tsukineko's manga / #naive uke(9)

The main couple are so adorbs! I often find cutesy uke annoying, but not Rintarou: he perfectly complements Kaede, and the 2 so obviously cherish each other. Kaede is just yum! - a sexy, slightly sadistic seme, who adores his uke to an excessive extent! I found the other stories too short for any real character development, and they just got in the way of the main story imho. Although very well drawn and thoroughly enjoyable to read, I found this manga rather cliché and predictable. It was also unfortunate that I read this straight after 'Ten Count', which is truly excellent and is one of the rare manga that I unreservedly rate 5 whole stars. 'Katekyo' is just not in the same league imho, thus the 4 stars. Read also 'Koitomo!?', a spin-off about one of the other featured couples.

After this, read the sequel 'Lover's Mode'. That was quite a saga! I'm still a little ambivalent about it though. At times, (especially near the beginning), I found it kind of mediocre, (both the art and the story), however, as the story unfolded, I became really attached to [most of] the characters. Only Takamiya × Izumi left an icky feeling, (à la Usami × Misaki), until the end when I warmed to Takamiya after reading about his past, (in the Shiki story). I would say that overall the storytelling and art, which improved over time, were solid, (not brilliant). However, at times they were truly excellent! Several pages stopped me in my tracks - the expressivity of the imagery, shaking me to my core! I bookmarked some of those pages, but I'm not sure the bookmarking feature on the site works anymore. One of the pages screamed at me so loudly that I noted down the page number because I absolutely didn't want to lose track of it: Vol. 04, Ch. 02, Pg. 19. (I have been in a similar situation, and that page truly conveys the sheer despair and desperate pain and anguish one can feel, and the wretched screams that are ripped from deep within. It's also true to reality that one breaks down AFTER the ordeal rather than during.) I remember that one of the other pages that had a big impact, was of Naoya alone in the snow, at Xmas, crying from loneliness. Actually, I would say that loneliness is a constant theme in this manga, and this mangaka is very good at expressing it, (and other emotions), through imagery. OK, enough with this long ass paragragh - I'm off to read the sequel...

This was all over the place. Just WHO IS Maki-san? He seems to have multiple personalities. It's as though the mangaka couldn't decide which type of scenario to write, so decided to write them all, and stick them together in the same manga. It's as though in each chapter, Maki-san is different. The story ranged from vomit inducingly sweet, shoujo style romance, to yawn inducingly boring, stereotypical yaoi rape and prostitition smut. The only things I liked about this manga, were the funny scene in which Maki walks in on uke-kun masturbating and calling his name, (although that kind of scene is hardly original, it's still always funny), and the part where Maki bites uke's ring finger, to leave behind a ring mark. Btw, this manga's ongoing, so I've only read the first 3 chapters. Edit: 'Daigishi no Ichizoku' is about the same couple, but I hadn't yet read it when I read this. I have since read it, and it too, seems to be based on the 'parallel plot' structure. (I just made up that term, btw. What I mean, is that each chapter is independent of the others, plotwise, as though the same characters exist in different, parallel universes.) This explains how Maki can be so vastly different from one chapter to the next.

I've read the first 2 chapters, as they were the only ones uploaded at the time. It's ok, but it seems to be missing pages left, right & center. I'll read it all from the beginning at some point.

3.5 stars. I actually thouroughly enjoyed this. I'd deffo reread it. In the first one the love story itself was meh, but the host setting is always fun to read. And Sakura is just adorbs - the perfect friend!

Sounds funny and smutty! The art is adorable too.