I Thot You Was a Toad's manga / #bildungsroman(4)

Miyamoto Kamo's classic yaoi story about Ryuu, the boy with the tattoo and dark past who transfers from Osaka to Tokyo, Hitomi, the fellow schoolboy who falls for him, and Taiga, the boy who falls for Hitomi. Spanning about a decade, this beautifully illustrated and slow-moving story follows their unrequited passions, reveals Ryuu's tragic past and uncovers treachery in the present. An absolutely superb tale in every sense! Realistic and deeply satisfying to read.

Bildungsroman about a young man whose life revolves around the love hotel his late father left behind, the sense of pride he takes in its purpose and the censure he picks up from others. Throw into this mix a gay romance whose premise is based upon an impulsive lie he told to protect a younger brother whom he believed to be in peril from someone he believed to be a predator, and you have an excellent, thoroughly believable story with sympathetic characters who are doing the best with the fate they were dealt. Fantastic story! Definitely a favourite.

High school photographer, Arata snaps action pictures of (mainly) Shoutarou and his basketball club teammates and sells the pictures to young women, who confess without success to Shoutarou. The two young men come to a slow realization about mutual attraction. I usually like Hayakawa Nojiko's manga, but this time I found the pacing very choppy and disjointed. I love her watercolours, but the fractured jumpiness, and sparsity of storytelling elements and background detail pushed me out too often this time.

During the high school greeting ceremony, the quiet and timid Sasano falls head-over-heels after gorgeous and popular Koga flashes a dazzling smile at someone, but doesn't believe he is compatible as a suitor and so decides to nurse his crush in secret. This story is about what happens when Koga notices Sasano and becomes curious. It's slow-paced shounen ai, and even though I'm not crazy about high-school stories, it wins for realism, a completely credible and very gentle slice-of-life bildungsroman treatment, sweetness and a terrific (not evil!) female character to whom most young women could probably relate.