This is the classical manga that "had potential". While the story the mangaka wanted to give us is abundantly clear, she didn't succeed in setting the pace like it should have been. It's not nearly as slow as it should have been for that type of story. Just think of this: the more complicated and longer the relationship, the more chapters you need. If it's just boy meets boy, falls in love, it's acceptable to make it quick. Add one complication and it has to be at least twice as long. In their case, the fact they had a long relationship make it impossible to solve it that quickly. If not, why hadn't it been solved in all those years? There has to be a reason why it changed. Why would the characters understand their mutual feelings out of the blue, when they weren't able to during all those years?
To me this manga had a great first chapter and the whole rest of it feels like ending chapters only, rather than a beginning, a middle and an end. Even when we get a glimpse of their past, it's always incomplete, rushed memories.
You can tell if a manga is good (any type of story, really) or if there is something missing by seeing if it answers all of your questions. This one doesn't. Let me give some examples:
- How did they become friends in the first place? They don't seem like they would have anything in common if there wasn't a specific circumstance that made them meet.
- Why did they start having that kind of relationship (sexual)? Just because of a kiss? - which, also, happened out of the blue.
- What happens to that guy that kissed Kasumi and was he in love with him?
- How did they fall in love with each other?
- How come, at the end, they just accepted they were in love, if they didn't say anything about it, no one confessed?
- How did they end up living together?
Also, the characters are a bit underdeveloped. Sure, they seem to have different, unique personalities. But that's because they fit into a mold. Kasumi is the violent, in-denial uke. I feel like the mangaka uses a lot of his violence to get some comedy into the manga - which I personally things takes up the space of some important stuff that could've been going on instead. Yoshiaki is the plain businessman. It seems a bit shallow to me that Yoshiaki wouldn't figure out Kasumi was in love with him even though he kept coming back. If there was an explanation, like "I was just a body for him to have someone to sleep with", it would've been better.
Also, the guy who Kasumi was working with didn't get any story or even a one-shot afterwards, even though it seemed he had a relationship with the model, too. The one-shot at the end is pure comedy, really boring for my tastes, and yet she couldn't write about a strong second character.
Please understand this is not a bad review. It's actually the opposite. I liked this manga, but, as some one who's read more yaoi than anyone can imagine, I think it has a lot of weak points.
Some of the good parts are the beautiful art and the ending, though. I thought it was unique, something I rarely see in yaoi.