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

This compilation has a lot more going on under the surface than it seems. The first story appears to be the record of a series of squabbles between the insecure uke, Kan-chan, and his overly confident lover, Osamu, but turns out to be an elody to the psychological after-effects of death, grief, loss and abandonment, with hints of suicide. I like the underlying profoundness, which makes up for a certain pedestrian quality to Meiji Kanako's art. The second story tackles the same themes, but with a man whose parents abandoned him as a child, and the measures he takes to ensure he is never alone, but never loved. These stories are very bleak and, yet, if you can move past the melancholia, so beautiful and rich.

Bittersweet stories about heartbreak and loss suffered post nubes lux, when one person within the friendship leaves the other in order to improve his life circumstances or livelihood, when the confession or command of the other becomes a sort of ironic exclamation point which makes a lie of that improvement. Excellent emotional tension, particularly in the first story.