miseryxcompany's Manga

“You’re a rabbit and I’m a cat!”
“You’re a Neko?! Doesn’t that mean I’m the Tachi?”

Kyaaaing at how sweet and tender this is.

Makoto and Kazuhiko compliment each other so well; I especially loved seeing Kazuhiko talk Makoto out of his apprehensions about Kazuhiko’s feelings for him and their relationship, and just being so shamelessly in love with him, Makoto eventually letting his walls down and allowing himself to just love Kazuhiko in return. Sharing aspirations and seeing each other in their futures.

I loved the flashback sequence in chapter two, where Makoto realizes Kazuhiko is only trying so hard in school for him, and caves to Kazuhiko’s mother’s insistence that he stops their tutoring sessions, thinking the real him does not live up to the Makoto Kazuhiko has grown fond of.

And later, when he tries to reject Kazuhiko’s confession while doing a not-so-great job of veiling his own feelings, fearing he’ll come to regret their time together. But Makoto isn’t truly considering his Kazuhiko and is ironically treating him like a child who doesn’t know what he wants.

I just loved how Kazuhiko’s assertive, head-first disposition balances out Makoto’s anxieties. You get the feeling that Makoto isn’t afraid of death in the end, and Kazuhiko is truly satisfied with the life they had together.

Very boring, manufactured drama between Haruhiko and Kenichi, the entire premise is abandoned after the first chapter and why is their Senpai acting like he doesn't know why the kid is being stalked by gang members if he was there when Haruhiko and Kenichi saved him the first time?

Turning 17 was supposed to give them some arcane power by virtue of being on the cusps of adulthood yet still technically being kids but all they do is run around getting into fights which isn't any different from whatever they were doing before.

The scent of Rose perfume are the words through which Takezou and Shinobu communicate their desire for one another. It's often said that scents carry with them memories, pleasant or sinister.

The flowery scent of the perfume- of those nights spent embracing eachother- stalk Takezou and Shinobu and remains a constant reminder of the shame of their feelings, their lies, their secrets, but also of their longing for eachothers heat.

Vestiges of Takezou's touch linger in the scent of rose perfume and Shinobu finds himself wanting to be consumed by that feeling of his brothers embrace. And so, with that scent hanging from his clothes he meets his brother in the wine cellar and it guides their bodies together.

In a way it becomes how they communicate their desire for eachother. They never use words to convey their feelings up until they are stripped bare and exposed at the end.

From the angle of 'Inhertiance' it is the shame of leading promiscuous lives behind the veneer of class and civility that entangles Shinobu and Takezou in this web of lies.

When their parents die the attendees whisper, "Naturally Shinobu will inherity the family business." Ushered into this world of buisiness and appearances, yet desiring something that cannot coexist with it.

Takezou himself did not easily slot into the role of an adult. Though they never acknowledge their physical relationship, Takezou makes an effort to force Shinobu to be more mindful of his wife- and honest attempt to push him back into the role of a faithful husband.

And through his suicide note we know Shinobu honestly wanted the same. For his wife to be enough, for the security of his lifestyle to get him by. But in the end he could not suppress his love for Takezou, his own brother, and the shame consumed him.

Kaname, too, was born into this life. Groomed into the buisinessman he became. But he sees Takezou's feelings for his father and is enamored by the taboo of their dynamic and later finds himself leading a double life similar to his father.

And you are not promised a happy ending. In fact, the manga maintains a pessimistic atmosphere. But in those final chapters, amidst the chaos is this sliver of hope for Takezou and Shinobu, regardless of if they really deserve it. And it is snatched away just as quickly.

It’s just so wish-washy and bulldozes through its plot.

I really like that Hagiwara discovers his masochism through Takagi’s obsession with him and it was an interesting twist that he wasn’t actually in love with Takagi and just liked the rough sex.

But I’m not so easily convinced of Takagi’s transformation from a hardened gangster who doesn’t know how to be tender into this love-sick simp of a Yakuza.

I don’t understand why the Goto subplot with the rival gang was necessary, especially since his death didn’t spark tension between their gangs like you might expect, considering they occupied the same territories. In fact, the gang-warring in general is secondary to Hagiwara and Takagi’s relationship.

And maybe the whole point was to get Hagiwara to realize it wasn’t just the sex he liked about Takagi, but this is not a turning point since Hagiwara’s attitude towards Takagi still doesn’t change until the end of the last chapter, as the resolution to a completely unrelated plot point.

I really liked Hagiwara’s brief relationship with Yasushi— he recognized his former, scared self within the 5th Boss and sought to corrupt him in a way similar to himself. Yasushi eventually grows into his position, opting to find a comfortable place within this new world if he cannot escape it, and is even willing to kill Takagi for Hagiwara due to his grown attachment to him

This all makes me so irrationally angry with its direction, because it’s finally acknowledged that Hagiwara enjoys the thrill of being wanted yet unattainable— which is why he still wants Takagi in spite of not loving him— and yet in the final stretch he succumbs to his apparently dormant feelings for Takagi.

