| Creator | Yayohi Monzen | ||
| Japanese Title | 鴆-ジェン- | ||
| Japanese Title (Romaji) | Zhen | ||
| Japanese Publisher | PRINTEMPS Publishing | ||
| English Publisher | Mediado |
Where to Buy/Read
Kindle
BookWalker
Manga.Club
Nook
Boys' Love Database, Manga
Zhenniao by Yayohi Monzen
In this land, there exists a bird called a Zhen. Thanks to the bird’s appetite for toxic foods, poison amassed inside the bird’s body changes its color, creating beautiful, vibrant wings. The strength of the poison is the pride of the Zhen. However, unaware of the danger, people became attracted to the beauty of these wings and owning the exquisite birds became a status symbol. Cai Hong, who is reputed to be the most beautiful Zhen, and General Fei, whose elder brother was killed by Cai Hong’s poison, find themselves intermingled in a love-hate, animalistic Yaoi fantasy!
This series has been published in Japan since 2015 which Japanese title name is “Zhen”
2 reviews for Zhenniao by Yayohi Monzen
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midgeyu –
This is definitely a bit different than your usual BL (I mean, just look at the cover) but if you’re in the mood for some mild monster-f*cking, this should hit the spot.
Since the official summary is a bit vague, I will elaborate more on the plot. The human character, Fei, was originally a zhen keeper along with his older brother. Zhen are beautiful but deadly bird-like beasts, seemingly on the same intellectual level as human (so if you’re squicked by the idea of people owning essentially other people, probably pass on this).
However, after a tragic incident, Fei quit and went into the military. Later, he returns home because his older brother was killed by his prized zhen, Cai Hong. It’s already been arranged for Cai Hong to be sold to Fei’s military boss, but Fei ends up caring for Cai Hong, his brother’s killer, while he’s in the general’s possession.
I enjoyed the uncertain tension/power dynamic between the two leads as well as the dramatic ending. The art is also beautiful–often BL cover illustrations look 100x nicer than the interior art, but in this case what you see is more or less what you get. I do wish that the story had been longer; the breakneck pace makes the beginning a bit confusing and the drama would’ve had more payoff if the story had stretched over two or three volumes. However, for what it is, the story is quite interesting, certainly one of the most memorable ones I’ve gotten from Book Walker.
If you’d like to read more, Midday Moon by the same author is a completely different story, but includes some side story chapters at the end about the characters from Zhenniao. (I read Midday Moon first, so I was confused about who they were. Now I know lol)
As a minor side note, I found it distracting that they apparently translated 哥哥 (gege, Mandarin for older brother) into just “brother” but left 弟弟 (didi, Mandarin for younger brother) as “didi.” It would’ve been less confusing to just replace each instance with the respective character’s names. On the whole though, the translation is passable.
Mistress of Yaoi –
With its fascinating fantasy creatures in the Zhen and historic fantasy elements, I found this to be an amazing read and would recommend it as a good starting point for any BL fan who wants to get into the more hardcore monster stories if you catch my drift.