I doubt anyone here has any interest in reading any of these, but to be safe, here's a spoiler warning anyway. Apologies in advance for any and all grammar errors and also sorry that this is so long
I read some tragic, gay manga
I recently completed three short, dramatic and occasionally melancholic manga, with strong homosexual themes that are set in European, same sex boarding schools, and were published in the 1970s.
these are compared to Kaze to Ki no Uta a lot because it shares a lot of similarities with quite a few of these and being that I started reading KazeKi almost a year ago, it's just my frame of reference for these things
Shiroi Heya no Futari
I have no idea what time period this is set in. The main character's parents died in a car accident (the car pictured looked somewhat modern and there are fairly modern airplanes too) but the school and some of the clothes look like they're supposed to be from the turn of the century. And the main character had a dream where her mother told her to cover her shoulders so she wouldn't catch a cold. Her roommate, and love interest, is wearing pants though. The 50s or 60s maybe???? Who knows, but that aside--
It's forgettable. I wasn't expecting to like this one, but this is from way back when both shoujo-ai and shounen-ai were directed at female audiences, so I thought that maybe because of that, it'd appeal to me in ways I wasn't expecting, but this just isn't a good manga to form an opinion of early shoujo-ai on. The art also isn't very good. The characters actually look kinda scary in some panels. The art style being very dated is not in and of itself a negative, but the art here just isn't appealing. It was also hard to follow occasionally. Like the last chapter had a sudden short time skip. The whole thing was less than 100 pages and I guess it was alright for that length. The characters weren't really developed much at all and, to be blunt, they're somewhat similar to Kaze to Ki no Uta's main couple, but that was to be expected.
TL;DR didn't like it, but it wasn't absolutely terrible
Natsu e no Tobira
This one's just categorized as one chapter but it's actually only 10 pages shorter than Shiroi, which was split into 4 chapters. This one's by the same author as Kaze to Ki no Uta and gives off a similar feeling which is a plus in my book. I like Takamiya Keiko's art in KazeKi and I like it here as well. I particularly like Jacques' character design. The main character, Marion, kinda looks like Gilbert from KazeKi, maybe the author just has "a type" when it comes to how some of her main characters look. Personality wise, Marion and Gilbert are very different though, so I can't complain too much. It seems to be set in the same time period and setting as KazeKi, which is in France sometime between the 1870s and 1910s. Also like KazeKi, some of the adult characters are kinda shitty. (the adults in KazeKi are 10x worse but it's worth noting that they're not particularly great in both)
I liked this one quite a bit actually. I'm more than likely biased towards it, but for only being 75 pages, it was surprisingly good. I thoroughly enjoyed all the angst that Natsu had to offer. It felt like too much was going on at times though. The ending also felt very abrupt, but for the most part, it was an enjoyable ride. I do feel that this shouldn't really be considered "shounen-ai" though. Two of the friends are vying for the same girl who has eyes for the protag, and the main character has an "affair" (if you could call it that) with an older, married woman. The implied gay kid isn't even revealed until the latter half of the story and shortly after the reveal, he dies so nothing more really came out of it. I did read this while I was tired though, so maybe I just missed some subtext or gay undertones or something because assuming I didn't, I can't see why this would be categorized as shounen-ai aside from Takamiya Keiko being known for doing manga with gay couples. (I think her best known work might even be KazeKi)
TL;DR overall, I liked it. Will have to read it again to come to a less biased conclusion though.
edit: Decided to rewatch the KazeKi ova on youtube and saw in the recommended videos that there's apparently a Natsu ova. I'm assuming it'll be much like KazeKi's ova and not be very good and feel incredibly dated. Unlike KazeKi, Natsu's very short though so maybe the ova will be alright since it'll hopefully have the entire story and not a bastardized version of it.
Thomas no Shinzo
Due to length, this one's under a spoiler
I also read two other short series that would more accurately be described as being under the gender-bender genre, rather than shoujo-ai (or to be more progressive/accurate, these could just be under the romance genre since, at least the one, has a canon transgender protagonist and that makes any and all relationships in the story heterosexual (at least from the protag's viewpoint)). However, even calling them gender-bender could misleading since most things in said genre have cross-dressing, masculine female characters, feminine male characters, traps, etc and basically just characters that say "screw gender roles" and what not. Those characters don't always fall under LGBT+ though, or if they do, they're usually not transgender. Hence, grouping characters that are actually transgender, and are shown to have gender identity disorder, in with characters that are cisgender, is a little confusing. Unlike shounan-ai and shoujo-ai, main characters that are transgender aren't very common so it's understandable why there isn't a sub-genre dedicated for stories with trans characters, and while the gender-bender genre is the closest thing to such a genre, it still seems a little off.
under a spoiler because this post is almost unbearably long without one