I Thot You Was a Toad's manga / #school life(125)

Homophobia and bullying set the backdrop for a story about the confusion and psychological turmoil of two high school boys learning to connect, one as a regretful former instigator of bullying, the other as a victim of homophobia. Strong characterizations, beautiful art, and an emotional story

A series of stories involving different obsessions and kinks: a fetish for hair,selfish demands over a lover's time, a photography fetish, the fear of being revealed as a homosexual, and emerging from a horrifying past through prison and cheating the yakuza.

Warm, wonderful and well-told story about two school boys sorting out their feelings for each other and learning to be honest.

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.

This is the third Nagisa Furuya shounen ai I've read this evening, and although they are all very calming and natural, they are also all very much alike. The base line is friendship and personal affinity. One discovers they feel more than friendship, and they reveal themselves either accidentally or on purpose, but the other needs a bit of time to catch up. There is variety in the details, but the plot, conflict and resolution are all pretty much the same. Good stories, but rapidly becoming predictable stories.