FAKE

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

A pair of manga and a one-shot anime by Sanami Matoh that takes the Ho Yay inherent in many buddy cop films and follows it to its natural conclusion.

When Randy McLean joins the NYPD'S 27th Precinct, he is paired up with the department troublemaker, Dee Laytner. On learning that Randy is half-Japanese, Dee decides that Randy should be called by his Japanese moniker, Ryo, and that is how the character is referred to for the rest of the series.

Almost immediately, Dee expresses an attraction to Ryo, which Ryo isn't sure how to respond to. After their first case, Dee steals a kiss from his surprised partner - and for the rest of the series, spends most of his time in romantic pursuit of his not-always-reluctant target. Ryo's adopted son, the delinquent Bikky, and Bikky's (girl)friend Carol alternately help and hinder their relationship, while other members of the cast, including J.J. Adams, a marksman with a crush on Dee since their Police Academy days, and Berkeley Rose, an inspector with his eye on Ryo, try to keep them apart.

Dee and Ryo initially form the typical chalk-and-cheese-double act, with the usually steady and sensible Ryo trying to keep the more impulsive and careless Dee under control (and handling the paperwork resulting from those cases where he doesn't quite manage to do so). However, as the series continues, it becomes clear that things aren't quite as clear cut as they seem; Ryo has some issues that can trigger a surprisingly violent and irrational temper, while Dee looks out for the kids at the local orphanage. Both have pasts that mysteriously tie in with the city's extremely active, but equally elusive, Mafia family.

Notable as a yaoi/shounen-ai series where there is more than romance in the plotline: Dee and Ryo's role as cops is as crucial to the plot as their relationship is.

FAKE II: The Second Season

Takes place a about a year after the events of FAKE. Things have changed for the guys. Ryo and Dee are now a steady couple and Ryo has officially adopted Bikky. Soon things change even more as Dee and Ryo along with (Formerly Those Two Guys) Drake and Ted are offered a chance to join a new task force in conjunction with the FBI. They accept and soon form a Five-Man Band, when JJ requests to join.

The series was adapted into a one episode OVA anime.

Tropes used in FAKE include:
  • Above the Influence: Dee makes it very clear that he'd love to have his way with Ryo, almost to the point of Black Comedy Rape, but the one time that Ryo offers himself up in a moment of emotional weakness, Dee hits him and tells him that only the worst kind of dickhead would take advantage of him under those circumstances.
  • Action Girl: Diana is beautiful, sexy, and a talented martial artist.
  • Aerith and Bob: Characters with names like "Randy" or "Carol" spend time with Bikky as if nothing were unusual.
  • Art Evolution: The art style and facial features of many characters changed a good deal from FAKE to FAKE Second Season as Matoh made people's faces more distinctive from one another. Ryo in particular is a prime example looking far more boyish than he previously did.
  • Battle Couple: Ryo and Dee, Ryo's reluctance to admit that they're a couple notwithstanding.
  • Beware the Nice Ones: Ryo.
  • Berserk Button: Don't threaten Ryo. Dee doesn't react well. (Making a move on him isn't advisable, either.)
  • Bi the Way: Dee, Ryo, Berkeley, and Drake all demonstrate the capacity for attraction to both men and women on some level. Dee openly identifies himself as bisexual and has no problem flirting with Diana; Ryo refers to himself as a gay man in volume 7, but a side story shows him having a brief, budding romance with a girl when he was a teenager.
  • Black Comedy Rape: During the trip to England, Dee drunkenly tries to force himself on Ryo, pulling his shirt off and pinning him to the bed while Ryo struggles to escape. This is all played for laughs, and Bikky and Carol are watching from the other room placing bets on whether or not Ryo will actually get laid.
  • Boys Love:
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall:

Dee: "I'll bang an M rating into this sorry excuse for a manga yet!"

