mouth. Abe then suggested that Michishita should empty his bladder in Abe during anal sex, and Michishita did so. When it is Michishita's turn to be on the receiving end, Michishita let his rectum loose and defecated on Abe's penis, much to the dismay of Abe and the embarrassment of a middle-aged man walking by, who was overhearing their conversation: "But you never know, it might be fun to do it covered in shit."

Characters

Masaki Michishita (道下 正樹, Michishita Masaki)

A prep school student who had no sexual experience with men before, but fantasizes about them. He is strongly attracted to Takakazu Abe at first sight, prompting him to think "Woah! Hot guy!" (ウホッ! いい男…, Uho! Ii otoko...)

Takakazu Abe (阿部 高和, Abe Takakazu)

An auto mechanic. In the story, he sits provocatively on a park bench looking for sex. He is well experienced in homosexual sex and is well-endowed. His facial expressions as well as Michishita's are used in parody.

Impact

Takakazu Abe (left) and Masaki Michishita (right), their faces in this panel are prominently featured in parodies.

Interest in this manga outside of homoerotica circles sparked more than ten years after its first publication, as it was illegally posted on Ayashii World in 2002. There, the manga gained some interest for its surreal depiction of gay men and cheesy storyline.

In March 2003, pages of the manga were posted on Futaba Channel, triggering the so-called "Yamajun boom" of interest in Junichi Yamakawa's works.^[1] At the same time, Shift JIS art of the manga produced on 2channel also contributed to the boom. Since then, lines from the manga such as "uho! ii otoko" and "yaranai ka" became known as the "Yamajun language", which became popular internet slang. On Japanese forums and imageboards, as well as in homosexual circles, the interjection "uho!", along with other lines from his manga, is often taken in a homoerotic context for the above reason.^[1] "Yaranaika" itself was ranked the 16th in 2007's "Net Slang of the Year" in Japan.^[2] Parody art of the manga, usually achieved by photoshopping the characters' orgasmic expressions onto other images, are often seen at various imageboards. Similarly, Takakazu Abe makes several (unnamed) comic-relief cameos in the hentai manga Alignment You! You!, saying his famous line in most of them. The manga was also referenced in the 2012 anime series Joshiraku.

A theme song ("Yaranaika") has also been attributed to Takakazu Abe, using homoerotic lyrics to the melody of "Balalaika", a song by former Morning Musume singer Koharu Kusumi. Yuichiro Nagashima, the cosplay kickboxer, once entered the ring in Abe's eponymous jumpsuit with the parody song as background music.^[3] The song remains popular on video sites such as Nico Nico Douga, where it has been integrated into one of the site's most popular medleys.

In 2009, in a survey asking its respondents "which manga do you think is the most interesting?" in a pool of 6000, Kuso Miso Technique came at 11th, beating popular manga such as Gintama and Detective Conan.^[4]

References