I Thot You Was a Toad's manga / #beautiful(18)

More classic Zaria: Kazuma belongs to a religious order that forbids all forms of sex, and Kizaki-sama, the landlord of the temple, refuses to accept this. As usual, Zaria pushes the envelope between rape and consent. Sexy and bittersweet.

Several beautifully written stories. The last, about a young man haunted by the death of his stepbrother, but offered the possibility of moving through the grief by a lover, is my favourite. In the first, Haruki does not want a new stepmother, but he is reconciled to it by a touching admission from his stepbrother, Yuki, who crossdresses as a girl. Years later, Yuki makes his living as a female model. Haruki is attracted to him, and the situation is too complicated. The artwork is very pretty and the story is very gentle and sweet. There is too much emotional content for these stories to be considered fluff, but they are very sweet and affirming.

Tomiura and Shirosaki are, both, neighbours, classmates at the same university and gay — a fact which Tomiura uncovers by pure chance when Shirosaki is abused by a former lover. Together, they discover they have more in common than a similar sexuality, and it is all these other attractions and intimacies which make Shirosaki reluctant to go further. Unfortunately, a promising beginning segued into a standard conclusion, with their reticence quickly dismissed, and the conflict added as an afterthought in Chapter 3. (2) Samiya and Toujou are dumped, have drunken rebound sex which turns out to be a little more serious for each other than they originally thought. (3) A gay boyfriend tries to come between his clueless boyfriend and the younger brother who won't allow it.

Asou Kai's pretty boys are always beautiful, and this is a cute school life story, but not a whole lot goes on. It's the usual blend of misunderstanding, insecurity, jealousy, poor communication, yadda-yadda-yadda ... and there isn't much in terms of character or plot to make it really pop. Still, the sex scenes are good and it's okay. I wonder if this was one of her earlier works, because it doesn't seem as rich as others I've read.

A series of short stories by Mio Junta: (1) A waiter with an unpleasant personality attempts to mimic the Prince character in his sister's role-playing game and snags himself an actor who comes with a surprise twist. (2) A serious swimming teacher finds himself learning some fast lessons from a grocery store clerk who knows more about kids than he does. (3) A young man experiences insecurity when he notices how attractive his lover is.

During a drunken spree, failed novelist, Yuu, meets up with the Chris and gets "married" to him, symbolized by tattooed rings. Chris has been broken down with tragedy and suffers from bipolar personality disorder, which he masks with prostitution and drug use, but Yuu is swept up in his mania and has a tragic secret of his own. Will these two be able to heal each other? Hina Garasu's artwork is beautiful, adding more power and poignancy to the ending.

It's a good thing that Sakurai Sakuya is so good at depicting sex, because those pages upon pages of smut featuring a manipulative seme, wolves around every corner and a borderline infantilized uke is terrific compensation for the wild-assed story premise and screwball comedy that makes me feel wrong for enjoying it so much. Baby talk and doe-eyed simpletons are not really my thing, but you need them for the stuff this company prez tries to pull off. My favourite moments were the ones where Aki shows he has some spine, wibble-y and tear-stained as it might be.

Two boys with wildly different personalities meet at school over a musical project, connect and go through their last year of high school, with all its incumbent transitions, together. Sweet, slow and clear.