  • Breather Episode: Expect any serious plotline to be followed up with a silly Bikky and Carol chapter.
  • Broken Pedestal: Dee's foster father, Jess, and J.J.'s former partner, Max.
  • Brother-Sister Incest: Implied with Charlotte, the girl Ryo loved as a teen, with her brother.
  • Buddy Cop Show
  • Busman's Holiday: During their vacation to England. They did try to subvert this trope but ended up caught up in the murder investigation.
  • But Not Too Foreign: Ryo, who is half Japanese and half caucasian, raised in America.
  • Character Overlap: Lai and Lass are the main characters of RA-I, by the same author.
  • Cheshire Cat Grin: Dee has a particularly scary one. Diana also has her fair share.
  • Christmas Episode
  • Cleaning Up Romantic Loose Ends: Done quite optimistically in "Like Like Love," Matoh's postscript story that sees everyone paired up in the end.
  • Click. "Hello.": Dee to Leo Grant in Act 14.
  • Clingy Jealous Girl: Clingy Jealous boy in this case - Jemmy Jay Adams aka JJ, who gender notwithstanding fits this trope better than he does its brother trope as otherwise he's... well, not exactly crazy, his Dee clinging notwithstanding.
  • Cloudcuckoolander: Ryo can... er... be not quite connected to reality all the time. The first time Carol pick-pockets him within the precinct was because he looked so out of it that she just couldn't resist.
  • Cowboy Cop: Mainly Dee, but most of the 27th Precinct have their moments, even Ryo.
  • Crazy Jealous Guy: Dee can move completely into this trope at warp-speed if he feels motivated enough. Ryo can also suffer from Green-Eyed Monster syndrome on occasion, and when he does...

Dee: And holy shit, but you can be an awfully catty bitch!

  • Da Chief: Dee and Ryo's long-suffering superior, Chief Warren Smith.
  • Did Not Do the Research: Most glaringly in Act 5 of the manga and in the anime. England has strict gun laws, to the point that it's extremely difficult to get a license for a firearm - and you'll be arrested for possession of one if you don't have said license. Customs officials would have a fit if they found one in your luggage. But it doesn't stop Dee rescuing Ryo with the help of his trusty handgun while on holiday in rural England. Of course, it's not much easier in Japan, but that never stops Americans in anime.
    • The uniforms and vehicles are sometimes wrong for the setting (e.g. LAPD uniforms on NYPD cops). The author herself has acknowledged both this and her at times questionable English skills.
  • Dogged Nice Guy: Dee, of the Type 2 "Patient Friend" variety, though he takes more of a Chivalrous Pervert approach to it.
  • Dynamic Entry: Dee gets some good ones, such as when Ryo is in danger in Act 5. In the manga he arrives on the scene fist-first, punching Leonard right in the face; the anime adaptation takes it even further by having him crash through a window on a motorcycle.
  • Everything's Worse with Bears: A teacher in a bear costume menaces Carol at a school camp as part of an intended fireside prank until Bikky intervenes with a stun gun. Somewhat unsurprisingly, it turns out to be a real bear after all. Bikky rather prudently decides to grab Carol and run for it once he figures it out, and becomes a hero to his fellow students for living to tell about it.
  • Fair Cop: Most of the on-panel members of the 27th Precinct, starting with Dee and Ryo and excepting only Chief Smith.
  • Fake-Out Make-Out: Dee and Ryo pull one to hide Carol, at Dee's enthusiastic instigation.
  • Five-Man Band: The SCIU.
    • The Hero: Ryo, he's pretty much the leader of the group. No matter what Dee thinks.
    • The Lancer: Dee, as stated above is the Cowboy Cop and Foil to Ryo.
    • The Smart Guy: Ted, he's always the one that we see on the computer bringing things up.
    • The Big Guy: Drake, despite not being that much bigger than the others. He's perhaps the most stable character besides Ted. Not exactly dumb, though he can be unobservant and dense.
    • The Chick: J.J. the most emotional character in the series.
  • Friendly Sniper: Ryo and JJ.
  • Friend to All Children: Both Ryo and Dee. Ryo is the more obvious case; Dee claims to hate kids but donates most of his money to orphans and is always there when Bikky and/or Carol needs him.
  • Gayngst: Ryo struggles to deny the fact that he's in love with Dee for six freaking volumes! It makes things even more frustrating because everyone including the entire Fourth Wall Can See It. The fact that Dee patiently waits for him to sort things out for two years even surprises Ryo.
    • In FAKE II, even after he starts dating Dee, he still worries what people like Bikky will think.
  • Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!: When Ryo offers to have sex with Dee after his traumatic encounter with his parents' murderer, Dee punches him.
  • Gratuitous English: All over the comic, especially "Go Go Bikky!" Yonkoma. Of particular note would be Carol turning down a guy with "fuck you, motherfucker!"
  • Green Eyes: Dee.
  • Has Two Mommies: Bikky has Two Daddies.
    • Although we do get instances of the following:

