Sensitive Boy is a psychological Coming of Age Story drama manga written and illustrated by 46, published by Ganma! on May 26, 2022.
Kaede Seto is a high school student who is obsessed with being normal. The reason for this being that not long ago, he was a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of a teacher he once trusted. He now goes through numerous emotional hurdles in order to gain the normalcy he so desires.
Sensitive Boy provides examples of:
- And Now for Someone Completely Different: When Chapter 35 ends Kaede's arc, the story shifts on to his friend Izumi and shows his trials and tribulations.
- Best Friend: Kaede has two of them in the form of Izumi and Asahi.
- Chick Magnet: Deconstructed. Kaede's kindness and good looks cause Tsubasa to fall for him at first sight. However, his appearance also caught the eye of his rapist, resulting in her coming onto him without his consent and traumatizing him for life. Tsubasa is also clearly unprepared for the weight of Kaede's trauma when he trusts her enough to reveal it to her, causing the relationship to break down after she mashes his Trauma Button.
- Defiled Forever: Kaede feels this way about himself due to his sexual assault, since he worries that it means he is unable to have a normal love life, much less a normal high school experience.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male:
- Defied. Kaede's family and friends treat his rape as the deeply traumatizing event it is and shoot down any accusations that he might have enjoyed it. Those who assert the contrary are quickly chewed out. However, Tsubasa is unable to properly process Kaede confiding his experiences to her. She triggers his trauma again when she wonders out loud if he enjoyed the experience and asks why he didn't struggle more. Kaede has an emotional meltdown from having his Trauma Button pushed and the two break up.
- Kaede recalls a male teacher who approached him after the event and told Kaede that he was "lucky" to have such a beautiful woman come onto it, ignoring Kaede's feelings on the matter. Said rapist also accuses Kaede of enjoying the experience when they meet again afterward.
- Hates Being Touched: Due to his experiences, Kaede finds physical contact with females to be a personal trigger of his.
- Hate Sink: The trainee teacher takes advantage of Kaede's kindness and rapes him not only traumatizing the poor kid, but in doing so, she indirectly sets the events of the series into motion being the reason Kaede hates being touched as well as him enrolling into an all-boys school. She becomes worse when she reappears in chapter 33: not only does she try to kill Kaede once she sees him again, but she had the audacity to blame Kaede for ruining her life and ending her chances of becoming a teacher even though it was her own fault.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: Kaede's overall goal is to live a normal life as best as he can.
- Just the Way You Are: Discussed, and defied. Izumi wants Kanon to know that he loves her no matter what and was always interested in her when she was still an unsuccessful idol, but Kanon is skeptical. She notes that while she had plastic surgery before she met Izumi, she was already having body issues and had surgery done at the time she was an idol, so she doesn't believe that he could ever fall for the "real" her. He's also rather ignorant of her many habits, like taking drugs or her wrist cutting.
- Love at First Sight: Tsubasa falls for Kaede at first sight because of his looks and demeanor after a chance encounter in the street. But this is Deconstructed as it becomes clear that Tsubasa has an overly rosy view of romance as depicted in romantic fiction like shoujo manga. At the same time, Kaede rushes into the relationship because he believes it's "normal" for a teenaged boy to look for love. This results in both teenagers being woefully underprepared to handle their emotions when Kaede trusts her enough to explain his trauma to her. Tsubasa's inability to process Kaede's experiences leads her to mash his Trauma Button unintentionally. The two break up soon afterward, leaving both of them with deep emotional scars.
- Never My Fault: The teacher who raped Kaede was subsequently blacklisted from every school in Japan, making it impossible for her to find work. When she encounters Kaede at a convenience store, she tries to murder him for ruining her life even though she was the one who violated him.
- One Degree of Separation: Kaede can't help but feel comfortable around Rio, the owner of a cafe who hires him on as a part-time server. Her mature, responsible, and caring demeanor reminds him of Miyamoto, the school nurse who has been acting as a counselor for Kaede, but he isn't sure why. Unbeknownst to him, Rio is Miyamoto's sister-in-law, as he'd married her older sister years ago.
- One-Gender School: After the incident, Kaede transferred into an all-boys high school.
- Taking the Bullet: Well, taking the knife. When the trainee teacher attempts to kill Kaede with said knife, Tsubasa pushes him out of the way and takes it in his stead. Fortunately, it wasn't a serious wound.
- Psychopathic Womanchild: The trainee teacher mentions that she pretended to be an adult in Kaede's flashback, an implication that she's an immature and ultimately petty character.
