The Uncommon Believable Straight to Gay Manga...

8/2/2018

Synopsis

Samejima and Sasahara are friends. They go to college together, they're in the same year, and they even work at the same place! But when Samejima confesses his feelings run deeper, their relationship explodes in passion... and irritation! Sasahara tries to ignore Samejima, and he tells him to wake up—he tries to accept him, and Samejima plays hard to get. It's enough to drive a man crazy, in more way than one!

My Interpretation of the Synopsis

When Samejima confesses his feelings for Sasahara, neither know how to proceed. Their attempts to figure out where the relationship falls ensues in hilarity. Charming & endearing, this slice-of-life comedy worms its way into your heart as the characters resolve their issues to come together.

Main Characters

Samejima and Sasahara are literally the only main characters in this story. Their antics would drown any minor characters and the story does not need more than them. There are a few characters around them, but they play out in 2 minutes. Therefore, there are only two characters listed.

Sashahara

Carefree, playful, and sometimes mischievous "Sasha" likes to tease his friend and college buddy. He stays over "Jima's" one bedroom apartment like it's nothing all the time. You would think he got sick of Jima after working with him, studying with him and attending class with him, but Sasha finds his friend he can relax with too. He's the type to like someone back if they say they like him. But his feelings are genuine. How could they not be? Same sex relationships are not all that easy.

Samejima

It's a miracle the recluse, awkward, germ-a-phobic Samejima even mentioned his attraction to Sasahara but you can't help but feel for "Jima". He's earnest, honest, and adorably shy. He'd do anything for his friend and that in my book makes him a good person.

My Review

While this isn't ANIME, I found an image/DVD homemade English translated video of this story. So it’s images of the manga, English subtitles and the Japanese audio track made in video format. Don’t know if that makes sense, but if you view the short film with no sound you’ll miss the delicate nuances that bring the story to life.

The art is not super refined but the artists expression is wonderful. Normally I love the art of anime or in this case, manga, but the story is what completes this gem.

The characters are endearing, real, insecure, flawed and beautiful. Even if you're sick to death of "coming of age" stories or "straight to gay" stories, you will not find this the regular fan-fare of either sub-genre. Samejima-Kun to Sasahara-Kun is how I imagine life of two men finding and resolving their sexual attraction to each other.

The whole story is told in short videos up to ten minutes long and there are ten videos.

Save 90 minutes to watch the clips if you want to watch/read the entire thing. Otherwise, they make great chapters for a time limited break.

While some may disagree, I found this slice-of-life story to be fairly believable for the open mind.

I Would Recommend This to Fans of:

Gay Romance

Straight to Gay Romance

Straight to Gay Coming of Age

Gay College Romance

Sexually Exploratory Romance

Where You Can Find Samejima-kun to Sasahara-kun

Below is the first installment (7 minutes) of the story in the Drama CD & Manga booklet. From there you can watch the next videos. I have links to the retailer to buy the manga in English below the YouTube video.