Diana: Are you all right, Bikky?
Bikky: Huh? How the hell did you know my name?
Diana: Your mama told me.
Bikky: My mama?! Ohhh, you mean Ryo!

  • Have I Mentioned I Am Heterosexual Today?: Ryo initially tried fending Dee off by protesting that he's straight, although privately he thinks that he may have to start admitting some things about himself. He drops the tactic pretty quickly, though it takes him six volumes to actually get around to identifying himself as gay.
  • Hero Stole My Bike: Dee steals a motorcycle to race back to the English hotel when he realizes Ryo is in danger.
  • Hey, It's That Guy!: Hey! Jim has two daddies!
  • Hopeless Suitor: JJ to Dee, Berkeley to Ryo.
  • Implausible Deniability: Ryo has a tendency to get extremely jealous whenever someone puts the moves on Dee. Even when it's JJ. He then proceeds to deny it vehemently.
    • Also, Lai and Lass maintain that they have absolutely no supernatural abilities of any sort... even after flying in front of numerous witnesses. On multiple occasions.
  • I Need to Go Iron My Dog: One kid tells Bikky "I gotta go home and feed my mongoose." Another says he has to help his sister with her homework. Given the kid's intelligence, Bikky finds the two equally implausible.
  • The Jailbait Wait: Jokingly invoked by Dee and Carol when Carol promises Dee a date in ten years.
  • Keet: JJ.
  • Kiss Kiss Slap: When Berkeley steals a kiss from Ryo, Ryo immediately punches him in the face.
  • Lady of War: Diana.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall: The manga occasionally delves into this. When Ryo won a real-life poll, the characters commented on it in the fourth volume. Another time, Dee comments, "We're gonna bang a nice little M rating into this sorry excuse for a manga yet."
  • Love Dodecahedron: Don't ask, just keep a scorecard handy.
  • Lower Deck Episode: The first 3 extras in the second season, detailing how Drake and Ted met Dee.
  • Master of the Mixed Message: Dear God, Ryo. It's pretty clear almost from the beginning that Ryo's got more then platonic feelings for his partner, but it isn't until the epilogue that Ryo tells Dee how he feels. Good thing Dee's not easily deterred.
  • Memento MacGuffin: Ryo's bed belonged to his parents before they died.
  • Moment Killer: It's a rare intimate moment between Dee and Ryo that isn't interupted just as progress appears to be going on. Bikky and JJ do it on purpose, but they're far from the only offenders. Special mention goes to the scene in Act 17 in which they are moments from a Relationship Upgrade when the phone rings - and then JJ bursts in - and then Bikky bursts in, all within less than a minute of one another.
  • Mukokuseki: People seem to instantly recognize Ryo is part Japanese by his eyes. His eyes don't look any different from the other characters; in fact, he looks more Caucasian than some of the other characters thanks to his lighter hair.
  • Murder by Mistake: What happened to Ryo's parents at the hands of Leo Grant and his cohorts.
  • My Greatest Failure: Smith shot and killed a suspect in front of the latter's wife and son. He was defending the kid, but still regrets having needed to do it.
  • New York City Cops
  • Not So Different: Dee and Berkeley, not that either of them ever admits it.
  • Not Staying for Breakfast: Ryo pulls this one on Dee after they finally have sex for the first time. Dee isn't bothered very much.
  • Odd Couple: Dee and Ryo.
  • Official Couple: Dee and Ryo.
  • Opposites Attract: Dee and Ryo again.
  • Parental Abandonment: Both Ryo and Dee have issues regarding this.
  • Pair the Spares: Berkeley and Diana hooking up was no surprise. Drake and JJ, on the other hand, came out of left field...
