The Slash Pile

Title: A Song for Elise
Author: Natalia Batista aka Nattserier
Format: Webcomic
Published/Free: Free
Length: 203 pages
Status: Complete
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Brief (not graphic) depiction of suicide, depiction of a character’s body scarred from self-harm, two brief sex scenes with full-frontal nudity.
Link: http://asongforelise.smackjeeves.com/
Summary: Andi, Marcus and Elise have been best friends since high school. But it hasn’t been an easy friendship… And it will get worse. How much change will their relationship be able to deal with, whether it’s love or death?

Review: [Rec’d on Western Yaoi forum] A Song for Elise is a completed comic by Swedish manga artist, Natalia Batista. It tells the story of three high school friends — Marcus, Andi, and Elise — who reunite after three years when Marcus graduates from art school. The boys, naturally, fell into crush-at-first-sight, but neither has been able to bring himself to confess it to the other. Elise knows, but for reasons of her own, has kept it a secret.

The art is fairly natural for a manga and is quite professional…except… It can be difficult to tell which character is which during the flashbacks. Batista admits that she sort of jumped into creating the comic without adequate prep, and that led to some inconsistencies. It doesn’t help that Andi radically changes his look over the course of the comic. On the other hand, there are basically only three characters, so it doesn’t take long to straighten everything out.

The author describes A Song for Elise as, “a yaoi manga with all the EMO that it requires.” But it never seems overwrought, even though it deals with very heavy subjects such as Elise’s severe depression and the effects of her actions on her friends. The boys’ relationship feels natural; they never fall into the usual seme/uke tropes. Even a reader who is not keen on manga would likely find this comic to be a good read.

The more sexually explicit panels are exclusive to the print book, but the story feels complete without them. There is also a very nice extra story after the epilogue — sort of a bonus scene after the credits.

NSFW towards the end.