Legal Drug AKA Gohou Drug AKA Drug & Drop

[type_wild]

Well, when I'd already revisited Tokyo Babylon and decided to go back to xxxHolic, there was no reason NOT to take a new look on this little ditty.

... except for how it was one of those that I remembered absolutely nothing about despite having read it twice and its membership in the Unfinished Clamp Manga-club and that its publication history is possibly even more infuriating than that of X, I guess, but. Anyway.

Legal Drug is a lot more proto-xxxHolic than Tokyo Babylon ever was, to the point where it truly feels as if they were just testing the water before diving fully into it with Yuuko and Watanuki. That's possibly because it shares a lot of the LOOKS with xxxHolic, too, as well as the initial setup: High school-age boy with ability to see the supernatural works at a shop for an enigmatic person with an unidentified connection to magic who sends him out on all sorts of shenanigans that utilises his powers. On these missions, he is accompanied by a taller and far more level-headed co-worker whose face he cannot stand and so there is a lot of bitching and yelling. The major difference to xxxHolic is that the creature hanging out in the shop without ever doing anything but providing entertaining commentary looks like this:



Saiga's better than Mokona, I'll give him that.

So yeah, our hero Kazehaya ran away from home and works for his keep at the Green Drugstore of xxxHolic and Kobato fame. He can see the supernatural. His co-worker Rikuo has the magical power to, err, destroy things, which is mostly relevant for use on locks. Kazehaya and Rikuo both have a past with a mysterious young woman who is occasionally brought up, but like Tokyo Babylon and the Thing With Seishiro, these women are mentioned often enough for us not to forget them, but never elaborated upon. Our boys stock the shelves and take on extra hours involving ghosts, spirits and magical trinkets that are delegated to them by the shop's owner, Kakei, who in turns takes on missions for people we mostly never see. If you think it sounds like xxxHolic, then, well, that's because it IS like xxxHolic, except with less sinister and more gay.

This'd be the one that devoted an entire volume to the lads undercover at a boys-only boarding school, and it's not at all subtle about the setting. It's also preeeetty obvious that Kakei and Saiga aren't just really good friends. Kazehaya and Doumeki Rikuo's bromance/romance (it could be either) is a slow burn about dislike growing into unwilling affection, predictably enough. If the relationship between the boys is the main reason you're wanting to read this comic, be warned that both Tsubasa and xxxHolic do much the same thing, but do it a LOT more interesting and emotionally engaging than these two (but, I'll give, not as gay). I actually find myself wondering if Legal Drug was initially conceived as at least partially a commentary on Gravitation. Kazehaya is like a slightly less emotional Shuichi Shindou, and Kakei's a lot like Tohma minus the psycho guilt issues. Doumeki Rikuo hasn't got a whole lot on Yuki, though, but the timestamp would fit: Legal Drug was published at the same time as Gravitation, also of the airing of the Gravi anime. It could be that they just wanted to cash in on the zeitgeist, I guess, what with CCS having finished just a few years previous with a lot of gay happening on mainstream children's TV - who's to say? What we can say for certain, though, is that AFAIK, all of what Clamp has deliverd since then has been safely within hetero territory as far as canon confirmation goes. And Legal Drug gives us the only attempt Clamp has ever made at discussing the social implications of being in a gay relationship, being that this is the first series of theirs that - okay, it triiiiies to portray it as a viable choice and not ~destiny~. (even bleeding Gravitation does a better job at discussing this and given that it's not even certain they're meant to be a couple I wouldn't put much value on it yet, but hey, you tried)

To review Legal Drug is somewhat of a futile task since, as mentioned, it's unfinished. It was originally published between 2000 and 2003, and then went on an eight year hiatus due to the magazine being cancelled. It's been back as of 2011 with two further volumes, but as far as I can tell, the latest chapter was released in 2014. The most recent hiatus weirdly began just as the three big mysteries of the comic had been revealed and the climax being imminent. Why not finnish this one BEFORE doing a Cardcaptor Sakura sequel? But that's what I'm left with, and so Legal Drug in the end seems to be set up as the spiritual successor to Tokyo Babylon: Short, episodic, centred on boys bonding with other boys while dealing with the supernatural. Hell, even the twin issue is back. But it lacks the emotional core of Tokyo Babylon, the narrative symbolism, the captivating characters, the stakes. It's still just pretty boring, with the most interesting facet of it being some crossover stuff that I shan't go into because SPOILHURS and that I'm not sure I think was handled very well anyway. Go read xxxHolic instead, it's the same thing just better and it also has female characters. Or Tokyo Babylon, which is also the same thing just better in a very different way.

I'll give Legal Drug two things, though: first, there is a notably jump in quality during the timeskip, both in the artwork and not the least in the page layouts. The last part just READ a whole lot easier than the first one. That's interesting from the perspective of self-improvement, if nothing else, and lifted the quality of the comic a lot. And second: if this in fact turns out as BL in the end, then at least it's a better comic than FAKE and some of the other BS people have claimed is amazing because there's boykissing in it.


Crossover count: Suki, xxxHolic, Wish