The tagline for Gravitation reads, “Love: The one force that simply won't be denied,” a phrase that conjures up Brokeback Mountain's famous tagline, “Love is a force of nature.” But Gravitation is worlds apart from the realm of Jack and Ennis, although there are indeed parallels.

Most notably, Gravitation, written by Maki Murakami, is a manga and limited-run television series set in present-day Japan that revolves around the reluctant relationship between rising pop singer Shuichi Shindo and popular novelist Eiri Yuki.

Their relationship gets off to a rocky start because Eiri is not entirely enthusiastic at the prospect of having anyone enter into his life so intimately. Yet much like Jack to Ennis, Shuichi finds himself intensely drawn to Eiri, no matter what others around him do to stop him.

Manga are Japanese comics, but to fans of manga, calling them “comics” doesn't carry quite the same meaning. Manga often involve a “decompressing” style, or in other words, like soap operas, they tell a story over multiple issues in serial fashion. Anime, or Japanese animation, is closely related to manga, which has given anime much of its characteristic style.

Gravitation also falls within the category of shonen-ai, which literally translates to “young men's love,” and are manga or anime titles that deal with love between young men. Shonen-ai stories are officially marketed toward women, but Japan 's burgeoning, openly gay population also reads manga and shonen-ai. In addition, manga publishers are coming to realize, with the rise of the internet, that there is a market for shonen-ai overseas.

The television series Gravitation moves at a rather rapid pace, which is understandable since it only has 13 episodes to cover the 30 stories in the manga version. Even so, it is rather surprising that within the span of the first two episodes, Shuichi accepts the prospect of dating another man with glee. In the manga version, this occurs within the first four segments of Volume 1.

Subtle hints provided in the series' opening scenes suggest that Shuichi ignored romance in the past in favor of advancing his band, which is ironically named Bad Luck. Whether or not Shuichi repressed his homosexuality in the past is never explicitly addressed, but the zeal with which he pursues Eiri, combined with his best friend Hiroshi's lack of surprise about his relationship with Eiri, suggests that Shuichi knew all along that he was attracted to men.

The romance between Shuichi and Eiri forms the core of Gravitation. Although their ages, attitudes and character designs make it seem as though there is a significant age difference between them, they are only three years apart. Shuichi is quite lively and naïve, while Eiri is subdued to the point of being antisocial, due to a severe personal trauma that occurred to him in his past. The friction between them in their relationship provides the series with its tension as well as comedic moments.

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