I Thot You Was a Toad's manga / #Yakuza(23)

Waturu, a high school teacher who is deeply insecure and secretive about being gay, attracts attention from a volatile Yakuza gang leader after compelling his delinquent son to attend a parent-teacher interview. Kazushi is sexy, but also dangerous.

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.

Yakuza politics feature largely in this story about two lovers who are also members of rival yakuza factions. Homura and Touji have been secretly involved since university. Their secrecy and the difficulty of their situation means that Homura has attracted a very persistant suitor in his employee and number one host, Kyouya. When Touji manipulates his newfound power as head of his faction, it appears that he and Homura must part, but has Homura read the purpose of his actions correctly?

Satoru, a hatter with his own boutique and employee relations problems, needs a new clerk fast and picks up a starving stranger to fill the role. Ryou reminds him of his old dog, whom he dearly loved, but Ryou has a past filled with mobsters, government corruption, violence, betrayal and abandonment, and the question is no longer whether it will return on him, but when and how violently it will return on him. An agreeable and engaging story with beautiful art, and a touch of Disney (Hello Flynn Ryder) in the style and mannerisms. The characters are interesting features and the plot comes intricately wrapped in a seriously absorbing suspense thriller! Just watch out for the non-linear transitions and flashbacks.

Everyone always underestimates the cute and demure-acting Tetsu, until his unleashes his rage all over them. This son of a yakuza overlord has quite the bag of fighting tricks, and it looks like he's going to need all of them as a scheming pornographer and con artist tries to corner him by making him fall in love. Good story, but unlikely to be finished.

Abuse-trope soap opera about a doctor, Motoki, with his own private clinic, who believes that he is in a one-sided love affair with a yakuza enforcer, Kashima, because Kashima is cold, arrogant and abusive toward him. A visit from Kashima's underlings gives Motoki some hope, but is it false? Kirishima Tamaki, like Tamaki Wren, has a particular drawing style in which her men seem to have strangely flat facial features, even in the midst of emotional upheaval. But it is a stylistic element, not an inability to draw.

Violence seems to fit into Narusaka Rin's "red strawberries and white cream" aesthetic. Her gorgeous drawing feature sharp, spiky features and smoldering facial expressions, with ample visual allusions to Yamane Ayano's yakuza thrillers. So far the plot features wildcat yakuza punk, Miharu, beholden to nobody and who will drop an opponent at the merest whiff of provocation, subjugated by Yashiki, in a no-rules, no holds barred BDSM relationship complete with humiliation kink, toys, erotic asphyxiation, drugs and spectators. Yashiki runs a private club for it and Miharu's protests are more of a turn-on for that set. There are hints that Miharu is longing for some tenderness under that BAMF strut, and there are moments when weariness seems to drip off Yashiki before he resorts to something outrageous just because he's bored, and then, WHAM! The whole plot is resolved and over. It kind of shot its wad too quickly.

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.

Setting aside that the main story combines yakuza and incest as an aniki uses a tougher love than the usual to rescue his younger sibling from imminent self-destruction, and that the side stories include a writer whose best inspiration for graphic gore and horror comes from romantic rejection, there is a streak of realism running through this manga which makes for a worthwhile read. Not that the stories are realistic and it inclines toward dramedy and, yes, sadistic psychological horror more than tender romance, but there is something refreshing and natural about the drawing style and the way the characters reveal themselves and their motives, which rescues it from being the same old yaoi.