On pp 243-244 in the bookwalker edition He masturbates while imagining giving a blowjob to a trans woman. . Then on 245 He talks about wanting to suck dick while remarking that the infant didn’t satisfy him because it was too small and also dead.
Agree on the other two points.
Emphasis on woman. Gay guys are famously not into women. Plus, he makes her sound like a futanari, not a trans woman, which is a popular straight porn category (in my limited understanding; it’s not like I checked). Other things are just 4chan banter or just opportunistic behavior.
The deciding factor for me was his behavior with I-forgot-his-name 桜月 or something. It was knee jerk rejection “oh shit this guy may be gay” instead of “oh, this guy may also be gay”.
Otherwise, I agree with your point that the book could be homophobic if he was explicitly gay, but as it is, it felt more like the book put him in a negative light for being homophobic himself 
Edit: also I’m probably partial, since I really liked the writing in that part specifically.
What is up with the typesetting? Big font again or a special font?
I would also add (well I see @Naphthalene already did too, but) that the book felt like a product of 2000s 2ch/4chan culture, so it’s jarring it reading it nowadays. All forms of sexuality were treated really crassly in the book, even the heterosexual relations between Aiko and I-forgot-his-name 顔射 guy. He is described as having watched too much porn, so he goes for a face shot and keeps changing positions, which felt unexpectedly to me personally because that’s not the mental image of have of high schooler sex (I picture kids being awkward doing it for the first time). Thinking about it now in the context of when it was published, I’m wondering if all the sex stuff in the book was some kind of commentary on internet culture warping relationships between people and sex? Probably not, but…?! This book was probably very shocking when it came out. 
I ended up quite accidentally reading two books in a row that were actually pretty similar: さよなら流星ガール and ２１グラムのタイムトラベラー. We follow a guy and a gal for several years starting when they’re children; we know from the beginning that the gal will die in the end; and the bond between them is, like, so much of a given that the guy doesn’t fully realize he feels romantic love for the gal even when others assume they’re dating or that he likes her. Also, one of them plays the clarinet. The actual stories are very different, and the relationships advance toward romance at different paces, but they certainly do resemble each other in some ways.
I bought them for different reasons, though: 流星ガール because of the title and cover, and タイムトラベラー because I liked the author’s other works that I’ve read (this is the first one that wasn’t sports, although Subaru does play sports in school). …And also the cover lol. I’m pretty sure I read the summary for the latter, but I don’t remember reading it for the former.
Before I finished タイムトラベラー, I would have said I liked さよなら流星ガール just that little bit better. タイムトラベラー is intriguing (and I suppose a bit like watching a train crash in slow motion), and it’ll pull on your heartstrings too, but 流星ガール really gets you in the feels. But now I’m not so sure. I think 流星ガール just got its claws deeper in me sooner. By the time I was about 3/4 of the way through ２１グラムのタイムトラベラー, I did not want to put it down. I nearly cried.
Apparently there was a guy who conducted a very biased and unscientific experiment in the early 1900s and concluded from the one body out of six that had lost weight after death that the soul weighs just over 21 grams. It’s not recognized, of course, but it apparently made its way into pop culture. This was the first I’d heard of it. Anyway the title makes sense now lmao
Ha, I know of this from a super short animated video: https://vimeo.com/25413547
How is that already 13 years old…
The font feels wrong but it’s acceptable on its own. However, the line spacing is way too big and it feels like my eyes have to move too much.
Finished 転生王女と天才令嬢の魔法革命 | L32!! Overall pretty good, but I’m not 100% sure I want to continue yet. I’m gonna watch some more eps of the anime, and see how I feel. There’s some stuff towards the end I didn’t fully get, cuz I just wanted to be done, so I’m hoping the anime will clear that up.
All caught up on 踊り場にスカートが鳴る | L22 now. It’s pretty good overall (tho I’m getting sick of stories involving competitions or auditions). The developing love polygon kinda reminds me of 私の百合はお仕事です! | L27 (tho without the Class S style drama and toxic characters)… It is kinda that similar “blurred intimate/romantic feelings” kinda thing tho (fitting for high school ballroom dancers). There’s even been 3 confessions so far!
