REVIEW: The Prime Minister’s Secret Diplomacy by Youka Nitta

The Prime Minister’s Secret Diplo­macy by Youka Nitta (Yaoi), pub­lished Jan 2008 by 801​me​dia​.com. The cover is quite arrest­ing, fea­tur­ing two gor­geous young men — I had to buy it. Within those pages you have polit­i­cal sus­pense, inter­na­tional intrigue and mxm love that equates to a mem­o­rable read. For those unfa­mil­iar with Nitta’s work, she is the writer best known for her Embrac­ing Love series. Here is the very brief back blurb from her newest release:

Yoshinaga’s genius and his gift for polit­i­cal maneu­ver­ing have helped him ascend to the higher spheres of the Min­istry of For­eign affairs at an early age. As for Shi­raishi, the pres­tige of his fam­ily as well as his ded­i­ca­tion to his job has also led him to an early career in diplo­macy. Yoshi­naga is Shiraishi’s future brother-in-law as he is soon to be mar­ried to his sis­ter. When the two meet in Thai­land, a stun­ning tale of love unfolds.

This was an excel­lent read with beau­ti­ful art­work. I wanted to read more when I was fin­ished but I will have to wait. The author offers a post­script, stat­ing that she’s writ­ing more in this series (yes!). The story is told from the point of view of Tomo­hiro Shi­raishi, a young diplo­mat assigned to the embassy in Thai­land. Shi­raishi comes from a fam­ily of diplo­mats. His father was vice pres­i­dent of Japan­ese for­eign affairs but was recently pro­moted to the high­est rank­ing post as an Amer­i­can diplo­mat. Shi­raishi is used to every­body think­ing that fam­ily pres­tige and con­nec­tions will get him far at a much ear­lier age, which may be true but he is more than will­ing to put in the work in order to build a suc­cess­ful career in for­eign affairs.

Shiraishi’s sis­ter, Michiko-san is engaged to the Japan­ese min­is­ter to Thai­land, Koushi Yoshi­naga. Their engage­ment is more or less an arranged mar­riage, set for the pur­pose of polit­i­cal gain and finan­cial sta­bil­ity than for love. Yoshi­naga is the youngest min­is­ter ever for his post as prime min­is­ter and is quite hand­some. His good looks cou­pled with his polit­i­cal skills as a diplo­mat has made him quite pop­u­lar in polit­i­cal cir­cles. He is shrewd, manip­u­la­tive and cun­ning with ambi­tions to be an ambas­sador one day.

One night, while out with some friends, Shi­raishi spots Yoshi­naga flirt­ing with a man in a pub­lic bar. Shi­raishi con­fronts him and tells him that he will keep Yoshinaga’s secret only because of the ruin it will cause to him and his fam­ily. Yoshi­naga finds it quite telling that Shiraishi’s con­cern for his sis­ter runs a dis­tant sec­ond to his polit­i­cal sen­si­tiv­i­ties. From there the two men bat­tle in a game of wits. Each of the men try­ing to fer­ret out secrets from the other while keep­ing some secrets close to their vests.

Yoshi­naga is quite good as his job of diplo­macy. There’s one scene that show­cases his abil­i­ties and fur­ther sub­stan­ti­ates his posi­tion as we see him con­vince the ambas­sador of China to attend a sum­mit meet­ing despite the more recent diplo­matic con­flicts between Japan and China. The prob­lem is that China and other neigh­bor­ing coun­tries find the annual Yasunkuni shrine vis­its by Japan­ese prime min­is­ters a source of con­tention and want it to stop. It’s a shrine ded­i­cated to the spir­its of dead sol­diers where 12 of those sol­diers were con­victed of war crimes post World War II. Yoshi­naga is able to impart an inti­macy of trust that makes other diplo­mats com­fort­able enough to share their per­sonal feel­ings that might be in con­flict to the peo­ple they represent.

But Yoshinaga’s polit­i­cal prowess is tainted with gos­sip and sex­ual innu­endo. Rumor has it that he sleeps with most of the diplo­mats who visit from other coun­tries in order to gain the upper hand with inside knowl­edge, mak­ing him a pow­er­ful player in for­eign pol­icy and gets him that much closer to an ambas­sador­ship. This upsets Shi­raishi greatly because he feels that skill alone should be enough to do one’s job and do it well with­out mud­dy­ing the waters.

Despite the game the two men play — Shi­raishi falls hard for Yoshi­naga. The two men have a pas­sion­ate affair that leaves Yoshi­naga con­flicted. He is betray­ing his sis­ter yet this gar­ners him the trump card to ruin the prime min­ster. Why would Yoshi­naga risk hav­ing an affair with some­one who could ruin him polit­i­cally? Yoshi­naga does offer him an out — but Shi­raishi refuses it. He is in for the long haul despite the fact that the deeper this rela­tion­ship goes the deeper the betrayal. The story at that junc­ture is to be continued…

The art­work is fan­tas­tic. The men are beau­ti­fully drawn and you can tell that the author sweated over the details. The author also includes use­ful notes writ­ten within a few frames and at the end of the novel as well that pro­vided insight into the world her char­ac­ters inhabit. This graphic novel reads right to left and is rated for Mature adults only (18+). A few of the sex scenes I found were a bit intru­sive to the story for me (that’s how good it was). Just like any other romance, I just needed one good love scene to show the inti­macy and emo­tional bond between the two men and that would have been enough for me.

I read this graphic novel three times because I enjoyed it that much and plus, there were some details I’ve surely have missed the first time. Inter­est­ing back­ground, set­ting, char­ac­ters and dia­logue made this a won­der­ful read. I wish I could share a few frames with you but I don’t have such access. Yaoi fans really shouldn’t miss this one. My grade, A. I’ve seen other read­ers describe this as her best work yet. Do you agree or disagree?