I Thot You Was a Toad's manga / #childhood friends(68)

Trolling, trolling, trolling. Whoever uploaded this manga didn't bother to finish the job but left it at a sticky cliffhanger.

Connor and Matthew were inseparable throughout a childhood which was horrifying for Matthew, until one day he discovered sex and Connor discovered he was gay, for Matthew. This resulted in a hellish school life for the boy, after which he picked himself up, reinvented himself as a supermodel, and wound up at the university of his dreams where, by chance, he reunited with Matthew, a changed young man who has no recollection of Connor or what he put him through. The art is a mix. There are beautiful moments; wild colours; strange, almost Byzantine, stylizations and stiffness; and an avoidance of scenery, buildings and fill for negative space; and a lack of facial micro-expressions. But it's getting better. Wait and see ...

Shortly before high school graduation, Hanatarou fucked himself on his childhood friend, Ikkun, disappeared for a few years, then suddenly showed up again completely transformed as a gorgeous transvestite. The gorgeousness is just skin-deep, though, since Hana-chan romps around Osaka (probably), playing at image clubs and leaving the bewildered and agitated Ikkun in the dust, until, at last, enough is enough. This has all of Akane's signature earthy goofiness without the usual side-helping of menace and sadism. Both Hanatarou and Ikkun are adorkable, and the intrusive "Master" is pitch perfect.

A suspicious person, dressed in a "Gaugau" monster hood which obscures his face, shows up at the back entrance of a restaurant and tells the staff and manager a fishy sounding story to keep them from summoning the police. Fortunately, he reminds the manager of somebody from a tragic incident in his past and is treated with kindness and courtesy. Little by little, the sad story is revealed and the Gaugau monster slowly recovers his courage. A gentle story with just enough bittersweetness to keep it from dissolving into complete WAFFy fluffdoodles.

Prequel to Hitorijime Boyfriend: Kensuke and Hasekura were childhood friends who parted on bad terms, but when they are reunited in high school, Kensuke is delighted that Hasekura bears no grudges. But then Hasekura tells him he never saw him as a friend, and that there was no reason to get together unless he could touch Kensuke in a way that makes the boy uncomfortable. Fortunately, Kensuke does have a spine and a way of taming Hasekura.

Yuki is the fulcrum between his childhood friends, Chihiro and Ryuutarou, in this love triangle soap opera by Hiro Reiichi. Yuki is also an amateur mountaineer amongst professionals in a dangerous sport, and it's on one of these expeditions that he receives and accepts a love confession, which has the expected consequence of banishing the third friend from their circle of intimacy just as tragedy strikes. But all is not fair in love and war when it comes to yaoi, so this otherwise perfectly structured yaoi romance acquires a sentimental and slightly clunky resolution. Even so, it's a lively story and one of Hiro Reiichi's better ones.

Interesting story with a lot of smart psychological tension built up between two men, sex partners in high school, who reunite after a 20-year rift.

Kai and Ren have been classmates and buddies since forever, but in their final year, Ren is in a different room and Kai, who has loved him secretly, is bereft. One day, Kai makes the classic yaoi confession-while-you-were-sleeping while Ren is not asleep, and their insouciant reactions create an emotional bomb they cannot imagine. Nagisa Furuya knows how young people think and act, and brings out the normality of falling in love, expressing it with the greatest calm and simplicity. Her drawings have the same clarity of expression. Beautiful.