muse ✨'s manga / #tw domestic abuse(5)

A series of oneshots, a few interconnected - cats who turn into humans to be with the ones they love. There's one highly implied incest story halfway through, one cat that is a very young human in an ambiguous relationship with an adult - that'll probably squick some people. Overall, I found these stories hard to follow. The one I liked the very best was a delinquent who fell for a man who works in a bookstore. Somehow, that one touched me.

A waiter with a history of abusive relationships falls for the sculptor who created an art piece visible from the cafe where they met.

Companion story to the one about the two playboys who go out. This one features the tall one's ex, Yuichi. Not sure how I feel about it. I guess they like each other? It's nothing like the third in the series, which was a real love story. This felt more like tolerance.

Oof. This was interesting and I couldn't stop reading it, but this is NOT a story that's going to improve the day. It wasn't intended to, though. I had no sense that the author believed this is healthy, just interesting, which is fine by me. The plot: Teenaged Naoki becomes obsessed with the doctor who treats his asthma, drugging his alcohol to sleep with him and later chasing him to America when the doctor moves for research. Even though they're together, Naoki doesn't trust the doctor not to leave him. After an afternoon Christmas shopping with a friend's help, the doctor returns home only to be accused of cheating and pretty brutally raped. (He's shown with blood streaming down his thighs.) Even so, he forgives Naoki and stays in the relationship when they move back to Japan, though he distances himself a bit. When Naoki's father demands they break things off, the doctor agrees, which nearly kills both of them. Naoki attempts suicide in the hospital and suffers a severe asthma attack. His father relents, realizing he's made a mistake in separating them, but the damage is done. The doctor moves onto the same floor as Naoki to keep an eye on him, which only fuels Naoki's ire. Things come to a head when Michael, the friend from America, visits and Naoki resumes his accusation that the doctor was once unfaithful to him. Believing things are truly over, the doctor accepts a marriage interview, only to have Naoki show up at the hotel, finally having heard the truth about the doctor from his father. Things end on a happy note, and maybe they'll be better off when Naoki is a little older, but this was pretty much a roadmap of Things Not To Do In A Relationship. The "jazz" theme was used sparingly and maybe made more sense in the original manuscript the mangaka worked from. The concept of dreams vs. reality was used a lot more, and Buddhism played a role in many parts. There was even a nice slam against the homophobia some Christians have that made me cheer a little.

A gay man in an abusive relationship is taken in by his close friend and coworker. Kind of glosses over the domestic abuse, but it's never forgiven. It technically serves as a vehicle to get the MCs together, though I didn't feel the abuse was romanticized. However, the MC never saw anything wrong with it. He saw violence as something to endure.