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

Yajima, depressed by the going-nowhere relationship with his much older and married male lover, is offered some sexual stress relief by a handsome stranger, Watabe, in a gay meet-up park. Yajima takes Watabe up on his offer, although he makes his preference for older men almost insultingly clear for their first encounters. He never guesses that Watabe isn't as innocent as he looks, and the offer had more to it than Yajima could imagine. The question is whether that's an insurmountable problem. Great art, handsome guys, interesting story premise and lots of fantastic sex!

A overstretched and teetering vignette which feels as though the mangaka was working through personal discomfort with certain themes, primarily age disparities between sex partners, one underaged, and straight boys experimenting with gay sex. The set-up of an averted gang-rape, however, is all out-of-proportion as a plot-device means of establishing an adolescent's attraction toward his saviour, compared to the hints of male prostitution which merit barely the bat of an eye. The former wipes out all semblance of realism, but the latter depends on it. The resolution is all mature tenderness, self-awareness and concern, quite the about-switch compared to the initial casualness of the encounter which involves infidelity from both. Is the adult self-aware, or not? Partially, I guess. Is it realistic, or not? Elements of it are, enough to provoke some thinky-thoughts—not particularly profound ones, although better than most yaoi, and certainly enough to reveal that the mangaka shows promise. The art is beautiful. I liked it and would like to see the author do more work, but with the guidance of a very good editor who understands realism and can urge her to discard the more excessive stretches.