I Thot You Was a Toad's manga / #Nakamura Asumiko(5)

A rumour circulates around middle school that a pervert is accosting young men at a certain washroom in order to pay for oral sex, and two boys from that school happen to meet at the washroom. Talk about an outing! But what happens next, especially with a mangaka as unpredictable as Nakamura Asumiko?

Two boys with wildly different personalities meet at school over a musical project, connect and go through their last year of high school, with all its incumbent transitions, together. Sweet, slow and clear.

A series of vignettes continuing the relationship started in Doukyuusei dealing with illness in the family, graduation and moving forward in life in spite of the fear that distance and personal differences brings. Very mature and realistic story, which also happens to be quite romantic and pure.

Harasen, the lonely music teacher, whose crush on student, Sajou Rihito, in mangaka Nakamura's Doukyuusei series went nowhere (in no small part as a result of his own scruples; Harasen doesn't touch students), attracts the attention of another student, Sorano. Sorano is fascinated, but blocked by the same scruples, and tries in his clumsy and inexperienced way to make things right between Harasen and Sajou, and, when that does not work, to console and heal him as far as Harasen will let him. The question is how far is that, and are Harasen's scruples real, or a mask for cowardice?

Artbook for the Doukyuusei series by Nakamura Asumiko, including the 20th birthday celebration and marriage of Sajou and Kusakabe.