  • Post-Kiss Catatonia: Drake in the epilogue after JJ plants one on him. Prior to that, in an example that's not played for comedy, Ryo's left sitting on the floor in shock after the second time Dee kisses him, until an emergency snaps him out of it.
  • Precocious Crush: Bikky, with both Carol and Diana. Aww.
  • Sensitive Guy and Manly Man: Ryo and Dee, respectively.
  • Seme: Dee's a seme of the "wanko" or "devoted puppy" type.
  • Shipper on Deck: Carol and Diana for Ryo and Dee, plus Arisia Bryant in the anime.
  • "Shut Up" Kiss: JJ to Drake, in the epilogue.
  • Sick Episode: The manga has two separate sick chapters; first Ryo gets sick and is cared for by Dee, and later Dee gets sick and is cared for by Ryo.
  • Slasher Smile: Several examples from the less sane criminals.
  • Spell My Name with an "S": The official English subs of the anime romanize Carol's name as "Cal," and the owner of the hotel in the English vacation story is "Renard" in the manga but "Leonard" in the anime.
  • Stoic Spectacles: Berkeley Rose.
  • Invisible to Gaydar: The 27th precinct has an unusually high density of men who like men, but the only one with any camp tendencies at all is JJ.
  • Straight Man and Wise Guy: Ryo and Dee respectively.
  • Tagalong Kid: Bikky, and sometimes Carol.
  • Team Mom: Ryo.
  • This and That: Dee's very optimistic plans for spending Christmas with Ryo include a lot of this-and-that.
  • Those Two Guys: Drake and Ted in the first series basically served as a way to keep the plot going, plus occasional comic relief.
  • Twenty Minutes Into the Future: The Bikky/Carol sidestories feature timeskips to various points in the future, up to apprximately five years ahead of the main storyline.
  • Uke: Ryo: he's shorter and more sensitive than Dee, and less experienced in relationships, but he's also more reserved and not really any less masculine.
  • Unresolved Sexual Tension: The UST between Dee and Ryo is a central point of the series first series.
  • Uptight Loves Wild: Ryo towards Dee.
  • Very Special Episode: At one point the father of a (black) serial killing victim accuses the police of racism, prompting a subplot about prejudice.
    • Dee's backstory also goes into drugs and prostitution, with a young friend of his being hooked deliberately onto a drug so that the dealers could use him to run errands and to supply them with sexual favours.
  • Vitriolic Best Buds: Dee and Bikky are Type 2. Although they're usually at each other's throat, when the chips are down it's clear how much they care for each other.
    • Bikky and Lai count as well.
  • Well-Intentioned Replacement: Bikky saved up money to buy some expensive jewelery for Carol and even bought it, but on the way out met a kid crying because he'd just been mugged and couldn't buy something for his mother. So of course Bikky goes back into the shop, returns the gift, and gives the kid the money. Carol winds up with sunflowers Bikky cut from his foster dad's window sill (and since she was following Bikky and saw the whole thing, she's just as happy with that).
  • Where's the Kaboom?: Played with during a hostage crisis, Dee bluffs the bad guys by telling them a retractable ballpoint pen is the detonator for a bomb hidden in the character's base. When he clicks the pen, his bluff seems to have been called - but then the bomb, which Ryo had previously set for 10 pm, goes off as scheduled.
  • White Gang-Bangers: Have shown up a couple times.
  • White-Haired Pretty Boy: Leo Grant is described by his wife to be a platinum blond.
  • Will They or Won't They?: Ryo and Dee, though it's mostly a case of "will he or won't he?" with Ryo, since Dee makes his motives clear quite early on.
  • Wire Dilemma: Dee chooses correctly.
  • Yaoi Fangirl: Carol is one in the making. She's glad Bikky is straight, though.
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