I’m just going to start the review with this panel because why not:
Alright, now that we’re all in the right mindset for taking about bad yaoi…
Camera Camera is a drama-filled shounen-ai that promises a ‘love pentagon.’ Our main character is Akira, who crushes on his older stepbrother Satoru. Satoru has another admirer, his female classmate Miyata, and they both compete for his attention. A photographer named Kaoru Nakahara enters the picture when Akira accidentally hits him with his bike. Kaoru is a cool, aloof tsundere who falls for Akira, but a cute younger boy named Daisuke wants Kaoru all to himself. So instead of a love pentagon it’s really more like a love Venn diagram – two love triangles that both have Akira in common.
This release follows a pattern that many older oversize June titles do – ok story with meh art. The linework is stiff and the characters always seem to have the same facial expressions – Akira in particular always seemed to have a dumb look on this face. The story is too long, wanders too much, and has too many characters. A lot of random stuff seems to be thrown in for the sake of drama and extending the story, such as Kaoru’s former girlfriend showing up (so he’s bi I guess?) who had had an extramarital affair with him. Despite the drama, the story is rather boring and feels sluggish. Besides Akira and the guy he ends up with (I won’t spoil it), the other characters don’t really have any satisfying endings, much less romantic ones, and they just sort of phase out of the story after the main couple gets together. It really didn’t need to be two volumes long, especially since there’s no sex scenes. The other characters’ relevance was based solely on their connection to Akira and they weren’t developed past that.
Kaoru and Akira’s relationship didn’t have seem to have any spark; Kaoru seems too aloof to care and Akira’s feelings for him just seemed to pale in comparison to those for his stepbrother Satoru. I also hated that Kaoru just up and leaves randomly to travel around the world for years, and eventually Akira decides to chase him. Real talk Akira, you could do way better than a guy who randomly abandons you for years without saying where he’s going or when he’ll be back.
Overall it’s just too basic and boring to read, especially since main character Akira’s conflict is pretty much resolved halfway through. Everything after that just feels like filler, especially since none of the other characters are really followed up on or get anything resolved.
TL;DR A sluggish, forgettable two-volume shounen-ai with pointless drama that added needless length, especially considering only an attempt was made to actually develop and resolve two main characters out of the five. While no element of it was outright terrible, it was entirely plain and trite.