Stigmata - Aikon
It's a different approach from the prequel, it's not episodic and only focuses on 1 case throughout the story. There's not much fluffiness here but the relationship between the couple was strong enough prior to the romance that even though their realization, specially the seme, was abrupt, it still seemed like a smooth transition. They also do be reminding me of Yuki and his ex from sensei's other work, Yuki and Matsu, only the hairstyles are different. I like this too though I do think there are certain loopholes that were swept under the rug for this; like the fact that the uke bleeds out/retains the physical manifestation of the victims he's exposed to so long as their case is not resolved, like how would it work though? when he was a kid, he was exposed to someone being murdered (?) how did that stop? and throughout the years, it can't be that every victim he encountered had their cases solved, and if not, wouldn't he already bled out to death long before he even reached his adolescence. Also I don't get much if the touching thing is a good thing, like the manifestation stops when he's touched, it also prevents him from manifesting if he's being touched prior to his contact with the victim, so that's good right, but then, touching also halts the manifestation and gets him stuck in that state unless the case gets solved? it's kinda confusing, I just chuck it off to it being fiction, and a supernatural one at that. Overall, thoroughly enjoyed it, great action scenes and the art style never failed.
SMILE
what a nice, soothing story with conflicts about same sex relations that just slaps you in the face. I can't believe this wonderful work was only sold for 18.50, it's so good, the artystyle is unique and the writing is so smooth too. I thought this was gonna end tragic as many of this kind of plots usually do, but thankfully it didn't, and even when they did it's not romanticized, there's implication that they would still need to work for the challenges that they would face, but at least with their decision, they achieved to be a little bit happier and more free. Nice stuff, absolutely recommend this one.
Honto Yajuu