スピカをつかまえて 1 | L23 was ok. Still dragging myself through わたおし 1. I kind of want to just skip to the interesting parts, assuming those are even in book 1. Leaning towards 弱キャラ友崎くん Lv.3 | L29 with audiobook as my next read. Feels kinda weird to read something so painfully straight/男性向けラブコメ, after months of reading almost only yuri 
but maybe some change will be good. Update: I tried, and やっぱり I just can’t switch gears rn… Maybe I’ll end up continuing with 転生王女 2 then
Also picked up 赤髪の白雪姫 4 | L26 to reread… so far it feels easier compared to last time, but still challenging. Considering rereading NEW GAME! | L25 since the Complete Edition vol 3 (ie magazine size + colored pages included) is out this month.
If I remember correctly, I think the anime covers the first three volumes. I didn’t look that closely to avoid spoilers, but I think that’s about right.
I was actually thinking of starting this very soon. Also… please blur spoilers next time (that last sentence in particular).
So far they’ve been releasing this pretty quickly too, which makes sense since the series is done. I’ve been buying physical copies of the premium version of ご注文はうさぎですか, and they are quite nice. Though I don’t plan on actually reading that version until the series is done publishing, which I’d guess could be mid-2026 (pure speculation). New Game is 13 volumes though, so I wonder how they’ll handle that since these premium versions bundle two volumes into one.
In the last two weeks I’ve been making slow progress on 博士の愛した数式 | L34 (a little under halfway done) since I’ve been reading a lot of manga.
I read the last two volumes of カノジョになりたい君と僕 | L23, which wasn’t particularly deep but was enjoyable enough. Still haven’t read a trans-focused series nearly as good as 放浪息子.
Continued with 箱入りドロップス | L20, now having finished volumes 2 and 3. I also started volume 4 and unless something drastically changes I’ll just read through to the end. It’s nice reading a relaxing 4-koma that is sparse on text. A few of the others I have are hurting my brain right now because they are so heavy on text, so this is a good fit for me right now. For example, I took a peek at ぼっちざろっく volume 5 to see if I wanted to get back into that, but the amount of text made me put it right back on the shelf.
I read volume 4 of どうしたら幼馴染の彼女になれますか!? | L24. The series is okay, but it’s too slow for my taste, specifically given the slow-ish publishing pace. I will continue reading it for now, but if there’s still no significant story progress in volume 5 I’ll probably drop it.
Also read volumes 2 and 3 of スキップとローファー | L24. I’m on the fence on this one. Overall I like the characters, but some of the story points aren’t really landing for me. I’ll definitely read volume 4 since I already own it, but I’ll have to decide what to do after that.
Finally, I read the first two volumes of エリオと電気人形 | L24 (third volume is releasing in a few weeks). It’s interesting enough, but in a way it’s got too much slice of life and not enough plot. Don’t get me wrong, there is plot too and it has interesting aspects, but it just goes on some tangents a bit more than I’d like.
That makes sense… I’ve only watched the first ep I think, and am a little ahead of that in the manga.
I thought that was general enough to not really be a spoiler, since I didn’t say anything about who was involved, nor when it happened. Sry
I’ve been wondering about this too, and hope they don’t do a 3 in 1… 2 is heavy enough. Anyway, I’m excited for vol 5, when I get there. It has the rare honor of being backstory I love as much as the main story
I do feel kinda odd owning 2 different editions of the same series tho… and like I don’t really see why I’d read the smaller version at this point, since like you said, the premium versions are so nice… Maybe if I wanted to read it on the train or something
I enjoyed it a lot as well, to my surprise at the time.
It is a bit odd, but GochiUsa gets an exception for being one of my favorite series. There’s probably only a few others I’d consider it for. If they ever released color versions of やがて君になる I’d rebuy that.
The premium versions are a bit bulky, so I could see myself still referencing the originals when I don’t need to see the color pages.
I’m a sucker for anything in color! And I’d sell/donate my copies of やが君 if they ever printed those! As an aside, this just reminded me of 兄友 1 | L21 … Tho idk if the physicals are also full color, or just the digitals
Hmmm, I suppose that’s a possibility… Well there’s still another 3-4 vols to go before it’s truly relevant
They converted やが君 to an infinite scroll digital format and made it full color for that. I have no idea if they ever finished that, but it’s sad for them to have made it full color anyway and not release it in the original layout.
EDIT: assuming they didn’t split the chapters different from the original, it’s not quite done yet. 【3話無料】やがて君になる【タテスク】 | 漫画なら、めちゃコミック
EDIT 2: The first three new chapters don’t even cover the first original chapter, so it’s not even close to fully adapted. I wonder if they gave up or if it’s just going slowly.
