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

It's a good thing that Sakurai Sakuya is so good at depicting sex, because those pages upon pages of smut featuring a manipulative seme, wolves around every corner and a borderline infantilized uke is terrific compensation for the wild-assed story premise and screwball comedy that makes me feel wrong for enjoying it so much. Baby talk and doe-eyed simpletons are not really my thing, but you need them for the stuff this company prez tries to pull off. My favourite moments were the ones where Aki shows he has some spine, wibble-y and tear-stained as it might be.

Motorcycle racer, Hayase Mahiro, has nothing left but crushing debt and a big attitude. Along comes Shiro Kiryuu, handsome strange guy, with a proposal and a lot of intense stares. Kiryuu owns a fancy-schmancy host club, and a widow is willing to pay Mahiro big bucks for dinner companionship and a night of chitchat because he reminds her of her late husband. Mahiro thinks "Hmm, this isn't so bad" because he's completely forgotten the part where Kiryuu laid out the terms of employment where Mahiro has agreed to be his slave. The debt/contract sex theme bears some similarity to Nishimura Shuuko's Kishidou Club Bangaihen, but the set-up isn't quite as novel yet and the key difference is that Mahiro doesn't love Kiryuu ... yet. I presume that will change.

Hideami, former reigning host, returns to the home he had left in disgrace long after his father's death, defeated and in debt, to beg money from his rich day-trader of a brother, Yukiya, whom he once raped. It was his father's discovery of this violation that led to his expulsion from home, and he learns that this same father's dying wish was for Yukiya to look after the old home and take care of Hideami. Yukiya's terms for looking after Hideami are increasingly intimate. An authentic and interesting story with a very colourful cast of side-characters.