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

Tora is an ordinary server at a Japanese bar and restaurant until his sister is fleeced by a pyramid scheme and he helps her out by accepting a job for a brothel keeper, as chauffeur and bodyguard to Shiro, a male prostitute with a taste for rough trade. Tora turns out to be surprisingly good at his job, but he's just in it for a quick buck, and certainly has no intention to feel anything for this train wreck of a client. Unfortunately, he's a soft touch for the hard cases and Shiro knows how to wind him up and tightly around his very sticky fingers. Gritty and hardcore with a noir feeling to it.

A tantrum-prone whip-cracker of a boss hides a secret discovered by one of his subordinates. He's a hermaphrodite. Other than that he is being blackmailed into sex at the office because of this secret, it has no bearing on the rest of the story.

A teacher is drawn to a quiet, over-dressed young man in his class who seems to be enduring abuse by fellow classmates. The reality is much, much worse. In fact, it's so bad, pity overwhelms any other feelings at this stage and the cross-dressing aspect feels wrong for all the wrong reasons.

A sweet little love story about a sensitive young man who has harboured a crush on his sempai from school since they were on the same baseball team together. Sempai, who has been frozen in his growth since seriously taking on the duty of raising his sister, is slowly waking up to the shift from romantic love to actual investment in the future of another person and how much it costs, which makes for a very interesting and well-structured story. No villains, here. There are small conflicts about social propriety, but the main argument which needs resolution is rooted in the differences between automatic emotional reactivity and self-realization, which makes for a splendid story about maturation and adulthood.

Wolf in sheep's clothing story about a reunion between neighbours from childhood. Not sure what the theme is meant to be: needless cruelty? Disappointments? "How DARE you pity me?!?" Seems a bit excessive.

Haruna, a art student, picks up the injured stranger, Shiki, on the street and tends to his wounds because he reminds him of a stray cat he once rescued. Shiki has been driven out of the nearest town, and his arm is covered with intricate, traditional yakuza-style tattoos. When Shiki moves to leave, Haruna holds him in an embrace to stop him from going, but they really know nothing about each other and it ends tragically.

The abilities of a handyman and junk haulage company to fix broken things is tested when a client throws away a human being. Beautiful art. Surprising twist.

A tragic backstory underlies a highschooler's methods of thanking adults for general kindness and small acts of generosity. His neighbour, a much older adult salaryman who was on the receiving end, wants to sort that, but isn't sure of his own motivations. Nor is this reader. Is he planning to exploit the teenager, or help him learn to value himself as someone of worth beyond a sex-toy? I assume the mangaka is going for a "love heals all" angle. The realistic responses from a survivor of sexual molestation are worth a mention, just not sure where they are taking this story.

What appears to be a standard half-brother x half-brother incest story acquires suspense when it looks like Masayuki, the heir to his father's company, is being deliberately targeted and sabotaged.

The sound effects of sex through a thin-walled apartment lead to an encounter between two male neighbours that changes from hostility to love, as one of them comes to grip with an unrequited crush on his friend at college.