I Thot You Was a Toad's manga / #fate(4)

Kei's step-brother, Haruto, has a peculiar genetic mutation that allows him to live practically forever, but there is a special connection between the two of them, a connection which only Haruto seems to understand. Kei, fed up with Haruto's pestering, and unable to comprehend the mystery tries to sort things out by himself. His realizations come at the same time as a visit from Haruto's real father, changing the course of their lives. The ending is unnecessarily melodramatic and the mystery is a bit of a Maguffin. Really, things would've been much better if everyone had sat down for a little chat much sooner, but that would've scotched the whole plot.

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.

Radar lovers. Shibata Mitsuru once nursed a secret crush on fellow classmate, Iwaki Jouji, never believing he would attract his attention, although he, himself, has always had a sort of radar for him. Now that Iwaki has become a successful real estate developer, fate seems to play a hand when they run into each other on the viewing platform of a Ropponghi Hills tower.

Prescient dreams, destiny and literal translations of dream imagery cloud up the simple matter of a travel writer and his employee falling in love. In this case, the supernatural plot device actually interferes with the more interesting story of how people fall in love over shared inspirations, ambitions, sympathy for circumstances and life goals, and it really gets in the way when the protagonist is in denial about being gay, since it makes overly light work of the business of overcoming that degree of resistance—turns that struggle into a hashjob, actually. But it seems, from the direction of the last scenes in this chapter, like the mangaka has twigged onto that problem, and wants a better resolution. This possibility and hope hooks me. it will be interesting to see where it leads.