I Thot You Was a Toad's manga / #unrequited love(68)

Student falls in puppy love for older student who sleeps with anyone but him. Turns out that the older student uses casual sex to anaesthetize the agony of an unrequited love. This is Amagi Reno, though, so this story might dive from interesting psychological set-up into wacked-out pervy smut quite soon. We'll know for sure when the spanking paddles come out.

A sweet little love story about a sensitive young man who has harboured a crush on his sempai from school since they were on the same baseball team together. Sempai, who has been frozen in his growth since seriously taking on the duty of raising his sister, is slowly waking up to the shift from romantic love to actual investment in the future of another person and how much it costs, which makes for a very interesting and well-structured story. No villains, here. There are small conflicts about social propriety, but the main argument which needs resolution is rooted in the differences between automatic emotional reactivity and self-realization, which makes for a splendid story about maturation and adulthood.

Wolf in sheep's clothing story about a reunion between neighbours from childhood. Not sure what the theme is meant to be: needless cruelty? Disappointments? "How DARE you pity me?!?" Seems a bit excessive.

Arata, a partial clone/android hybrid sex-bot created in the form of a dead man and programmed with his memories, is given by an officer who deals with the rehabilitation of abused bots to its new owner, the dead man's former lover, Maki. Is a programmed doll capable of human feeling? Maki dismisses the android's appeals to his emotions as "imprinting", but during sex, Arata shows a sweetness that Maki's late lover, Ren, could never fake. A tragic backstory emerges involving Maki's twin brother. Will Arata's feelings leave Maki lonelier and more empty than when Ren was alive, or will he be able to dance with this new creation's feelings and develop something new? As always, an edgy, riveting story, beautifully drawn men and arousing sex scenes.

Life couldn't get worse for Yuuji, whose habit of crushing on straight men leaves him bitter and frustrated, until he's harassed by the disembodied spirit of Kousuke, a highschooler, whom he once met in real life, apparently, during a spree so drunken, he can't remember it. Kousuke's "ghost" (is it a ghost when the physical body which the spirit is tied to is still alive?) respects no boundaries, which leads to fetish scenarios like public sex, humiliation, train chikkan and rape fantasy. A surprise twist emerges in Chapter 5.

The sound effects of sex through a thin-walled apartment lead to an encounter between two male neighbours that changes from hostility to love, as one of them comes to grip with an unrequited crush on his friend at college.

A self-proclaimed "hardcore BDSM" fetishist is courted by his puppy dog neighbour, who he watched grow up and is, therefore, not attracted to at all. But after a gripping confession, he decides to give Young Sprout a chance. The BDSM is vanilla and the D/s power dynamic is upside-down.

Series of very realistic short stories on the theme of unrequited love, usually from a gay young man toward a heterosexual young man who is his friend.