I Thot You Was a Toad's manga / #mature(23)

Mitsuya was always chasing after his brother and his brother's friend, Noboru. In time, his feelings for Noboru turned to love and he forced a kiss on him, which was violently rejected. Shocked, Mitsuya shut his heart off from the world until 10 years later, a fateful reunion provokes shattering self-realizations. This story has a maturity and realism that elevates it beyond standard yaoi. The main character is a jerk, but surprisingly sympathetic. One of my all-time favourites!

A substantial age gap between childhood friends, Yuuri and Aki, meant that Aki went to university and graduate school, leaving Yuuri behind. The story begins in media res after Yuuri applies to the same school, is accepted and is now living with Aki, working as his housekeeper. Aki relentlessly questions him about his decisions, seeking to ensure that Yuuri is pursuing his own happiness, not Aki's, and without realizing how much pain these questions cause his faithful friend. An excellent, if slow-moving, story about the transition from friendship to love and the cost of being true to one's self. Nothing terribly dramatic happens, but the story is realistic and mature.

Shinoda, broken from divorce and loneliness, stumbles into the antique shop of Askura, who treasures broken things, and Shinoda slowly comes to life under the gentle sweetness of Askura's interest and attention, even though he has never identified as being a gay man. This manga has a beautiful use of realism with hesitant and circling conversations, lots of details about how they live and the slow way in which these two people come to love each other. It's an incredibly satisfying read.

Nishina, newly divorced, accidentally bumps into the high school lover he cruelly threw away, Miyama, at the café Miyama now runs, and all his longing is rekindled. The question is whether Miyama can ever forgive him. Full of flashbacks, this story is a realistic look at the difference a decade can make. Hatsukoi is a side-story to Arashi no Ato.

Shinichi, a one-hit wonder of a former pop-idol, comes crashing against his disappointed and unfulfilled dreams, just at the point where he reunites with Chikara, an overbearing and caustic junior whose feelings he once played around with, and who he abandoned to have a go as a musician. Ai no, Uta is a sad and bitter story about artists and the free market, and about being both unsupportive and unsupportable as a person. Shinichi's ego is something to behold, but I don't necessarily agree with Chikara that he should abandon his music, either, since it's wrapped up with his soul. It doesn't seem like Shinichi's reunion with Chikara is a stroke of luck, either, although it correlates with the walloping message that the universe is sending to him about what everyone thinks about his musical skill. Chikara is extreme, and while it isn't his job to suckle Shinichi's ego, his determination to crush his dreams borders on abusive. The brother drops hints about mental-emotional illness. In any case, the story ends without resolution beyond Shinichi's epiphany of self-realization and, at the same time, self-loathing, and sometimes, that's all there is to a story. It's a good story, but there isn't an ounce of comfort or kindness in it — kind of like, both, Shinichi and Chikara. One can imagine they might learn something from that ... or not.

This isn't a one-shot. It's part of a larger work.

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!