35 days of BL manga! – Day 12: A BL manga that makes you cry

I thought about  posting Sojou no Koi wa Nido Haneru here but I already used it in day 01. I also thought about Lucky-kun, but somehow that one makes me more pissed off than sad XD and Banana Fish is not exactly BL (almost was) even when it’s the one that made me cry the most. Sakura Gari on the other hand is the very definition of sad and disturbing too.

That blood isn't just for show...

I must say that I have never enjoyed Watase Yuu’s manga before she jumped into BL. It doesn’t have to do with my BL preference; it’s more that I really disliked her shoujos, not that I have read them all, but that’s how it is. Now when I learned that she was writing a yaoi my interest picked a bit what kind of yaoi would she make?; my expectations were pretty low at that time. Then I read somewhere that she was creating a really dark story and that’s when I got really interested. Of course, when I saw the cover, I didn’t want to read it because, truly, Masataka looks like a kid and I thought that was a shota. My mistake! Masataka is just too small for his age, even Souma looks too young for his age here. Sakura Gari turned out to be pretty different from what you would expect by this mangaka. It was a total train-wreck from the start, like why the hell is this so sad and twisted. I would drop such a tear-jerker instantly if it weren’t for the twisted part. Sakura Gari is a mistery-psychological story, that happens to evolve around BL. I’m not an expert here but this could easily be a seinen with all the heavy things we have to see. And of course I cried, several times, and the ending was not perfect either but it wasn’t a tragedy at least; it was satisfying. This is  one of the few sad stories that I would recommend to everyone. Of course, that’s if you like it dark and twisted!