stressedpenguin's manga / #grounded feeling(48)

I literally do not have the tags to describe this one, it does a lot of things different from the usual. The manga follows these two lovers from when the meet in high school, through the struggles of college, and the struggles of adulthood beyond adulthood, and it's very sweet and painful. I loved how whimsical their meeting was, both walking the painted line, conjuring the danger waiting if they fell to either side. I love the lil tango(?) they do to get around it. It made me so happy!! You watch their romantic relationship build and then fall apart as harsh reality and their own insecurities catch up with them. And when they find each other again, it almost hurts as much as it heals. And then you watch them grow old and we return to that painted line on the street and we follow that to the end of the story and their lives. Rarely do you see a story that ends when the characters lives end outside of a tragedy. I'm really happy to have read this. Wow. This story gets just poetic enough that it brought out my own poetic side that hasn't seen the light of day since high school, I've gotta give this a 9/10

Country boy's bias from his favorite idol group moves in next door suddenly. It's clear the idol is burnt out and our MC wants to help. After a bit of a rocky start, they start becoming friends. Update ch 15. THAT'S THE END?? Okay. Okay ima rant for a sec cuz that's wilddddd Personally, I really like the friendship as a friendship and wouldn't have minded that it stayed that way IF the story wasn't relying heavily on classic BL tropes especially in those last few chapters. Escpailly the takeout girlfriend. The ending only felt abrupt to me because they were setting up a confession that never came. If the author never intended this to be a romance... I guess you could still argue it is, but because every romance story has a confession, not having one or at least an equivalent act becomes disqualifying... Anyway. After centuries of romance coding everything, we've all been trained or hardwired to read romance into everything. It's why characters that dont remotely interest or genuinely despise each other get shipped. People are just like this. Authors have to actively counterbalance tropes that are romantically coded to temper their readers expectations, not lean into them. At least half of us shouldn't be expecting a BL when it's a story about friendship. I prefer platonic relationships and think it's a shame that intimate male platonic relationships are so rare in stories of all mediums. I would've love this story if it was clearly about that. But it wasn't. This was just bait Ummmmm so that leaves me conflicted for the score. On the one hand I really enjoyed this cute, slice of life, friendship and healing story. But on the other hand, this wasnt just delusional yaoi fans thinking it was BL, in story elements were telling you it was BL. So like...mmmmmmm 6/10. Would've been a 7 or 8 but the ending realllly pissed me off

Aww they're so cuuuute! I appreciate that the uke's self aware about his communication problems and I'm really happy he was able to overcome them enough at the end. The seme is very sweet and patient with his mess of an uke, and I loved seeing it. There's a little bit of drama, which I live for and fantastic payoff 7/10

MC desperately wants to be a video game modeler for a big game company. It's been his dream since childhood and he works really hard in vocational school to achieve it. One of his classmates, a quite and unsociable guy, is really really good at modeling, and MC winds up developing a nasty inferiority complex. Although he acts nice to his rival, it eats away at him inside. After they graduate, and his rival lands a job at MC's dream company, our MC's jealousy reaches a head and he gives up on modeling all together. Throughout this, MC and his rival have a messy off again on again romantic relationship They're both a mess but I appreciate the realistic look at how it feels when someone is just better than you at the thing you love. Inferiority complexes are brutal. I'll be honest, I wasn't really rooting for the relationship. The rival was too oblivious and the MC's inferiority complex was too all consuming. I'm glad they worked things out but I almost would've liked this more if they didn't. Dunno. Either way, 8/10

Really liked this one although I wish they had told the two couples stories in blocks instead of jumping between them. It was a little distracting and less satisfying. Now I really wanna read the story within the story, but perhaps its better as just brief glimpses. This had a really strong bittersweet vibe despite the endings for both couples being very lighthearted. 8/10

Very cute and sweet story of a gomi yashiki being pulled out of a depressive dump and gaining the courage to change for the better with the support he needed. It takes longer than just a couple weeks to break through something like this, but the story still felt realistic, giving the character a little thing here or there to nudge them along to recovery. I wish I would be longer to delve more into the internal problems it set up for each character, but given the time constraint, I'm glad it was resolved happily. 7/10

Aww!!! They're so precious. I really REALLY appreciated the more realistic, step by step depiction of sex, the mild homophobia of the seme's friends who get over it because they care more about the friendship than being bigoted, and the extremely soft boi energy of both seme and uke. The relationship was built up slowly despite being just one volume, and the character actually communicated. Their one major drama stemmed from an understandable "one character comes to an internal conclusion to match the pace of the other and doesn't see a reason to communicate this directly with words leading to a sudden change in behavior that sets up the other for a bit of miscommunication." That's not a problem because the characters reach a tipping point and c o m m u n I c a t e I really liked this one. The main couple was lovable. The seme's friends were lovable. The uke was loveable and also had friends of their own, just less because they're a less social person. The conflict was the realistic progression of a romance. My soul is cleansed and my skin is clear. Also shout out to the seme's friend specifically for meeting glasses guy in the middle actually considering an environment he'd be comfortable in. I love them. 8/10

Wow. That made my heart ache in a way I wasn't prepared for. The manga is generally about the lives and struggles of various women. The stories are tied together by the women's connection to Yukko (Yukiko?), our focus character, one way or another. And it's just raw. Like it's just so...human. and so its messy and raw and painful at times but highly cathartic. Warning for chapter two (?). It's definitely a story of its time. One of the male characters is sexually assaulted by a female student, and the story doesnt even recognize that its sexual assault. It was pretty rough to get through. Though the manga isnt ABOUT misogyny or the patriarchy or living as a women in a man's world, those things have a tangible impact on these women's lives. This story is about showing you the women as people, and the problems a misogynist society are just there because they're there. I'm struggling to articulate my thoughts, but hopefully I got it out clear enough that you'll understand. 8/10