I Thot You Was a Toad's manga / #artist(2)

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!

Recounts a sexual tryst between a homosexual archeology professor who is in a long-distance open relationship and a very proud, but previously straight, male artist who has completed some renderings on behalf of a female (married) lover for a restoration project in an Eqyptian necropolis. Kabra Kare provides us with stunning graphite drawings and strong visual references to classical western art, history and architecture, including some lovely images of Romantic Germany. The interesting character-driven plot asks whether pride, stubborness and integrity are character virtues or flaws. I look forward to seeing where this story takes us.