SUBLIME MANGA/Shinshokane – @SuBLimeManga
[This review was originally posted on Patreon.]
MANGAKA: Isaku Natsume
TRANSLATION: Adrienne Beck
LETTERS: Vanessa Satone
EDITOR: Marlene First
ISBN: 978-1-9747-0496-5; paperback (September 2019); Rated “M” for “Mature”
194pp, B&W, $12.99 U.S., $17.99 CAN, £8.99 UK
Candy Color Paradox is a yaoi manga from manga creator, Isaku Natsume (Dash!). Yaoi manga is a subset of boys' love (or BL) manga, which depicts amorous situations between male romantic leads. Yaoi manga usually features explicit depictions of sex between those male leads.
Candy Color Paradox follows two reporters: investigative reporter, Satoshi Onoe, and photojournalist, Motoharu “Kabu” Kaburagi. Their boss at the news agency, Shinkan News, forces them to work together. Onoe and Kaburagi bicker, but eventually become colleagues... and lovers.
As Candy Color Paradox, Vol. 3 (Chapters 1 to 5) opens, Onoe and Kaburagi are on an undercover assignment... that goes wrong. No problem: their boss, Kiuchi, gives Kabu a new partner, a young reporter and new hire named Kasai, who comes over from a rival agency. A little jealous, Onoe discovers that not only is Kasai talented, but he also has a score to settle with Onoe. Kasai has decided that keeping Kabu's attention on him and away from Onoe is also goal. He seems to be winning until his ambition puts his and Onoe's life in danger with the mysterious Kenyu Group.
[This volume includes the bonus stories, “Necktie A-Go-Go!,” and “A Bar by the Station, 8:00 PM,” “Happy Vacation,” and “Kaburagi's POV,”and it has an afterword.]
The Candy Color Paradox manga is a yaoi manga that is also a workplace comedy-drama. However, this opposites-attract love story does give the readers scenes of boys' love lovemaking and yaoi-type sex.
Candy Color Paradox Graphic Novel Volume 3 focuses on workplace melodrama and rivalries, whereas the previous volumes focused on the characters' personalities and attitudes about their friends and loved ones. I enjoy these characters, and I like that they are reporters. However, I found this volume to be a bit dry at times. Onoe vs. Kasai ain't as intense or as interesting as creator Isaku Natsume probably thought it would be.
Still, Chapter 5 (entitled “Drop. 05” here) is a nice ending. The story closes with a nice sex scene, and the extra stories are comic vignettes focusing on the leads and their closest friends and associates. That's nice, too, Adrienne Beck's translation and Vanessa Satone's lettering are good. So in the end, Candy Color Paradox, Vol. 3 is nice and good. I'd like the next volume (which were recently published) to be very nice and very good.
7 out of 10
Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux a.k.a. "I Reads You"
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