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Background: As a hardcore yaoi fan (when I first picked up this work,) I never paid any interest to mangas with a main focus on the storyline rather than the sex/relationship (i.e. this manga precisely.) But as soon as I started, I was amazed with the creativity and immediately got sucked into the plot. When I finished, the only thing I could do was sit back and slowly clap while smiling, "Miyamoto Kano, you've done it again."

STORY: Nemueru Tsuki is about a young man who revisits an old, family-owned home to solve the mystery as to why the men of his family are cursed to ... die at a young age. As our hero is the next in line and nears his late twenties, he struggles with his male cousin to solve this mystery and finally put a stop to it--even if they have to fight up against the supernatural. Seems like a familiar/overused plot, right? Wrong. I have no idea how she does it, but Miyamoto Kano took an ordinary family curse and turned it into a deeper mystery that involved just the tiiiiniest bit of horror. As I mentioned in the "background," this manga focuses more on the intriguing plotline than the actual yaoi (which is 100000% fine by me, because it's a unique change, even though the sex was still freaking hot) but as a result of me fighting my biased-ness and realizing that a manga categorized as "yaoi" that did not have enough "yaoi" wouldn't exactly be everyone's "cup of tea," I'm going to give the story a 9/10. (P.S.: A bit of advice, the story is a lot more interesting if you read it at night^^)

ART: What can I say? It's Miyamoto Kano. I fcking LOVE Miyamoto Kano's art, and it's not because the boys are "super sexy" or "the perfect bishies." It's because Miyamoto Kano's art style is straight up TIMELESS. You can't tell whether she made a work in 1998 or 2012. They look exactly the same and have a kind of "relatable" feel to them (plus she's mastered the side profile and the three-quarters profile.) It's definitely not the BEST art you've ever seen, but there are definitely no complaints and it's completely enjoyable to a point where you fall in love. 9/10

CHARACTER: Akihiko is our main character. He's an average man that get's twindled up by a family curse that may or may not kill him in a couple years. His cousin, Ren, may also suffer the same fate. (A few minor characters come into play, but since I'm trying to do a spoil-free review, I'm going to disregard them in this segment.) The only complaint I have about the character development is that the main couple seemed a bit "forced" to be together. Maybe it was just me. 8/10

ENJOYMENT: Like I said, reading this manga at night is probably the best decision you can make. It's perfect--it sets an eerie scene, the tone is dark and chilly, and it stimulates the plot in your head. My point is: Maybe /I/ enjoyed this manga so much partially because I read it on cold creepy nights and could relate to the dark atmosphere.

OVERALL: To be completely honest, at one point of reading this manga, I felt like I was watching a movie. Seriously, I think Miyamoto Kano should put this on the big screen. It would be a big hit, and I would throw all of my money at her.
Regardless of whether you like yaoi or not, this manga can be appealing to anybody out there looking for a mature, haunting, and intriguing mystery.

Let me first start off by saying (1) this masterpiece can not be fully appreciated by being read only one time. (2) The content is too mature for a younger audience, and I personally believe that people like me who give this a whopping 10/10 can relate to the realistic struggles portrayed throughout the story--drugs, sex, & violence. (3) This is one of those beautiful mangas where if you've never lost anyone dear to you, you wont understand it; you wont understand the tears, the numbness, the reactions, the flashbacks, the memories, the love....none of it.
Now with that said, I will try to give ... a completely unbiased review, but once again, personal relativity to the underlying themes is key to enjoyment:

The Story:
This manga is given absolutely zero justice with the hideous cover photo and vague summary. Just needed to mention that.
We start off following our protagonist, Ikki, (present day) as a happy-go-lucky guy, but we soon come to find out he has a dark and haunting past--all awakened by his ex best friend's (Toshimitsu's) little cousin, Ryuu.
Without any spoilers, Ikki and Ryuu come to terms with their relatively similar pasts all connected by one person--Toshimitsu. Vague? I know, but everything about this story is hidden within the memories of Ryuu and Ikki which simply blow my mind. No exaggeration. It's a one-of-a-kind plot that I have yet to see replicated in any other manga, yaoi or not. Incredibly well thought out and creatively played. STORY: 10/10

The Art:
(SURPRISE: Aside from the random ugly cover photo, the characters are actually cute and sexy!)
Personal preference as always, but for the sake of an unbiased review, I'm giving this a 9/10. I would give it a 10/10 because personally I appreciate extremely realistic interpretations in the art. This mangaka reminds you that boys can sag their pants, have messy hair, get dirty and scraggily, and like to "fool around" every one in a while. It's simply drawn to perfection, in my opinion, but again, not everyone likes saggy pants. ART: 9/10

