Café Latte Rhapsody, created by Toko Kawai, is a charming bit of fluff that I ran across in my Amazon Recommendations. The reviews made it sound appealing, and I found it in the Marketplace for next to nothing.
Hajime Serizawa is short, freckled, and works in a bookstore. He notices Keito Tsudo McCloud, who is very tall and looks pretty scary -- at first. Seri-kun soon realizes, however, that Keito is shy, awkward, and sweet, as well as being more than a little exotic: aside from being phenomenally tall, he has hazel eyes and dark auburn hair. It turns out he is part Japanese, part French-Canadian, part French, and part Chinese. Serizawa is strongly attracted, but it's Keito who confesses first.
There's not a lot of tension in this story, which for some reason didn't really bother me that much, even though I tend to prefer stories with a lot of undercurrents. The conflicts are minor, and largely centered on the respective insecurities of the two young men: Serizawa doesn't think he's very attractive, and Keito has trouble communicating -- Japanese is not his first language. The characters have a bit more depth than one might expect, and Kawai has been somewhat circumspect in revealing them -- there's enough subtlety in the writing that the reader does have something to do.
The drawing has a lot of charm, and I didn't even mind the many chibi frames, perhaps because they're not limited to broad comedic reactions, but also include moments of what I can only describe as "quiet comfort" -- those moments when the boys are just being happy together.
All in all, it's a feel-good story, very good for an hour or so when you don't want to tax your brain but want something light to fill the time.
From Juné.
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