I Thot You Was a Toad's manga / #dramedy(31)

A gay man falls for his sexy, but cold and hard-assed, neighbour, who also happens to attend the same business college as he does. There is some tragic backstory in the neighbour's life, which develops further with a pleasant visit with the Mom, but so far, all we see of the bloke in love is that he is very helpful, kind, warm ... and gay. Looking forward to more.

A little L'aissez Faire goes a bit too far in this story when the communication fail is so big that lovers can't even tell each other they love each other, so off they go to jobs in distant cities and having sloppy drunken affairs.

Besties, Ryuu and Hiroto, have the hots for each other but pretend to like girls instead until one of the girls seems to have a real chance of coming between them. The problem is that Ryuu tends to like getting his way a little too much. Fortunately, Hiroto is no pushover.

Natsuno and Ui used to be inseparable friends through school, though this ended at graduation when Ui made a heartfelt confession. Now, years later, after a breakup in which he lost everything, Natsuno is looking for a place to live and Ui has a huge apartment. Trouble is, Ui has lost all memory of him. At this stage, I don't know if I like Natsuno and admire him for his guts, or despise him for toying with Ui so heartlessly.

Youka Nitta's sweeping soap opera about Katou Youji and Iwake Kyousuke, two AV actors who risk everything to be true to themselves and each other. This story starts at the beginning of their relationship while they still work as porn actors, through negotiating their places and integrity in Japan's Byzantine entertainment industry, until they emerge with the approval of families, friends and colleagues; live together in their own home; make the movies they want, and eventually take responsibility for a production company, enduring treachery, censure, humiliation, attempted murder and even a huge earthquake in the process. The boys get a little overwrought at times, and ending feels a little truncated, no doubt in part to Youko Nitta's scandal, but the sex is hot and the overall arch is absorbing. A yaoi classic.

It's Souya and Kazuki against the world, or at least against Kazuki's nasty, mean, horrible, no-good, prestigious and ancient family. Souya, who's one of those supermodel novelist types, is determined to look after his poor, oppressed, ordinary Joe of a part-time wine-shop waiter stepbrother, in exchange for loads of bottoms up. That's got Daddy and real brother in a tizz. All we need is Queen singing in the background, "Mammaaaaa, I just killed a man ...."

Baba Takaaki is a real piece of work, a womanizer, liar and unreliable narrator in his own inner dialogue, but he falls hard for Aoyama, a first year student at his college. Too bad he can't keep his pants zipped. Even worse, when he's caught, he doesn't fight for Aoyama, and so begins a five-year love drought for both of them. Fuwa Shinri has crafted another yaoi soap opera by homing in on emotional pitfalls. I am not completely convinced in the reconciliation process, but it still exists within the realm of plausibility. It would be more satisfying to see "Baba-san" work a little harder..

Superrich heir, Akag,i is a regular Eeyore of a man, always rained on by his very own personal thundercloud, and he has no problem shoving away the one bright and sunny person in his existence, Ichimori, who loves him and protects him from dastardly villains who want to get him mixed up in their schemes. Akagi isn't falling for any bit of it. The question on my mind is how a likeable dude like Ichimori, who clearly thinks about others first, could fall for such a gormless wet blanket. Also, I know that romance writing holds a special place in its twisted little heart for the superrich, and I know that valid schemes for getting these Scroogie creeps to spread some of their hoard is better than trying to trick it out of them (for some reason), but in this day and age, wealth is looking more like supervillain material than a sympathy set up.

Interesting story with beautiful art, told from the third-person perspective of Kunishige Yuu, a middle-schooler in a sort of not-quite-absolutely-platonic love with his beautiful would-be model school-chum, Umeko, and carefully raised by a very responsible older brother, Gaku. After stealing and using Gaku's invitation to a high-art photography exhibition by the famous Hodaka Kurushima in order to impress Umeko, Yuu discovers that his brother has a secret from his past. So far a very satisfying read!