The characters:
Each person in this story has a distinct and quaint atmosphere that makes you wanna keep reading just so you can learn more about them and how they all tie together with a cohesive past.
That's about as much as I can say, I'm afraid, because it's VERY hard to describe these characters without giving away anything important. And so for that, I'm skipping this section and allowing you to judge me for it. CHARACTERS: 10/10 (Just take my word for it)

Enjoyment:
The only reason this is a 9/10 and not another 10/10 is because I didn't "enjoy" crying my eyes out and wailing at the angst and obviously tragic backstories. I applaud the author for creating such an ominous atmosphere, though. This made it to my top five favorite manga because I'm not the type to "enjoy" whimsical fluff in a wonderland where everything falls into place either. ENJOYMENT: 9/10 A little bit of angst never hurt anybody.

Overall:
It was one of the first yaois I ever read, so naturally I "judged a book by its cover" and held extremely low expectations (that cover photo and summary...shivers). I picked up this manga long before anybody I personally knew died--naturally, nothing made sense, because like I said earlier, you have to relate to something in this manga to understand it. But four years later after losing three close people in my life, I stumbled upon this manga again and thought to myself: "You know I never really understood this story at all—it didn't make sense." Maybe I was too young, so I gave it another try. Soon afterward I was in tears and I only made it to chapter three. Everything about this manga made sense after I was finally able to relate.
It's simply a masterpiece broken up through different time periods and flashbacks. EVERYTHING has a deeper meaning, which is exactly what life is all about. OVERALL: 10/10

Do I recommend this manga? Yes.
Is this for everyone? No.
Would I read it again? Yes.

This manga definitely deserves a review because I want to warn anyone else before they suffer through what I've just been through. Yes, you read it right.
I dropped this manga on page 65 (somewhere around chapter three) Here's why:

SLIGHT SPOILERS, YOU WILL LIVE WITH IT: This is manga disgusted me right from the beginning because it introduced rape and "indirect" incest as just an everyday common occurrence--I get how some people DO NOT mind these aspects, but everyone normal DOES. Anyway: putting rape in a story also means putting the trauma and the pain that comes along with it. A person doesn't get raped on ... a day to day basis by a family member/father figure and says it's "A-OK" with a smile and a bit of doki-doki when THE MAIN CHARACTER KNOWS IT'S WRONG. Come on now. Be realistic. Rape and incest are serious occurrences and frankly I'm disturbed and insulted by such carelessness. OVERALL: 2/10

As for the Characters:
Reo: Typical airhead main character who gets fooled into almost everything. Oh, did I mention he doesn't care about getting raped and it being by his GUARDIAN and FATHER FIGURE uncle? Yeah.
Shuuji: The uncle/guardian/father figure to Reo. I dropped this manga about two thirds through, so correct me if I'm wrong, but he's a stoic, strict, and brute-like man who ditched Reo's mom for Reo.
Kenta: (wow, this character... smh) Reo's bff and bubbly next door neighbor who knows more than Reo thinks. This character has been close with Reo for TWO YEARS and yet he somehow develops a VERY twisted side. (To be completely honest, it seems like that was a "trump card" the author pulled when the story wasn't getting popular. It's a typical move to desperately get more views and add a "twist" that "the audience will never see coming." Please. We all saw that coming.) CHARACTERS: 2/10

Story-wise:
Like I said before, I dropped this manga. The last straw was when the story went from bad to worse. Not only was the incest and rape thrown in just for the sake of views, there was completely UNECESSARY ANGST thrown in as well (trying not to spoil any details). I've read plenty of angst--as we all have--so we all know when angst is good and when it's just "What? What was the point of doing that?" Those exact thoughts ran through my mind while reading this story and I figured, again, it was for the sake of attracting more attention. This story was so "not-promising," it's clear to me that the author just added all these aspects into the mix just to make the story "more popular." It was unrealistic on top of that (hmm sound familiar?) which created negative occurrence after negative occurrence until you get a completely FLAT plot line. This story was so crappy it made me wanna self harm. STORY: 2/10

The Art:
The only reason why I didn't stop after (precisely) page 10--the art is fabulous. It's perfectly drawn with the right amount of details. The author took into consideration matching the characters personality with the characters image which is a BIG thumbs up from me. Simply beautiful.
The art is one of the prettiest I've seen in an angst-manga. ART: 9/10

Was I Satisfied?:
It's been so long since I've been forced to drop a manga, I surprised myself when I had to take a step back from the manga and rub my eyes before closing the tab for good. I honestly HATE quitting mangas, (as you can see by my tiny list of dropped mangas) but this one pushed me to my breaking point. Consider that. ENJOYMENT: 2/10