I could not get through that series (I dropped out on what seemed like book 75 of planning the play), but I might power through in color (esp that color 
). I hope they finish it.
I kind of hate plays in manga/LNs for this reason. Like you have to sit through the planning, revision, rehearsals, and then the actual thing, and it feels soooooo redundant and dragged out
I was reading through ふらいんぐうぃっち recently but I decided I wanted a bit of a challenge, so I picked up 光が死んだ夏. I just finished the fifth volume a few minutes ago and am in the process of emotionally recovering from reading through five volumes so quickly.
It was definitely the most difficult reading I’ve taken on thus far since there is a lot of Kansai-ben and slang. I think I probably understood 60% of it, so I will probably reread soon to try and grasp some of the more nuanced plot points. I’ll probably read the rest of the chapters that are published on the author’s website at work tomorrow 
Overall, I really appreciated the complex relationship between “Hikaru” and Yoshiki. It’s a really interesting addition to LGBT representation in manga that I think definitely will warrant a couple of rereads to grasp more of the nuances of the story.
I just finished 黄泉のツガイ 7巻 | L25 and my biggest criticism is that something so good should have more volumes out for me to devour. Now I got to wait 
At least so far they seem have a steady rhythm of coming out 3 times a year: January or February, May or June, September. So at least I know what to expect.
And I’m kind of undecided what to read next. Maybe a non-manga could be fun after so much manga reading. Maybe a children’s book, light novel or short stories, or a VN. Or I could finally finish the Yokai Watch 1 game.
Or poor ゆっくりおやすみ、樹の下で | L24. If only it wasn’t so long!
So, I finally finished 好き好き大好き超愛してる。 | L31
It took me way too long, considering how short it is (187 pages, with double line space and large space between characters, so I think it would fit into 150 or even less with normal typesetting).
It also felt pretty experimental, in a way.
The book is constructed as a series of short stories interspersed by a longer story about an author whose girlfriend recently passed away from cancer. The short stories are similar to, but different from, short stories the author character is publishing over the course of his side of the book. They all involve a guy in love with a girl who then dies. Now, the plot is that the author is having multiple fights with the brother (or brothers, technically, but especially one) of the deceased because the short stories he is writing include elements that are clearly inspired by the life of his girlfriend and her family. In particular, the complain is that readers online have apparently noticed the connection to real people/situations and are wondering about whether some other parts are also true and/or metaphors for things that happened in real life. The author keeps repeating that whatever he writes is fiction; sure, he used stuff that happened to add realism (those things are realistic because they literally happened), but the characters and situation are still not real. People will believe whatever they want.
The last part of the book is about him thinking about that fight some more, come to the conclusion that it was actually bad of him to use things that are so obvious. He still believes that inspiration can (and should) come from whatever (e.g. toasting bread, checking flight schedules, or the death of your girlfriend) but he feels bad for making people sad for no reason. He then reiterates what is said at the very beginning of the book that he loves everybody and means literally no harm whatsoever.
TL;DR somewhat spoiler free
It’s a story about love and loss, and the responsibilities of a writer. Based on the tone and the fact that the character is obviously talking to the reader at the end, I can’t help but wonder if something actually happened between the actual author and someone else. Considering he says that he wants to be careful about obfuscation, I assume that the actual events are nothing like those in the book, though.
In terms of writing style, it alternates between the 2nd 門 and the last part of 阿修羅ガール. I was less interested in this book, but I still gave it 3* since the author does make interesting points at the end (not that I completely agree, but it’s still interesting to think about).
Tagging @bungakushoujo just in case.
Edit: it ended up with a higher level than 阿修羅ガール, but I thought it was an easier read 
In particular, I think the level of 阿修羅ガール is too low.
So I finished the first “case” or “mystery” in Recipe1ヒントはカフェに現れる? 謎解きカフェの事件レシピゆめぐるま | L24?? and … it was about a Muslim woman who was apparently seen eating pig meat but the main character can’t believe that this nice woman would lie about being Muslim??? Also, as a clue, her frying pan spells out “もどき” because the meat she was seen eating could be imitation meat? This is the weirdest children’s book “detective case” I’ve ever read. This book has 2 cases, so let’s see how weird the next one will be 
.
I guess it tries to have all the mysteries food related, but it is still very weird, lol.
