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

Ryouichi, abandoned by his male lover, runs from debt collectors to a tea shop where he is permitted to sit and rest. Unbeknownst to him, he has wandered right into the spider's web.

A violent attack blinds cellist, Yuki, and leads to a reunion with his childhood love, Takuma, as the helper hired to assist him with his work, while he prepares for an operation to have his eyesight restored. Takuma does not reveal his identity to Yuki at first, but as their love re-kindles in spite of his secret, it proves that love is not blind, but all-seeing. A sweet and comforting drama with a feel-good ending.

Multiple stories: (1) A haunted guitar presents a dejected teenager with a mysterious, but beloved, ghost and a family riddle. (2) Phone sex and identity confusion makes for a slapstick romance. (3) The love of dogs saves an abused young man from his captor. Kano Shuiko's characters tend to have a goofball authenticity to them. They seem very real, although the situations they find themselves in do not. Interesting stories that sometimes go a little too far.

An unlikely friendship develops between a schoolboy and the class misfit, after the schoolboy glimpses him giving a blowjob to a teacher in the phys-ed supply shed.

A former athlete falls into a depression so deep, after he is cut from his team, that he is willing to have sex with anyone in order to feel something. Hints of a failed romance indicate that the real reason for his anguish has little to do with soccer.

College student, Hamura Yuzuki, a track-and-field athlete who has competed at the National Championship level during middle and senior high school, focuses strictly on pole-vault to the detriment of his team, because of a casual comment by Akishima Jin, a fellow athlete with whom he parted ways after graduation, about the sky being the means through which they are connected. He cannot forget Jin or detach from the past, and this causes problems with his girlfriend, one of which leads to a coincidental reunion with his obsession.

Senior high school teacher Kasei Shinichi has his hands full with Katou Reiji, a star basketball athlete sidelined by a knee injury who has developed a serious infatuation for this teacher. But where most yaoi stories take this as an opportunity to push toward sex, Yuki Ringo recognizes and respects the moral and legal boundaries that these situations present. There is no question, in her story, that a teacher would dismiss a confession as impossible on the basis of professional misconduct, and discourage a minor from harbouring any sentiments. Kasei is left with only fond memories and a smoking habit until Katou returns as an adult and fully credentialed teacher in Kasei's school. From there, the story really embarks on a near-Odyssean world of pain as Katou gently struggles to overcome each obstacle between him and his beloved, moving it forward from fond affection and collegial companionship. And the obstacles are doozies. For one thing, Kasei isn't gay. For another, Katou tried to numb his pain and confusion with some pretty reckless behaviour before he thought he might have an atom's chance of success. This is a rich and rewarding soap opera, well worth the effort of reading.

Sumikaya Kei is a former AV actor and crew member who has cut all ties to the past and works the box office at the local cinema theatre complex. This is where he attracts the attention of Okazaki, a young man of apparently good standing, who thinks he's beautiful. Sumikaya agrees to be sex friends, but Okazaki wants more. This comes to a head when Sumikaya's ex-boyfriend, the treacherous AV Director who used to secretly film their lovemaking and sell the tapes, reappears, followed by an even more sinister figure who requires inordinate courage to confront, setting up the story for an interesting suspense thriller.

Alternate reality in which dragons were used in a battle which seems to be styled on the Siege of Leningrad circa 1944. Like most of Inariya's work, this story is geared to meet the fetish for smartly tailored military uniforms on a burly, blond, wild-dog giant paired with a cold, cruel and dainty smaller man, along with BDSM in which the uke is Dominant. Like most of her stories, even when the relationship heats up with sex, there is always a violent and hostile undercurrent to the relationship. It's interesting, but cold.