I Thot You Was a Toad's manga / #Photography(4)

Tamaki loves Tomoyuki, a professional photographer who suddenly disappeared from his life three years prior. Now that Tomo has returned to Japan, Tamaki wants to renew their friendship, but Tomo avoids him. Tamaki thinks this is because he was too much of a child, but there is a tragic event in his past which precipitated Tomo's desertion, and it hasn't been resolved. This story is included in a three-part series of yakuza-themed manga: 1) Zetai Unmei Houteishiki 2) Tsumasaki ni Kiss: a story about Tamaki's oldest brother, Homura 3) Gravity Eyes: a story about Homura's rejected suitor, Kyouya.

High school photographer, Arata snaps action pictures of (mainly) Shoutarou and his basketball club teammates and sells the pictures to young women, who confess without success to Shoutarou. The two young men come to a slow realization about mutual attraction. I usually like Hayakawa Nojiko's manga, but this time I found the pacing very choppy and disjointed. I love her watercolours, but the fractured jumpiness, and sparsity of storytelling elements and background detail pushed me out too often this time.

Kurayami ni Strobe spin-off.

Iga, deprived of his dreams of corporate success when his father passes over the directorship of his landscape architecture firm to his younger, married, heterosexual brother, is banished to the boondocks of a smaller urban region in order to complete a primary school garden. There, he meets Asakura, the son of florists and an amateur photographer, who reminds him of the joys of gardening and slowly warms his cold, unused heart. Beautiful art, great supporting characters, fun story, especially whenever the small children come out, the only thing that is a drawback to this story is how long it takes to get to rumpy-pumpy.