Yeah, I kind of purposefully forgot to post yesterday. I needed too. I was just too spaced out. I can’t say this next manga did anything to inspire my inner writer…
Love Circumstances by Aco Oumi
This manga comprises of four stories about four different couples.
First off there’s two teenage boys who went from being best friends to lovers. While Takagari is all-in, Yamaguchi is much more self-conscious and hesitant to mess with their relationship. They go through the ups and downs of high school life, Takagari must force Yamaguchi out of his shell. (And Yamaguchi does have quite the shell.)
The next story is about two co-workers, one who came into the company through ordinary means, and the other who is part of the rich elite and landed the job through connections. Through sheer coincidence, the ordinary joe finds out that the elite dude is working as an escort to pay off a tremendous debt. Throughout the course of their conversation, the elite dude determines that all the stuff the ordinary joe knows about him must mean that the ordinary joe is in love with him. Cue sex.
The third story is about two boys who live together in a dorm room. One boy has a girlfriend, but swiftly gets dumped. The other has had a long-time crush on his friend. Of course, they get together and have sex.
The final story is about a lingere company salesman and a lingere store manager who slowly fall in love, but find that aspects of their work relationships getting in the way of the romance. Just as they fully realize their feelings and hold hands, the story ends.
Much to my rage.
Seriously, the cutest story in the book, the one that induces the most feels in me, ended before there’s any real satisfaction!! (And it’s in an unusual setting that doesn’t ignore women!)
The other three stories in the book were overly melodramatic and the line between consensual and non-consensual was often fuzzy at best. The dominant males were more reminiscent of that jerk boyfriend one usually has in high school than that special someone with whom gender wouldn’t matter.
The art wasn’t much better. The bodies were too large for the faces that accompanied them. Yaoi hands were rampant, and there was too little difference between characters.
I just can’t find anything else to talk about other than that the last story was the saving grace of the whole book. I wish it had taken up the whole of the book, but alas.