And I just think it would’ve been so much more interesting for Takagi’s feelings to remain unreturned, while Hagiwara continues using Takagi and Yasushi’s feelings for him to his advantage.

I’m really fond of this which is why I hate it.

Partners follows six gay swingers, each in a committed relationship with another man, set in 1990s New York. Though they often get together for play parties, they’re dedicated to their individual partners.

It’s more realistic in its portrayal of the gay BDSM scene and there are multiple points in which the level of honesty and communication needed to maintain their relationships is displayed.

It’s a very mature work and reads as though it could go on for a number of volumes, which is disappointing since i became invested in the more pedestrian side of each of their relationships: Lewis’ body dysmorphia, Randy’s football career as a closeted gay man and his commitment and anger issues, Phil and Randy’s rocky relationship, Marlon and Dougs’ day jobs at the same office, and Marlon’s bedroom troubles mentioned by Lewis.

With that in mind, I was disappointed with how Doug’s jealousy was portrayed. I like that he and Marlon have conflicting feelings about one another being alone with the other men— it could have made for a very intimate conversation about boundaries, monogamy and their commitment to each other.

Instead, Doug feels pressured into lying about being interested in sleeping with Charlie in front of everyone and hypocritically takes his jealous rage out on Marlon for being interested in Lewis- which sucks because it was a very tender moment in which Marlon affirms Lewis's attractiveness and this just abandoned in favor of Dougs hissyfit.

In the same chapter, Phil says he’d like to try more gentle sex with Doug, and Randy snarkily apologizes for being too rough.

Regardless it’s a very hot and surprisingly tender story that I just wish was much longer.

You couldn’t even begin to make sense of this manga even if the translation wasn’t so shit.

In a way I respect the dedication to setting every twink up to be raped but it reads like the story was constructed around those noncon fantasies along the way.

Takaya’s pedophilic, incestuous mother vanishes from the story entirely after the first chapter and is never mentioned in relation to Nagisa again.

A new character is introduced entirely for the purpose of forcing himself onto Nagisa in what is essentially a repeat of the first chapter and ends in much the same way— vanished and making episodic what is an otherwise a continuous narrative.

Nagisa’s father is introduced and you might be thinking this has something to do with Takaya’s pedophile mom going missing, but actually he just wants custody of Nagisa and bribes Takaya with sex if he wants Nagisa to stay.

Takaya has this brief bout of internalized homophobia after being called a queer by Nagisa’s father— who strips down and has sex with his assistant in front of him— but gets over it after Nagisa fucks it out of him.

And the dad is actually insane by the way. He only married his ex-wife so he could have a child and doesn’t care that she killed herself or anything, and that’s not even getting into the forced antagonization of the only two women mentioned in this manga.

And I just wish there was more angsting over the fact that they’re cousins. You’re writing incest and just doing nothing with it, what’s the point?!

I’m almost mad that nothing in this manga is taken seriously because it’s just so absurd.

They’re all simultaneously attracted to the idea of each other holding Yuka and the idea of themselves— mainly Orie— as Yuka being held by one another.

Yuka cherished all three of them, supposedly, and her love for each of them complicates their feelings for each other in the midst of her death.

An interesting premise on paper, obscured by its unwillingness to let Yuka be more than a memory and limiting the boys’ memories of her to her body.

Their sexual encounters with each other are all fueled by a desire to embrace Yuka again, Orie has this prolonged interest in how Yuka had been held by the other boys, Tatsumi has photos of each of them being intimate with her, Suguru fucks Orie in his jealous rage over his relationship with her, which is accompanied by images of Yuka appearing in Orie’s place.

It actively makes Yuka’s impact on their lives seem uncompelling. We know next to nothing about her or the kind of relationship she had with each of the boys beyond that it was sexual, so we have no reason to recognize these things as borne of a deep connection to her because that’s not something we’re actually shown.

A brief conflict faced by Orie is whether or not he was really in love with Yuka or if he just liked the sex, and you might expect for the story to recount some of Orie and Yuka’s more emotionally intimate experiences, but the realization of his feelings is instead marked by his need to cum inside of her.

She is the crux of this manga and yet she dies in the first 3 chapters and is nothing but a sex symbol in the memories of who are supposed to be the lovers she left behind.

Without exploring their relationships with Yuka beyond sexuality, their behavior following her death comes off as obsessive at best. It also suffers from not exploring the boys’ feelings for each other unrelated to Yuka.

tl;dr — grief induced homoflexibility

The surprise incest reveal oh my god this is gold.