I Thot You Was a Toad's manga / #Aniya Yuiji(3)

A series of earthy oneshots based on the hilarity and weirdness of sex, its humiliating aspects more than its transcendental romance. In this sense, the stories are truthful and realistic, but not easy going. Some of them are almost painfully embarrassing, but there is a kind of beauty in that. I have a lot more respect for Aniya Yuiji after this volume than I did before. Her artwork used to bother me, especially the sweatier, gruntier images. Now I appreciate what she's trying to say. The last story really sums it up. It's worth reading for that alone.

Not even partial retrograde amnesia can destroy the attraction between Fuji and Kotou, two lovers who met in school, but it causes some problems for Fuji, who doesn't identify with homosexuality. Since the start of their relationship happened during the time period that his brain injury wiped away, he struggles to come to terms with his love for Kotou, who prefers to let things transpire naturally with no prompting, no matter what the emotional cost to him. A sweet and sexy romance, which satisfies that small place of insecurity which might reside in the heart of anyone who reached out first in love.

Things are not what they seem on the surface of this story. Mic, named after a tag on a child's schoolbag stuffed with money, found at the scene where he tried to commit suicide, now lives with Neo and Bambi at the Buddhist temple, while he tries to recover his memories. Strange, haunted visions and nightmares come to him which appear to piece together the story of a terrible tragedy, involving a single mother and her preschool daughter. The question is whether Mic's role in the tragedy is innocent or not. Then there is Neo's role, whether he is capable of trust and love in the face of circumstantial evidence. A powerful and strange story in which the afterlife plays the most important role of all.