Manga 12554 Doushitemo Furetakunai

Doushitemo Furetakunai --I absolutely don't want to touch you-- tells the story about Shima and Togawa, your average company workers. Shima is the new guy, he has a shy and blunt personality; he doesn’t talk unless it’s necessary and when he does he is very incisive. Togawa finds these traits really interesting and, after a really bad first impression, he can’t help but want to tease Shima every time he sees his inexpressive face. This situation could turn out to be a normal boss/employee relationship, or even a good friendship, but, what happens when Togawa accidentally discovers the other side of Shima and becomes even ... more curious about him?

Yoneda Kou is another mangaka that, working with a common plot, can achieve an amazing result that stands out from your usual BL. The greatness of this manga is on the details and the way the story is presented; normal, realistic and focusing in the characters’ feelings. We are allowed to see some pretty painful struggles, bad decisions based on a confused judgment and love as it is most of the times; really complicated and scary.

This story is deep and with a perfect amount of drama that doesn’t go to the point of becoming unnatural. It centers on a major fact of life: in a good or bad way, the sad parts of a person’s past affect their personalities and choices forever. Togawa and Shima represent different ways of dealing with those painful memories; they are polar opposites that wouldn’t have been more than friends if it wasn’t exactly for their difficult pasts.

The flow or direction feels kind of melancholic in a really beautiful way. It’s like an extract of real life moments where every detail, from the dialogue to the illumination, becomes an important part of a whole; each moment is dyed with a particular emotion, along with the characters’ thoughts, and nothing feels off or out of normal. Thanks to that we are able to sympathize with them and to actually go along with the mood in every moment. Certainly, there must be some sort of magic here that brings forth a painfully beautiful story, and even the sex scenes add to that, being so simple and yet so sensual and full of meaning.

The art is beautiful, simple and smooth, soft at some parts darker at others. It’s a nice style that feels good from the very beginning, and later you become aware of the tidiness and the small changes that come along with the mood. Maybe all the faces look similar but their expressions are nicely defined and every character is well designed. Definitely a unique art style that has become one of my favorites already.

The characters are portrayed in such a natural way, like real men with their particular traits; really different from your usual role's presentation. Shima might seem girly at first since he has a shy personality and it's often called cute, far from reality, he has a really sharp tongue, he is really bold most of the times and knows how to take care of himself. What might be out of place here and brings a bit of stereotype is how easily the relationship began, like a straight guy wouldn’t have a problem getting involved with another just for the sake of desire, makes me wonder how open minded had Togawa been raised.

Doushitemo Furetakunai is one of those gems of boys love that are really worth reading several times, you can always enjoy it in different ways. Surely, this is a story a lot of people can identify with, the main trouble for this couple might seem the straight/gay issue but it actually isn’t. Fear of falling too hard and not being able to stand the loss later, that’s it. In the end, the realistic touch of it calls to a deeper reflection; how much risk can we take in order to be happy?

---Queen2408 for the Anti Girly Uke Yaoi Club. You are invited to join and participate in the discussion.

The idea and base of this story was ok. I didn't think that Yoneda (the author) went the right way. This story was supposed to focus on Shima and Togawa, and she sort of left them behind when things just got started. At first it was all about sex, and when the love finally started blossoming, the attention went over to a completely different character ??? Why ?????? Whyyyy

Yoneda would have to add more to the characters in order to make them memorial. The only character I found interesting was Shima, but he still wasn't very out of the ordinary (in comparison to general manga ... characters). The characters just kept on showing the same reactions. At some point they would open up a little more and show a tiny bit of a "new" side of themselves, but other than that.. They never opened up as much as well written characters would.

The only things I liked about this manga was the incredible dialogue, the emotional scenes, sex scenes and the fact that nO ONE SAID "BUT WE'RE BOTH MEN". That last thing is so so important holy shit. This universe is already halfway set in the "homosexual side of the world", so homosexuality isn't seen as a sin and is accepted. Well, it definitely isn't considered normal there, but it's the same as the homosexual side in the real world: accepted. Instead of discussing the most cliché thing in yaoi and shounen ai ("but we're both men") they're are bringing up real issues with homosexuality. This following example is kind of spoilery, **but they would talk about stuff like family and having kids**. Bonus points to Doushitemo Furetakunai because of that.

Overall the manga was fine. I didn't find most of it that "new" or interesting, but this manga did manage to make me clap and cheer once in a while.

I'm not gonna say outright that I'm a big connoisseur of simple yaoi-driven stories. In fact, this is really only the third one I've read. But I'm not stupid enough not to know that this one really wasn't exceptional.

I guess it stood for its one true purpose: an angsty little story about two misunderstood bishounens who have sex frequently. But really, that's all it was about. It DID have a plot, I guess, if you could call that story "satisfying", but then again, I keep losing myself. This isn't an action-adventure. This is a yaoi.

In that case, it was pretty good. The sex ... scenes were undoubtedly hot. And....that's all I really have to say. The characters themselves at least had SOME personality, even if there wasn't too much depth to them (despite having tragic backstories).

At the end of it, it wasn't too memorable. It was saucy when there was saucy stuff going down, but overall...it was "meh".