I Thot You Was a Toad's manga / #multiple couples(10)

Series of short stories: (1) Nioujima Kou is a popular television star, who harbours huge insecurities, and Kouyagi Masaru is the new director in charge of his show. Can Masaru help Kou overcome his fears? (3) Shimon, an actor, always stands in his genius father's shadow. Haru is a stray cat-type who he uses to work out his frustrations, but Shimon doesn't treat Haru well and only realizes his worth when he is gone. What will he do to get Haru back?

At the academy he now attends, Luciano is reunited with Shinobu, the tutor who once taught him at home and whom he once loved. Shinobu coldly refuses him, however, and as the rosiness fades from Luciano's memories, he realizes that what he thought was passion was, in fact, something much crueler, which fills him with shame and self-loathing. Now that Shinobu is in peril, what will Luciano do?

A series of varied yaoi oneshots about men who grapple with their real natures in the face of social approbation: (1) Tomo and Keita live separately as male friends, both with girlfriends, until a heatwave, one summer, leads to homosexual experimentation. Has this summer fling revealed their true selves, or was it just a side affair to their main relationships? (2) Even though Yoh is a responsible adult capable of making tough decisions, he has been inhibited by an unfortunate incident in his childhood where a daycare teacher insisted that it was wrong for 2 men to marry. Can he ever live as openly and courageously homosexual as Akira, the neighbour and old friend, for whom he nurtures a secret crush? (3) A flower spirit transforms into a human shape in order to express his love for the gardener who cares for his kingdom. (4) Ayasuji, a young salaryman is put out when he's ordered to spend a month hosting Ren, the wealthy heir to a family corporation who has taken a "Roman Holiday" in order to find out what it's like to live without the burden of executive level responsibilities and isolation. Ayasuji's injured feelings change as the full cost of Ren's upbringing is slowly revealed. Touko Kawaii portrays human emotions with such a keen sense of observation and awareness, her stories are powerful and sensitive. A lot of people take issue with the simple, childlike quality of the artwork, but Touko's stories more than make up for issues with the drawings. Each story, although relatively short as the oneshots they are, is as rich and developed as most manga.

An interesting and interwoven series of love stories involving homosexual couples and/or gay men with unrequited passions for other men, all connected by their proximity and living arrangements within a rural Japanese region. (1) Within minutes of Masakawa commanding his landlord, Daiki, to fetch him a "cute little maid-boy" to service him "even at night", entomophobic newcomer, Itokawa Kazuto, runs stark naked and screaming into the arms of his neighbour, Dr. Hitomi Masakawa, after a nest of caterpillars drops into his bath. Masakawa understandably takes this as a sign of inevitable fate, although it seems Kazuto has some tragic inhibiting business in his past and needs to catch up so they're both on the same page. (2) Daiki, potter and landlord, is head-over-heels for Hanaoka town chairman and Yakubanoi reconstruction section manager, Kuroi Sawato, who is also the enigmatic lead singer of an indie band with heaps of fangirls who provide lots of free field labour. In order to provide his enigmatic housebound brother, Enma, with the right home, Sawato agrees to kiss Daiki, whom he despises, once a day. (3) After ex-Yakuza boss, Youmei, saves Hizuru from having his organs sold off, Hizuru adores him. Youmei's only interest in him, however, is as a servant.

A series of short stories by Naono Bohra, one of which cannot be beat for sheer crack: Chapter Three's hilarious Love Snatcher, in which a man wishes upon the moon for a better world and is whisked off to a desert island to become the bride of the Tiger Spirit. Mpreg isn't plausible at the best of times, so might as well go Full Loon.

Series of cute short stories. (1) A young man's debt is bought out by the owner of a host club who has ulterior motives. (2) Host #2 keeps refusing Host #1 because he doesn't want to be discarded like all the girlfriends. (3) A man uses a matchmaking service, but never goes on a second date, which throws his male matchmaker into spasms of anxiety. The stories are very gentle and cute. These are the lightest, fluffiest tales.

Stories about gay pick ups and the desire for intimacy to extend beyond the physical. (1) An actor has been thrown onto the street by a former friend who wants him to start being serious about a career, only to be picked up by a restaurant owner with a spare room and a customer who thinks the actor is just his type. (2) The actor has an identical twin brother who happens to be a hairstylist and has just moved to town. (3) Two salarymen from the same company seem to be on the same wavelength until an evening of hot sex backfires. (4) The couple from the second story resolve some more issues. (5) A man who was traumatized in middle school for being gay, is so fragmented, he retreats into the persona of a child until he finds someone who returns his love.

Everybody is gay and more than a little dim in Abe Akane's cupcake yakuza universe, the boundaries of which extend between ground central for the Sakura group's extortion racket, a traditional restaurant and a takoyaki stand. But it does allow for some of the funniest lines I've read in yaoi, like the guy buried in his sempai's rump declaring that his universe has expanded. There are some unexpectedly sweet moments.

Inexperience with anal gives two couples an excuse to indulge voyeurism.