I Thot You Was a Toad's manga / #salary man(26)

Takashi nurses a secret crush on Azusa, his handsome and capable supervisor at work. One night, he discovers Azusa's secret life and is paid to keep silent with special services. This becomes an issue when money goes missing at the office. Takashi wants to protect Azusa, but is he being used? Or has he completely misunderstood Azusa's intentions?

Cute and fluffy story about a clumsy and overly persistent men's underpants salesman and the stern, megane department store procurement officer with a taste for sweet pastries who figures out a much better way of retaliating for the young man getting under his skin. Oh-ho-ho!

Mitsuya was always chasing after his brother and his brother's friend, Noboru. In time, his feelings for Noboru turned to love and he forced a kiss on him, which was violently rejected. Shocked, Mitsuya shut his heart off from the world until 10 years later, a fateful reunion provokes shattering self-realizations. This story has a maturity and realism that elevates it beyond standard yaoi. The main character is a jerk, but surprisingly sympathetic. One of my all-time favourites!

Kyouichi and Imagase are together, but Imagase cannot let go of his suspicions toward Kyouichi, and a situation with a beautiful colleague at Kyouichi's workplace throws everything into chaos. Can Kyouichi find strength inside himself, or is he destined to flow with whichever currents move the strongest? If anything, this story surpasses it's first installment Kyuuso Ha Cheese no Yume Omiru. It full of romantic intrigue and suspense, and all the characters are flawed, sometimes deeply, but lovable. Moreover, the women in this story are sympathetic.

Shinoda, broken from divorce and loneliness, stumbles into the antique shop of Askura, who treasures broken things, and Shinoda slowly comes to life under the gentle sweetness of Askura's interest and attention, even though he has never identified as being a gay man. This manga has a beautiful use of realism with hesitant and circling conversations, lots of details about how they live and the slow way in which these two people come to love each other. It's an incredibly satisfying read.

Cherry tomato popping is the theme, along with shy buttocks and a battle for the top.

Two stories. First, the story of an entertainment company president who harbours unrequited love for his secretary, and constantly pushes into his space up until the "last 3 centimetres", which he leaves for the secretary to complete. The second about the reunion of an aging and lonely tutor with the student who harboured a crush on him for years. Both of the stories are about love triumphing over loneliness and resignation, and like most of Chidori Peko's yaoi manga, are sentimental and light.

When I first read this story (way back), it was one of my favourites, and, although other, better manga have come along, I still enjoy it. There's something very soothing about the relationship between the graceful Shirakawa and his warmhearted loveable "dog" of a kouhai, Yamato. The lovely way they are led to embrace each other through the tragic (and understated) backstory of Kisshoubou has any easy realism that smooths over what would be quite an awkward transition — a specialty of mangaka, Hiiro Reiichi. The subplot involving the stolen intellectual property from Shirakawa's company moves the story back into a vaudevillian zaniness and takes away from the pleasant pace, while not really serving the story except to maybe appease the mystery over what happened, but that is my only nit. Read this. It's a classic.

One night in his adolescence, Kayano, suffocated by his controlling mother, falls for Takao, a boy he finds beaten and left in a park. He discovers that Takao is greedy and grasping, and pretends to be a selfish jerk who plays cruel tricks on others. As Kayano meets each of Takao's ridiculous challenges, and carefully eliminates all the obstacles, he discovers a side to Takao that nobody suspected. Even though the characters in this story are so flawed and unsympathetic, and Takao, in particular, is such a manipulative jerk, it's a great story. The ending is so satisfying. Wonderful.