I Thot You Was a Toad's manga / #bigotry(2)

Sequel to Takaramono wa Hako no Naka, this doujinshi explores the complications of a painful past on Tokura and Gin's sex life, and how they overcome it. Gin's ongoing consideration for his partner is lovely indeed, but I can't say that I found it hot and I'm not exactly sure what brought the temperature down from boiling to light simmer. I think that there was so much carefulness and tiptoeing around, it interfered a bit with the sheer animalistic, irrational self-surrender of romance. It's crucial for loving relationships in real life, but not so great for escapist fiction as it feels a bit sex-averse.

I wasn't able to recover from the whiplash caused by jumping from "Oh, what a great stepbrother I now have!" to "Aargh, the gay, it burns! Get it away from me!" to "Let me protect you from being at the mercy of sex friends, and I love you!" to "Let me move in with you." I just couldn't believe that Ryouhei would switch from being a bigoted little homophobic shit stirring up trouble in his family circle to this noble self-sacrificing lover-boy who wants to protect Nanao from the degradation of casual sex and the wounds of sex friends. There wasn't enough of a emotional compulsion for it, and I am a person that tends to think that hate and love are often interlinked, whereas the opposite of love is disinterest, so if there was a believable bone in that sudden transformation, I would've thrown all my support behind it. There needed to be more story between one state and another, more transition. Without it, the book felt truncated, which is such a pity! Such an absolute crying shame! Because it was a great story up until Ryouhei suddenly offered to have sex with Nanao. It was going into utterly realistic and emotionally wrenching terrain up until then. It's just too bad.