Sensitive Boy

Add to My List

Add to Favorites

Alternative Titles

Japanese: センシティブ・ボーイ

Information

Type: Manga

Volumes: Unknown

Chapters: Unknown

Status: Publishing

Published: May 26, 2022 to ?

Genre: Drama

Theme: School

Serialization: Ganma!

Authors: 46 (Story & Art)

Statistics

Score: 7.19¹ (scored by 2,046 users)

¹ indicates a weighted score.

Ranked: #6434²

² based on the top manga page. Please note that 'R18+' titles are excluded.

Popularity: #3284

Members: 7,481

Favorites: 47

Available At

Official Site

@sensitive_ganma

7.19

Ranked #6434Popularity #3284Members 7,481

MangaGanma!46 (Story & Art)

Add to My List

Volumes: /?

Chapters: /?

Edit
Synopsis

Seventeen-year-old Kaede Seto only wants to be a normal teenager. Following a traumatic experience in middle school, Kaede and his two best friends transfer to a boys-only high school, hoping to start anew. Though he sets his sights on getting a girlfriend, Kaede finds it difficult to allow others close due to what had happened at his previous school.

As Kaede struggles to come to terms with his trauma, he begins to receive attention from Tsubasa Arisaka, a hopeless romantic attending an all-girls school. As an avid shoujo manga fan, Arisaka has always fantasized about a perfect love story for herself, but her life thus far has not taught her that relationships in reality differ from how they seem in fiction.

Tsubasa's affections spur Kaede to work harder to overcome the demons that continue to haunt him. Despite his resolve, it is not solely his personal issues that stand in the way of a happy ending for the two of them. Both Kaede and Tsubasa—immature in life and love—need to learn that real relationships are not without their own challenges.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

More characters
Characters

Seto, Kaede

Main

Arisaka, Tsubasa

Main

Ayase, Izumi

Main

Yuudai, Sahara

Supporting

Koga, Asahi

Supporting

Reviews

Aug 15, 2023

Mike74

Recommended

Preliminary (22/? eps)

This is a deconstruction of the typical romance manga, exploring the darker side of romantic relationship. What if someone has baggage? What if there are misunderstandings that are more dangerous than they appear at first glance? Do men and women even need to date in the first place?

These questions and many more are answered in this alt-romance blowout. It can make you cringe with how uncomfortable you will feel, but that's part of its charm. Unlike most romcoms, this story is unafraid to showcase just how ugly interpersonal relationships can get. However, this difficult material is handled with patience and grace, giving every character the ...

Open

Gift

Nov 7, 2023

SolsticeWhisper

Mixed Feelings

Preliminary (35/? eps)

Spoiler

Sensitive boy is one of those mangas that it's good in concept but it stumbles on very crucial flaws that makes you feel a bit dissapointed.

Art: Very decent, there are some very good panels in this one and character's expression are very much decent and great. On the only thing that it's not that great is on those blacked-out traumatized faces. The first time impact it's decent and not a bother but when you see the same one 4-5 times it feels a bit jarring. Overall an 8/10

Characters: Semi acceptable main cast, while somewhat decent on the surface they pack a lot of inconcistencies that ... does not make them very appealing to emphatize with. The characters are very black and white, there is very little room for originality. Kaede is the most acceptable part of the cast, a very optimistic but "sensitive" boy (good job, author. He stays true to the title). His SA story feels very real and I felt real emphaty with his reaction to his teacher's doing.
Ayase and Koga are fine. Nothing very particular about them, they don't go out of their characters and the only bad thing I could say they are not that deep or even interesting, they are there to support MC and there is not anymore about them to say.
Tsubasa is not that great. While I get that she's dealing with her first relationship she comes off as a very manipulative and one-sided character. That's not an issue but it is when coupled to that you put her in a terribly bad stance on Kaede's situation. She does not feel nor real nor appealing. Her whole catch of disgust against mc's SA feels like it's there to drive the plot more than anything. It's not well written.
What else... Oh the asexual classmate that was just there to say he's asexual and that's it. And the teacher that for some unholy reason appeared to lightly stab someone and get arrested again. Appaling.
Overall: 6/10.

