I Thot You Was a Toad's manga / #tsundere uke(11)

The artwork for this manga is gorgeous and delicate, as are the stories, although their threads are so subtle and character-centric, they can be a bit tricky to follow, all interconnected by a common character or precipitating event in common. (1) Sunose, a straight university student falls for his cat-like and uncommunicative gay professor, Yukimura, who is too bashful and insecure to admit the love is mutual, even after a frank conversation behind closed doors with former lover, Kitakami, reveals Yukimura's true feeling and is overheard by his beloved, Sunose; (2) Backstory: it seems that Kitakami, a renowned painter, makes a habit of revealing, too intimately, the inner souls of his models, who usually also become his lovers, just as he paints their nude bodies too explicitly. Although the hitherto heterosexual, Yukimura, is forewarned of this propensity, he throws caution to the wind and agrees to be both Kitakama's model and lover, although he refuses to promise his heart or his fidelity. (3) Seiji, Akira's stepbrother, invites himself into Akira's workplace, a mahjong gambling parlour, to coax him into returning home, unleashing a storm of feelings that Akira has never been able to resolve about being abandoned, first, by his mother and, then, by his lover. A small cameo by Kitakami, in high school, links this story to Yukimura's. (5) Sarashima Satoshi, Akira's co-worker, also happens to be his roommate. He is blessed with above-average intuition and discovers, through the slightest sign, one of which Akira cannot possibly be aware, that Akira is depressed because he was abandoned by someone with whom he once regularly slept. The main plot engines are driven by abandonment, loneliness, recklessness or subconscious signals which reveal too much, followed by feelings of being overexposed and too vulnerable, withdrawals, inadequate communication and misunderstandings. One of my favourites!

Kuraishi, a twice-divorced events manager, is a depressed and self-destructive alcoholic, until he is nurtured back by Izumi, the florist who has a supernatural ability to communicate with plants. The plants tell him Kuraishi is withered and rotten, and he needs some tough love to recover. Volume Two deals with the return from Europe of Chouno, a colleague with whom Kuraishi shared a strong connection in the past.

There sure is a whole lot of sex going on here for someone who wants to teach somebody else about tea ceremonies ...

Tsudere, single father is overly attached to son and pitches fits at any thought that someone will romance him away, even mistaking the true direction of a suitor's affections, which leads to schemes and plot complications.

Mizuki, fire-breathing perfectionist of a waiter, meets Takeru, foreign grabby-handed newcomer with no service-related experience to speak of and, yet, who was recommended as a waiter by the Big Boss in Rome. Combustion happens. Other languages are spoken. Does Takeru tame Mizuki? This is yaoi, so something's gotta give ... Unfortunately, it doesn't look like we'll ever find out what.

Moriya cannot be emotionally honest, even though he needs to depend on that if he wants to attract attention from Sahara, the karate specialist who was once fond of his protegé before he was swept off by another dude. So Moriya pretends he's playing around when he tries to seduce Sahara, and then he wonders why it hurts so much.

Even negative attention is better than no attention. First year, Hirokawa bullies Misaki in order to attract attention from his hero, Yamato, who once saved him. It works, so he keeps doing it.

Nakayama adores his former business mentor, Asuka, and moves to Nagoya to work in the same office under him. But something has happened to his boss, and he's a cold, impossible man. Asuka taught him too well. Big on tsundere.

One schoolboy falls for another at first sight, simply because his face resembles that of "an angel", or rather, a porcelain doll that his mother collected. Unfortunately, when he realizes his angel is a boy, and a surly, bad tempered one at that, everyone freaks out at "the homo" proving the general adage that school is shitty and soul-crushing. Fortunately, "the homo" seems to have some good friends who don't care about that.

Bodyguard x young master/college who wants his independence from rich parents. Over-the-top tsundere overreactions which are intended to be funny. Train molestation scene. Kinda meh, so far. At least the bodyguard doesn't rape him.