you mean that kyomine and takara's relationship is a normal friendship? really? it's obvious that they love each other more than that they can't live w/o each other.
there's no normal friends who behave like: kyomine x takara - konou x kachiwagari( i think that's his name) - and kuzumi x asou, it's obviously a shounen ai
No, it is not a shounen ai. I've read a lot of shounen ai but this is nothing like them. Yes, there are hints of it but I would not categorize this as one because people wonder if its really a shounen ai. Shounen Ai are very straight forward because there are scenes that they get together. This is like one of those manga that you are hopeful that they are together but not sure at all. That is not shounen ai when you are guessing. Yes, they are probably together but are they really? Maybe just a very close friendship, caring for each other and looking after one another. Who knows.
Did the author say that it is a shounen ai? Was this really categorize by the artist as shounen ai? or just this website categorize this as shounen ai?
well i can get your POV but it's all about guessing like you said, the mangaka gave us a very very close friendship to the point where we can no longer draw a line between a friendship and a love relationship.
and about the ending, the mangaka said that "she gave us an open ending, but the most important thing is that now they will always be together, living together in the future" so yeah.
and another thing about other shounen ai, i know what you mean i have an experience of 7 years in the yaoi-shounen ai world so i can say this:
like there's soft yaoi with light sex scenes and hard yaoi with hardcor and smut, there's also shounen ai with just hints(komatta toki, saiyuki, karneval and many others) there's also shounen ai where it just lacks the sex scenes
It was published in yaoi/shounen ai magazines, so it's not just this website that categorizes it as shounen ai. I've also read a lot of shounen ai, and it's not rare to come across ones like this where it's never clearly stated but only hinted at.
I would say for me shounen ai is really a really light version of yaoi.
Honestly i seen some shounen ai that all that happens is only one kiss
I don't get why the genre of this manga is shounen ai. I feel like this is just a slice of life manga that revolves around friendship. Shounen ai usually has some hint that the 2 characters are in love with each other. Yes, there are some hints that some characters are together but I don't feel like it is enough to be a Shounen Ai.