Story:
The story gets the pacing very well but it's very lacking on the narrative.
Let me get this straight first of anything: I know this is a fictional story, but if the author decides to preach on this story about their negative views on SA while putting characters on either very against it or very in favor of it, It ends up very cartoonish. It really feels like people are drives for the author to impose their real views on a fictional story.
While this is not a bad thing and very common in fact, it ends up feeling that the story get’s caught up in the fact that SA is bad and forgets that MC is a person that needs to heal.
The way that the author demonize the perpetrators is so edgy and unrealistic, while trying to tell a story that they want to impose as real.
If you want a good portray on SA and healing, “Jibun no Karada wo Yurusu made” is much better.
Anyhow, MC gets SA’d by his teacher and his friends find him after that, he tells his parents and police caughts her. Then after 3 years MC is still traumatized from it and meets with a girl in the most unrealistic way, they go out after she is super pushy and his trauma ends up in the way of their relationship. They break up and he starts to work on a coffee shop and he feels safe with an adult girl, thing he could not feel before because of the trauma. She rightfully rejects him in the most acceptable dialogue of the manga and then everything is fine.
Then Tsubasa gets shouted out by an ex classmate of mc because of victim blaming, on one of the most terrible scenes of the manga. It does not feel real, it does not feel emotional, it does not feel more than conflict because she apparently was at fault for not being able to accept MC’s SA story. This really felt the author getting angry with their own character for being a bad person rather than two people arguing.
Overall: 5/10

Enjoyment: 5/10.

Final score: 6/10. I got a lot of bad things to say about it because it had the potential to be better. It’s still ongoing so maybe they can expand on the story to let everything that happened so far as a footnote. But as of now, I’m not sure I can recommend it.

Open

Gift

May 1, 2025

tabbycatcircus

Not Recommended

Preliminary (69/? eps)

Soapbox: The Manga

Genuinely awful and super damn woke.
For soapbox manga like this, whether you agree with the message or not will influence the review. However the message is "don't shame men for getting rape and sex isn't dirty," which most readers would agree with. The problem is how it handles this, which is namely by mischaracterizing so many characters to that end.
Also, the manga so far is split into three arcs with the third arc currently publishing, which was very misleading because each has a different male MC who are members of a trio of a group of close guy friends, but I read ... everything so far anyway and split my review to reflect that. Even so I will mostly talk about the first arc.

First Arc (MOSTLY SPOILERS in this section but I try to not be overly specific):
Everything was thoughtful, nuanced, well written, and consistent... until a pivotal moment when the main female character became heavily mischaracterized which caused the relationship to derail and crash into a ditch, and every character alongside it. Some disgust about the MC's experience with other women was shoehorned in out of nowhere with no buildup and she... told him that... completely unprompted...? Whyyyyyyy. The author tries to justify this by including one chapter of how she was allegedly raised to view sex as dirty (which includes *checks notes* ... her mom not telling her little girl self about the 18+ section of a bookstore that one time, and that other time where her mom shut off a channel where some promiscuous woman talks about losing her virginity in middle school lmaoooo) when the plotline about her idealizing romance was perfectly fine (although still unbelievable because she took this idea from shoujo romance manga even though works like NANA should exist) and could have lead to more narratively impactful conversations instead of a verbal meltdown from both parties.
On a meta level, I want to see a female character "heal" the male victim (so I can project myself onto her). I've always been reading manga where the male MC heals the female victim, so personally I'm left with this message that "only men are capable of acceptance, women are too shallow and vapid and judgemental," making me extra sour on this.
Then Kaede moves on from the relationship :/ and there begins his arc of finding himself and his normal. It's a nice idea on its own but again the initial relationship soured me on this. Even without the atrocious handling of the female character from before, too many soapbox topics are brought up to this end. For instance there's a character who randomly says he's asexual, which isn't bad writing, but I acutely felt the author talking to me and not letting the character himself speak given the unnatural flow of the conversation and the very forced direction the story wants to take in having MC "find his normal." Then after that in the same attempt to address the themes, predicably there's a nice adult woman who comforts MC and he develops feelings for her. After he confesses to her she shows him that "it's not real love" because he didn't want to kiss her out of trauma response (well yeah duh because you two never talked on a personal level until then) which sends the message that "romance is the ultimate form of love." If his heart races around her he's in love, it's just not that deep.
The ending where FL redeems herself a bit could have been compelling if it weren't for how we got there.

