I Thot You Was a Toad's Manga

Cute and funny starter manga for Yuge Sasamaru. (1) Enthusiastic student uses the excuse of curing the condition of inverted nipples (are these a problem? Really?) as a reason for sex. Have to hand it to that seme's "leave it to me" attitude. (2) A student, saved from a mugging, falls for his hero in such a big way that the nonplussed delinquent hasn't got a chance. (3) More hero worship from a subordinate to his work supervisor. Goodnatured and fun crack.

Isshiki is a piano prodigy and Sasa, the former prodigy and his predecessor. Sasa's sense of dignity suffers when he loses his position, but it returns when Isshiki professes his love. I enjoyed the transition from professional envy and competition (or, in Sasa's case, utter capitulation and despair) to cooperation, admiration and love, but it feels difficult to connect to Sasa. Apparently there are two other volumes to go along with this scanned original, but there haven't been any signs of them.

Corollary to Kuroneko Kareshi no Itoshikata, the fourth installment to the popular werecat series by Sakyou Aya. When parental pressures complicate the love-lives of leopards, maybe it's time to let the castles and servants go. As expected with Sakyou Aya, there is lots of sex, but the focus is on the heart.

Fourth in Sakyo Aya's were-cat series.

Ryou, a friend from Ayato's childhood, collapses from fever on his doorstep one rainy night, provoking Ayato's suspicious roommates, whose sole existence functions as a Greek Chorus (or Disney-like cute animal sidekicks) to provide running commentary on Ayato's and Ryou's every move. Ryou assures everyone that he will only impose on them for a month, but after The Roommates investigate him, his obvious attraction to Ayato is revealed in an entirely different light, one dominated by ancestry, inheritances and arranged marriages. The story begins in media res, which makes for an interesting nonlinear start, but promises much more dramatic content than is delivered. In fact, the story seems to be more about the civil resolution of potential conflict and the dampening down of emotional tensions, than grand operatic gestures. Even the jealous roommate subplot, where he simmers with lust for Asato and boils with rage at Ryou, fizzles and evaporates into a whole bunch of ado about nothing. If the reader wants a calm, steady, gentle story about gay attraction, this will soothe and placate. My beef is that mangaka and author were entirely too coy about the sex scenes. Curtains did not need to be drawn shut, and a little more tension in the bedroom would've made up for the lack of fireworks elsewhere.

Easy paced love story between Ryuuta, an accountancy student, who spends his summers surfing and falling in love with Naoki, the owner of a small beachside pub where Ryuuta works. For Ryuuta, it's an unrequited love as Naoki is married, but there are personality problems between the Mister and Missus of which he is unaware until he discovers that Naoki has been abandoned. Now Ryuuta faces the difficult task of wooing a much older man with a painful past and a character that subconsciously armours himself against rejection. This is a lot to ask for a young man with relatively little life experience or wisdom. Instead, he must call upon a leap of faith. Unohana has crafted an interesting and insightful story with believable and entertaining side characters in a resort village setting far from urban distractions.

Domestic couple story. Hajiwara, a single gay man who had been rejected as a child by his father and stepmother after the remarriage, vows he will never put another child through this experience and swears off all family men, no matter how attractive he finds them. Fortunately, he is no match for Yuuto Maki and his very cute son, Ritsu. There are moments in the story that give pause, but the overwhelming feel of the manga is cutesy wootsy.

Proper and upstanding salary man unknowingly crosses the Gay Park of Sex, and gets reeled in by a "Queen Wolf" in an unusual departure from longstanding yaoi tropes. He realizes he's In Lurv after seeing other gay men try the sauve and smooth thing with his attacker, which feels like about 12 seconds into the story, and I won't spoil the ending. Not the worst story I've read, but it doesn't really make my pulse quicken either.

About five years ago, the Young Adult fiction section at my local indie bookstore was a sea of vampires, werewolves and zombies. If a person wasn't into dark supernatural quasi-erotic fiction, they had little choice. It wasn't just Twilight either, because before that came Anne Rice's Interview with a Vampire, which re-ignited the somewhat dormant genre. It's pretty clear that people who like vampire stories have specific erotic itches to scratch, since basically, a vampire is the strongest, broodiest outsider in the psychic schoolyard, the antithesis of Clean-cut Jock and Wholesome Sweetheart, and a character trope of which this particular mangaka, Takakura Tomoko, seems to be inordinately fond. It would be interesting to document all the romance buttons a vampire story needs to push to satisfy the readers who like those sorts of stories, things like smoldering looks, uber-sexual confidence, pushy lines. This manga with Dean the Vampire (dies) hits all the right buttons and scratches all the right itches, but for those who've read enough vampire fiction or watched their fill of vampire movies, it probably will seem like a rerun. Oh well, there are always readers for whom this sort of thing doesn't get tiresome, and there are always readers who are brand new to the genre. For everyone else, I would suggest Robin McKinley's Sunshine.

Mizuki, fire-breathing perfectionist of a waiter, meets Takeru, foreign grabby-handed newcomer with no service-related experience to speak of and, yet, who was recommended as a waiter by the Big Boss in Rome. Combustion happens. Other languages are spoken. Does Takeru tame Mizuki? This is yaoi, so something's gotta give ... Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we'll ever find out what.