The first couple episodes were highly entertaining. One of the main characters, Ryouma is coming to the realization that he has feelings for another guy, Izumi and is going through a bunch of conflicting emotions, considering he thought he was straight before hand and he, at first, thought that Izumi was a girl.
One day, Ryouma goes over to Izumi's house. They start off with the usual awkward greeting. Then, Ryouma ends up chasing Izumi around the house and tackling him. Ryouma pulls his pants down and puts his mouth all over Izumi's lower half while Izumi is crying praying that this stops soon. Luckily, soon enough, Ryouma was caught in the act by Izumi's parents' manager and was forced to stop.
At first, I was glad that this scene was taken by the characters in a negative way. In the crunchyroll subs I was reading, the manager even referred to it as assault when reporting what happened to Izumi's brother, which I was really impressed with. In fact, Izumi's brother was ready to beat up Ryouma the next time he saw him as punishment for what he did to his little brother. I was even more pleased to find that Ryouma shortly thereafter revealed how guilty he feels about what he has done to a person he cares so much for and even apologizes to Izumi in the most sincerest of ways. I thought, "Thank God Japan knows that rape is a terrible thing!!" A couple episodes later, there was a scene that made me completely change my mind about that.
Izumi went on for days without sleeping because he was trying to finish up a manga in time to enter it into a contest. As a way of strengthening their "friendship", Ryouma volunteered to help Izumi finish the manga in the last couple days before the contest. Just after the manga is finished, Izumi collapses to sleep and Ryouma carries him to his bed. Just before leaving Izumi's room, Ryouma couldn't resist, but take the opportunity to kiss Izumi while he is out cold. He planted a short one and then was ready to walk out, then thought, "well, one more wouldn't hurt". He kisses him again, and then thinks, "Nah, maybe one more. Now one more. I swear, this will be the last one. No another wouldn't hurt." He ends up kissing Izumi all over his body and apparently it's alright because Izumi's unconscious. If I were in Izumi's situation, especially if I woke up in the middle of that, I would be furious. I stopped the episode in the middle of that scene and swore to never continue. I came out of it feeling extremely disappointed and in utter disbelief.
After they showed one rape scene where they acknowledge that what Ryouma did to Izumi was terrible, they show another scene where he gets away with doing something not that much different. I never found out what happened after that scene, but I knew that it was either going to result in Ryouma getting away with what he did because no one was watching and Izumi was unconscious, which is not something I was going to like in the slightest, or that Ryouma does get caught, in which case, I can hardly imagine Izumi wanting to stay friends with him, let alone start a romantic relationship with him.
Let me ask, do any of you know of any queer anime (especially yaoi) where the two main characters are in a healthy, consensual, relationship? I really want to find something out there that does. It would make me feel really happy to know that Japan realizes that gay relationships are not that different from straight ones. The only one I've come across that has come to that realization is Aoi Hana (highly recommend you watch that show instead).
