vignette00's manga / #childhood friends(39)

Sakuragi Yaya is a safe bet if you're looking for something fun and sweet and just on the edge of angsty. And she's awfully good at avoiding most typical seme-uke stereotypes. No, she doesn't reinvent them. But she does take care to make sure that, especially in the case of the characters of Yume Musubi, Koi Musubi, everyone in her stories seem like the could almost, almost be real. Like Ao. Even though he's not quite Mainichi Seiten's Mayumi-material, he is definitely from that family tree of ukes (or... IS HE ACTUALLY A SEME. DUN DUN DUN!!). He plays up his childishness when he's with Ryoumei, but you can tell when he's with his high school friends and his twin Aka, he's a force to be reckoned with. No weepy flower-like wispy bottom is he. He's the kind that's going to fight for what he wants. Ryoumei, too, is given a fine, in-depth, and cheerful treatment. Not only does Sakuragi Yaya (correctly) identify him as a tsundere, she also very neatly and easily kills the squick factor that might come with the plot. Ryoumei has all the good sense and restraint of an adult, which makes the moments when he snaps into a heady lust-filled haze all the more personable. The way he thinks of Ao, with all its contradictions and fondness, is just realistic enough that you buy the story wholesale. Not to mention the plotting is unhurried. There's no rush to make Ao and Ryoumei get to the good stuff. Ao's wet dreams, maybe, more than make up for it anyway. The side characters are a lot of fun too. Ao and Ryoumei's mutual acquaintance, Shuuji, who runs the candy shop, is the kind of old biddy meddler that doesn't ever pass over a chance to make fun of Ryoumei (he has his own spin-off, Himegoto Asobi). Ryoumei's niece Hako-chan is refreshingly level-headed and normal, but you definitely get a sense that she knows more than she's telling. And have I mentioned how much I adore Ao's other childhood friend Shunpei? I really adore Shunpei. I want him to have his own spin-off. Come on, Sakuragi Yaya. Don't fail me now!

Bizarrely innocent and twisted/kinky at the same time. Hibiya's best friend Mirai wants desperately to reflect sincerity in all things and so begins a string of questionable relationships with men who push their feelings onto him. Hibiya tries hard to keep Mirai from getting hurt, but begins to suspect his own feelings are less than pure. I think Yoshida Yuuko thinks this story is a happy one, but I can't help feeling like she wasted the set-up, especially past chapter 3. Mirai is too pure for this world, in a literal sense -- he becomes an intense mirror of the feelings of the people around him, and it's impossible for anyone to handle that kind of unadulterated sincerity. The decisions Mirai makes are laughable, because he seems to operate in a world where no one can have bad intentions. Hibiya rightly recognizes that the only way to save Mirai from himself is to ruin the very thing that makes Mirai himself -- teach him to lie, and teach him to see that others lie, and that you can't just accept other's feelings for you unconditionally. Hibiya is at cross-purposes with himself, too, because teaching Mirai to see past veneers will allow Mirai to see that Hibiya is possessive and lustful, and this all gets twisted into a weird bundle of poor decision making on everyone's part in chapter 3 that is honestly suspenseful and exciting. But then there's this slow slide into predictability in the last chapter, where Mirai's innocence isn't treated like the bomb it's been in the earlier chapters and reverts back into bl tropes of the uneducated, bashful uke who can't understand his own desires. Interesting, but disappointing, which was my feeling about Yoshida's other works as well. In some ways, this is the lighter Toujo Asami, who trafficks very much in the same kind of relationship dynamics and intense, unbelievable main characters.