In general... everything seems to happen in a way that tries to evoke the most pity from you for Kaede through a series of unnatural conversations that seem nuanced on the surface but ultimately read as a childish Socratic seminar that teachers would make you do in sixth grade to debate "both sides of the issue." The only message the author will commit to is that "rape and shame is bad," but the topic is much more complicated than just than especially when it comes to interpersonal relationships.

Second arc:
This arc is the only reason why I didn't rate this manga a 1. It explores a toxic and co dependent relationship and MC gets the support of his friends and cherishes them and learns to help himself first. It's a nice message and I appreciate that this goes against the "romance is the ultimate form of love" message from last arc.

Third arc:
Sigh. I don't read gay stuff. However the author was very pretentious in the preview about exploring le sexuality so I read it and lo and behold. It was in the usual preachy manner as always.
What do you mean the male MC felt no attraction to girls but let them do whatever anyway? It's so annoying because girls that are like "you don't even like me :((( *slaps*" are such a common shoujo romance trope used to show how "b*tchy" they are for expecting physical affection while MC is better than that. Yeah all those other girls were "shallow" but the guy he meets who talks about books and shit, wow he makes me serious uwu. Idk how you don't figure you're not into girls or why you string them along even know you knew what they wanted, after witnessing your friends in their romantic endeavors. Age or life stage isn't an excuse literally nobody has this deafening lack of self awareness, which stands out even more in a manga where characters regularly reiterate 2015 Tumblr talking points.

Open

Gift

More stacks

Interest Stacks

Asexual and Aromantic Characters in Manga part 1

by Keizakomu

50 Entries · 299 Restacks

Coming Out Scenes in Manga

by Keizakomu

38 Entries · 25 Restacks

BL with minimal uncomfortable themes

by zbackupz

13 Entries · 6 Restacks

Recommendations

More news
Recent News

More discussions
Recent Forum Discussion

Poll: Sensitive Boy Chapter 65 Discussion supermario4ever - Jan 29	0 replies	by supermario4ever »» Jan 29, 1:49 PM
Poll: Sensitive Boy Chapter 64 Discussion supermario4ever - Jan 16	1 replies	by fishy07 »» Jan 20, 9:59 PM
Poll: Sensitive Boy Chapter 62 Discussion supermario4ever - Dec 18, 2024	3 replies	by Rexnihilo »» Jan 16, 5:31 PM
Poll: Sensitive Boy Chapter 61 Discussion Barrycade - Nov 6, 2024	3 replies	by Rexnihilo »» Jan 16, 3:38 PM
Poll: Sensitive Boy Chapter 63 Discussion supermario4ever - Jan 1	0 replies	by supermario4ever »» Jan 1, 12:06 PM

Sensitive Boy
Edit

What would you like to edit?

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Available At

Edit
Synopsis

Visit MALxJapan
MALxJapan -More than just anime-

More characters
Characters

Reviews

Interest Stacks

Recommendations

More news
Recent News

More discussions
Recent Forum Discussion

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters

Sensitive Boy Edit What would you like to edit? SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links

Alternative Titles

Information

Statistics

Available At

EditSynopsis

Visit MALxJapan MALxJapan -More than just anime-

More charactersCharacters

Reviews

Interest Stacks

Recommendations

More newsRecent News

More discussionsRecent Forum Discussion

MoreTop Anime

MoreTop Airing Anime

MoreMost Popular Characters

Sensitive Boy
Edit

What would you like to edit?

Edit
Synopsis

Visit MALxJapan
MALxJapan -More than just anime-

More characters
Characters

More news
Recent News

More discussions
Recent Forum Discussion