I Thot You Was a Toad's manga / #tragic backstory(98)

A violent attack blinds cellist, Yuki, and leads to a reunion with his childhood love, Takuma, as the helper hired to assist him with his work, while he prepares for an operation to have his eyesight restored. Takuma does not reveal his identity to Yuki at first, but as their love re-kindles in spite of his secret, it proves that love is not blind, but all-seeing. A sweet and comforting drama with a feel-good ending.

Sumikaya Kei is a former AV actor and crew member who has cut all ties to the past and works the box office at the local cinema theatre complex. This is where he attracts the attention of Okazaki, a young man of apparently good standing, who thinks he's beautiful. Sumikaya agrees to be sex friends, but Okazaki wants more. This comes to a head when Sumikaya's ex-boyfriend, the treacherous AV Director who used to secretly film their lovemaking and sell the tapes, reappears, followed by an even more sinister figure who requires inordinate courage to confront, setting up the story for an interesting suspense thriller.

Connor and Matthew were inseparable throughout a childhood which was horrifying for Matthew, until one day he discovered sex and Connor discovered he was gay, for Matthew. This resulted in a hellish school life for the boy, after which he picked himself up, reinvented himself as a supermodel, and wound up at the university of his dreams where, by chance, he reunited with Matthew, a changed young man who has no recollection of Connor or what he put him through. The art is a mix. There are beautiful moments; wild colours; strange, almost Byzantine, stylizations and stiffness; and an avoidance of scenery, buildings and fill for negative space; and a lack of facial micro-expressions. But it's getting better. Wait and see ...

A suspicious person, dressed in a "Gaugau" monster hood which obscures his face, shows up at the back entrance of a restaurant and tells the staff and manager a fishy sounding story to keep them from summoning the police. Fortunately, he reminds the manager of somebody from a tragic incident in his past and is treated with kindness and courtesy. Little by little, the sad story is revealed and the Gaugau monster slowly recovers his courage. A gentle story with just enough bittersweetness to keep it from dissolving into complete WAFFy fluffdoodles.

This starts off as a comedy about a boy with incredible misfortune who gets conned into joining his school's gardening club so the sempai who run it can scam the school for money. Then the story gets dark and serious with tragedy and treachery in the past.

Mystery, intrigue and family drama surround Touru, when he inherits the family fortune out from under the noses of greedy relatives, one of whom he must choose as a guardian, as his grandfather and benefactor wills, in order to create a family for himself. While confiding his plight to Tsukitani, his caustic prep school teacher, Touru discovers he has one last relative upon whom he can depend, but Tsukitani can't stand the smell of the Agake house and business on him, not even on his clothing, so family entails a makeover on fundamental levels.

Hans Christian Anderson's allegory about female vanity "The Red Shoes" and the Archers' 1948 cinematic adaptation form the backdrop to Ogawa Chise's romp through the cut-throat business of haute couture in which pairs of bespoke stiletto heels become totems for sexual power and Yuriy Abalkin, the muse, high priestess and prostitute for Alex, whose designs and creations are sought by Yuriy's uncle. Client after client uses Yuriy until he starts to disintegrate into madness and makes a desperate ploy to win the heart of his beloved Alex. This story is a hardcore grand opera of soap and typical of Ogawa Chise, luxurious in bathos and hysterical melodrama. This bitter cup of cynicism is definitely mixed with a good dose of wry.

After a tragic life, rewarded by a singular serendipitous experience of the Sublime in External Nature involving an unspoiled South Sea paradise and a gorgeous native islander, Zomu achieves professional statues as a photographer, but his heart was so captivated by that one moment of Satori, everything else pales by comparison. The years and work grind at his soul, until at last, he finds himself divorced, half-blinded by lupus and longing to reconnect to that experience of Eden, and in particular, to the islander whose coming-of-age ceremony he witnessed. As fortune has it, the islander is Mani, a now-embittered specialist in auto-immune disorders, who has rejected his past, deserted his clan and tribe, and feels embarrassed by the ritual symbols of his connection to the islands. Zomu pushes forward with an attempt to bring Mani back to the sacred grounds from his youth, meeting opposition and resistance at every step. The result is a powerful and deeply felt story of two wounded men in their middle age coming to terms with the ferocious toll of existence and struggle on the spirit and their attempt to recapture Paradise Lost. Okadaya Tetuzoh's story is mature, enriching and beautifully drawn. READ THIS!!!

It's the rich and powerful against humanity and the planet in this story about gods sent to earth to heal, inspire and bring joy to everyone else. Unfortunately, these special "Spec" are targeted for experimentation and corruption, until a very special little boy who is later named "Cheese" meets a local fast-food outlet trash-handler named Shin aind wins love and powerful enemies. Here's a trick: if you ever want to feel like a first class idiot, give a pet or someone you love a name like cheese. That way, whenever you have to call out the name in public, nobody will think you're calling after something other than food. Cute story, so far. Some sinister bits.

Another slice of life drama from the Queen of Yaoi Soap Operas, Fuwa Shinri. This time stepbrothers, Sora (5 years older) and Tatsuki, love each other in every sense of the word, but they will never say it. Noooo .... instead they have to take each other and everyone else they love on a long and torturous journey that includes Tatsuki moving out, psychotic fans (Soru is a popular mystery novelist), stabbings, aggrieved girlfriends (and rightfully so), a miscarriage, runaway avoidance crap, incensed editors (and rightfully so), a near-death accident and drama-rama-rama! It's a darned good thing Tatsuki's ex-girlfriend isn't the stabbing sort, because in her case, he deserves it. Instead, he gets stabbed for something else. It's also a good thing that the relative who Tatsuki hates so much is so plain-spoken, or these two jackasses would take their closeted gay secrets to an early grave. In Sora's case, he nearly does anyway. So, yeah, it's a ride on the tearjerk express, but Fuwa Shinri does that so well, and even when the story's just too much to qualify as realistic, it still feels like it could happen.