I Thot You Was a Toad's manga / #Kousaka Akiho(3)

A substantial age gap between childhood friends, Yuuri and Aki, meant that Aki went to university and graduate school, leaving Yuuri behind. The story begins in media res after Yuuri applies to the same school, is accepted and is now living with Aki, working as his housekeeper. Aki relentlessly questions him about his decisions, seeking to ensure that Yuuri is pursuing his own happiness, not Aki's, and without realizing how much pain these questions cause his faithful friend. An excellent, if slow-moving, story about the transition from friendship to love and the cost of being true to one's self. Nothing terribly dramatic happens, but the story is realistic and mature.

Hyper-competitive Touya Shinougi has always lost the top position to Kazuhiro Nagase, so he's horrified when his former rival suddenly appears as a fellow salaryman at his workplace. Nagase is clearly trying his best to seduce the prickly Shinougi, but so far to no avail. Presumeably this will change at some point.

Misaka and Masahiro express their mutual attraction and the other feelings this attraction provokes in a mature fashion, while negotiating their work schedules in the modeling industry and fending off possible interlopers. The artwork is gorgeous, as par for Kousaka Akiho, but the conflict arch was too shallow and short-term to keep it interesting. Every difficulty was neatly stitched up and resolved before it was possible to experience a pang of fear or hitched breath for their relationship. In fact, far too much precious manga time was spent over scheduling difficulties without any sense of loneliness or loss. Some advice to would-be mangakas: if you want an appointment book to be the main theme for resolution of feelings, you've got to make it the enemy. Otherwise, it's like filling in a to-do list.