I Thot You Was a Toad's manga / #drama(235)

Violence seems to fit into Narusaka Rin's "red strawberries and white cream" aesthetic. Her gorgeous drawing feature sharp, spiky features and smoldering facial expressions, with ample visual allusions to Yamane Ayano's yakuza thrillers. So far the plot features wildcat yakuza punk, Miharu, beholden to nobody and who will drop an opponent at the merest whiff of provocation, subjugated by Yashiki, in a no-rules, no holds barred BDSM relationship complete with humiliation kink, toys, erotic asphyxiation, drugs and spectators. Yashiki runs a private club for it and Miharu's protests are more of a turn-on for that set. There are hints that Miharu is longing for some tenderness under that BAMF strut, and there are moments when weariness seems to drip off Yashiki before he resorts to something outrageous just because he's bored, and then, WHAM! The whole plot is resolved and over. It kind of shot its wad too quickly.

Bildungsroman about a young man whose life revolves around the love hotel his late father left behind, the sense of pride he takes in its purpose and the censure he picks up from others. Throw into this mix a gay romance whose premise is based upon an impulsive lie he told to protect a younger brother whom he believed to be in peril from someone he believed to be a predator, and you have an excellent, thoroughly believable story with sympathetic characters who are doing the best with the fate they were dealt. Fantastic story! Definitely a favourite.

Volume 6: Mujihi na Otoko "Merciless Man" in Sakuragi Mei's Warui Series. Isolated at college by rumours of his invincible homosexual magnetism, Nanao Shirahane is irresistibly drawn to Kuon Aikawa, another student whose nature is to fiercely attach to a partner and who, thus, despises Nanao, even when he starts to notice that Nanao's behaviour doesn't correspond with the person he is said to be. Mix in a professor who uses Nanao's loneliness, the result of those rumours, to advance his own agenda and you have a lively, and surprisingly emotionally wrenching story by Sakuragai Mei — definitely the best of her Warui series.

Volume 12: Mujihi na Karada "Ruthless Body" in Sakuragi Mei's extensive Warui series and sequel to Mujihi na Otoko and Mujihi na Anata. Primary couple: Kuon Aikawa x Nanao Shirohane. Moving in Together.

Volume 13: Shouwaru Ookami ga Koi wo Shita Rashii from the extensive series by Sakuragi Mei. Primary couple: Akagi, former student council president x Kousaka Nao, Disciplinary Committee Head.

Volume 9: Mujihi Na Anata "Merciless Lover" in Sakuragi Mei's extensive Warui school-related yaoi series and sequel to Mujihi Na Otoko. Primary couple: Kuon Aikawa x Nanao Shirohane. Continuation.

Abandoned by his mother, Reo has recurring nightmares/repressed memories of being raped by the only person upon whom he can depend, his foster father, Shuuji, and so confides in his friend and neighbour, Kenta. But neither Kenta, nor Shuuji are who they seem to be. Takarai Saki's stories always seem to feature an off-kilter, possibly outright lunatic, character, and her sex scenes are often depraved enough to make this reader squirm with discomfort, but the long and soothing resolution to this story pulls it away from the edge of crack and back into plausibility. It can be maudlin, but there is sweetness at its core which also redeems it.

Interior design company president, Sakaki, has his lusty homosexual eyes set on the very heterosexual, but vivacious and personable, Okada — who moderates and liases on behalf of the development corporation which has awarded contracts to Sakaki's firm, but Sakaki has no faith that sexual identity boundaries can be overcome with mere infatuations. Fortunately, Okada is more willing to step into the unknown. Brilliant use of realism by Hidaka Shouko. The adults are mature with real adult problems. The businesses are believable and they actually require specialization and effort and intelligent decisions to succeed. The colleagues are not just cardboard cut-outs but people who have earned respect and trust. The things which happen to these characters are things which happen to concern real people. The issues which concern them concern real people. There's even an excellent related side story in Hatsukoi no Atosaki [http://www.mangago.me/read-manga/hatsukoi_no_atosaki/.]

A cornea transplant leads to an entirely new existential paradigm for a young man, who abandons his fiancée, and their planned-out life together, to chase the doctor who performed his surgery to Norway. The corneas belonged to the doctor's former lover, but the spookier, supernatural elements of the story are less important than the man's self-realization.