Candy Color Paradox (Japanese title: Ameiro Paradox, literally "Amber Paradox") is a Yaoi manga by Isaku Natsume.
Satoshi Onoe, a weekly magazine reporter, is forced to team up with the company photographer Motoharu Kaburagi, for whom his girlfriend left him, and someone he considers a rival. While working together, Onoe gets closer to Kaburagi, and his ethically questionable techniques to get a scoop.
The manga has been serialized since 2009 in the magazine Cheri+, and is among the 6 titles of the magazine that was be adapted in an OVA called 6 Lovers. The manga is also licensed in English by Viz Media. The manga also got a live-action adaptation in 2022.
Tropes
- Annoying Younger Sibling: Noriko, Kaburagi's younger sister. Kaburagi has a bad relationship with his family as a whole, and as soon as he meets her, he runs away and leaves Onoe to take care of it.
- Arc Villain:
- In Volume 3, Kasai is the antagonist that is mining Onoe's confidence by trying to one up him professionally.
- In Volume 4, Inami is a nice looking actor that Onoe is made to investigate and that may have a shady involvement with the AV industry.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Inami is a rather nice guy who doesn't mind the fact that Onoe is tailing him since that's his job. Kaburagi isn't fooled, and when he calls him out he's hiding something, Inami drops the act and says that, if he continues proding, he intends to make Onoe suffer the same fate the actresses he had swindled had. Then it's revealed that, while he had been doing shady business and trapping porn actresses to a company through debt, he actually had no connections to anyone that could actually harm Onoe.
- Crazy Jealous Guy: Kaburagi is very easily made jalous of the men onoe hangs out with, especially Masayan, his closest friend and go-to confidant.
- Crossover: One extra chapter includes the crossover of this manga with one of Isaku's other works, Doushiyoumo Nai Keredo, in which both couples are eating at the same place at the same time, with only one wall between them. Kaburagi gets jealous when Onoe fanboys over how cool Kurokawa looks.
- Heel–Face Turn: Kasai is introduced as a rival reporter to Onoe, eager to one up him as payback for stealing his scoop multiple times when he was working in another company. After they are kidnapped together, and Onoe stands up for him against some of his former coworkers, Kasai is very much friendly to the main couple, except for the fact that Kaburagi is aware that Kasai is now crushing on Onoe and dislikes when they spend time together.
- Intrepid Reporter: Both Onoe and Kaburagi are dedicated reporters, however, Kaburagi is more willing than his partner to do whatever it takes to get what information he wants, up to and including sleeping with sources.
- Lonely Rich Kid: This is heavily implied to be the case for Kaburagi, and one reason why he has grown distant to his family over his adulthood, as he feels that they never communicate with each other, and a flashback shows he only had one friend in high school.
- Love Martyr: Inami is a closeted man that is in love with his high school friend and carries a torch for him well into his 40s and after said friend got married. Multiple times Inami lends him money and has since even started helping him trap actresses on their way out of fame into becoming porn actresses for him and throw them in debt if they try to leave. When the investigation on him is finished, he finally realizes he needs to cut this off since his career is probably over because of that man.
- Running Gag: Onoe being slow footed, and therefore often being too slow to follow targets,
- Secretly Wealthy: Volume 5 reveals that Kaburagi's family is pretty rich and has their own company.
- Toxic Friend Influence: After Onoe manages to get a scoop without Kaburagi help (or even him realizing that he was going it), Kaburagi grows distant and eventually is made to admit the fact that he feels he's making Onoe a worse person, since he was always the one making the ethically dubious parts of the work that Onoe couldn't bring himself to do.
