I Thot You Was a Toad's manga / #stepbrothers(11)

Several beautifully written stories. The last, about a young man haunted by the death of his stepbrother, but offered the possibility of moving through the grief by a lover, is my favourite. In the first, Haruki does not want a new stepmother, but he is reconciled to it by a touching admission from his stepbrother, Yuki, who crossdresses as a girl. Years later, Yuki makes his living as a female model. Haruki is attracted to him, and the situation is too complicated. The artwork is very pretty and the story is very gentle and sweet. There is too much emotional content for these stories to be considered fluff, but they are very sweet and affirming.

New to a blended family, affectionate younger stepbrother, Yuuto, falls for his sophisticated gay older stepbrother, Ryuusei, and does his best to repress his feelings for the sake of their family. The plot revolves mainly around misunderstandings and communication failure, but it's a good story and plausible given the ages of the two main characters.

Rivalry between a stepbrother, Mitsuya, and a childhood best friend, Satoru, for the affections of a rather clueless young fluff-head, Shin, rendered in Kanda Neko's appealing drawings and downy soft writing style.

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.

An older stepbrother returns home so altered in personality and appearance that his younger stepbrother, a boy he kissed a year before, doesn't even recognize him. He remains a mystery until the younger boy confronts him.

Junya is now the older stepbrother of Kyouichi, a rich young man who gave him his handkerchief and a warm drink one night, ten years prior, when Junya was crying on a park bench. Now, they are rooming together as their newlywed parents honeymoon in Europe, and the tension between them is growing with each accidental touch. A fresh and natural story with no rough edges.

It's Souya and Kazuki against the world, or at least against Kazuki's nasty, mean, horrible, no-good, prestigious and ancient family. Souya, who's one of those supermodel novelist types, is determined to look after his poor, oppressed, ordinary Joe of a part-time wine-shop waiter stepbrother, in exchange for loads of bottoms up. That's got Daddy and real brother in a tizz. All we need is Queen singing in the background, "Mammaaaaa, I just killed a man ...."

Kai has an incestuous passion for his older stepbrother, the ultimate Owarai boke, Riku, but for the sake of a convival home tries his best to keep his lust in a family friendly context. Only Kai and Riku are fooled by this double act, of course, but that turns out to be an impediment when romance encroaches from outside and Kai reacts by overstepping his very carefully laid boundaries. The ending is not a surprise, but the way in which the ending is reached is a very welcome and very sweet surprise! Story #2 deals with Chidori and Shin, Kai's younger twin stepbrother and stepsister, who are in middle school, and who attract attention from an ardent customer at their family's donut shop. The Manzai comic technique is a little overplayed at times, but funny all the same.