I Thot You Was a Toad's manga / #series of oneshots(10)

Series of one-shots involving salarymen.

A series of sweet oneshots with perfectly realized characters, each dealing with the discovery and confession of feelings. The settings range from schools to clubs to cafés, and competitiveness is a frequent theme. The art is simple, but clear. This is definitely a series worth reading again.

Stories of hook-ups which lead to something deeper. Some are quite odd, like the last one where the uke seems to suffer from a sort of asperger's syndrome.

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.

A series of oneshots about men coming to terms with the fact that they love other men ... so standard yaoi plots, but with lots of sexual tension and Sakurai Ryou's beautiful drawings.

A series of oneshots in which violence and control are sub-themes: (1) an abused boy finds love in the arms of a kind widower with a baby daughter; (2) a middle manager who cannot smile falls for a new office worker who can't stop smiling; (3) a pair of salarymen negotiate their way through a master/pet relationship; (4) a pair of schoolboys with deceptive appearances negotiate their way through a master/slave relationship.

A series of short stories based around the theme of various disparities in physical stature, income, prestige, age, experience, strength and ability, all of which provoke insecurity and must be overcome. There is a lot of physical aggression, abuse, defense and fighting, not with the shock that horror stories convey, but as an existential reality common to Bohra's characters. It seems as though the stories are meant to be comic, but because the problems are often realistic and pitiable (not laughable), it comes across more manic and zany, than hilarious. Commitment is demonstrated by the resolve and endeavour to overcome differences and to live autonomously within the partnerships — so that may be inspirational. And, typical of Bohra, there's lots of great sex! :-)

A series of lightweight, interrelated yaoi oneshots in which the whole world appears to be gay. Some slapstick comedy and pratfalls, nothing meant to be taken seriously.