Creative Staff:
Story & Art: Chihiro Harumi
Translation/Adaptation: Jay Davidson and Klaus Gorman
What They Say:
Ryou and Minori’s secret is hanging by a thread as someone – or a few someones – try to weaken them by driving them apart. Ryou comes under fire as his co-workers begin to figure out the truth. Meanwhile, Minori discovers an opportunity to solve her boyfriend’s woes for good, but at a terrible price. Will their love triumph in the face of the greatest adversity they’ve faced yet? Find out in the conclusion of Love on the Job!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
As it appears, this is volume three of three and I have read exactly zero volumes before this. Despite that, the story is easy enough to pick up along the way, as these hentai things rarely have complex stories.
The character relations beyond their basic forms went over my head, having not read the previous volumes, but there was an interesting comparison between the scheming of Souma and Saiga, both trying to sabotage main characters Ryou and Minori. It appears that Ryou hurt Souma in some way prior to this and she wants revenge? It must have been explained in a previous volume, but I can get that much out of it. Her tough exterior hides her soft interior, basically a prototypical tsundere and it works fine in the context of the story. The true victim here is Todoroki, Ryou’s friend who was dating Souma at the time. At the conclusion, it appears they’ll continue dating because of poor Todoroki’s truthfulness. It was a nice little scene where, despite her relative infidelity, they’ll stay together for the sake of love.
On the other hand, Saiga appears to just be in it for the sex. He’s manipulating girls into basically selling their bodies to him for the sake of a promotion or, in Minori’s case, a job for Ryou. There’s a cool scene near the end when Ryou punches Saiga right in the face. It would be appreciated to get more out of the scene, but it just sort of happens and then ends. It felt nice, but unresolved.
The story itself is a rivalry between two companies of questionable nature (I’m sure this part is revealed in the first volume). It seems like it’s an anime/animation/visual novel company since they’re talking about leaked character designs to a rival company. Anyway, the two companies aren’t allowed to fraternize with each other. Like, at all. You’ll literally get fired if you do. Which is exactly what happens to Ryou, who works for Takebo, and Minori, who works for BNB, start dating and it’s forbidden. Each character seems to have allies within their own companies, but they turn out to be dicks (Souma and Saiga respectively). In the end, Chario purchases both companies—struggling because of their feud—and they essentially become one.
There’s nothing wrong with the story or the character interactions, really. But the explicit scenes could use a little work. Not that they’re drawn poorly or anything, the comic is actually one of the better hentai manga I’ve seen in terms of art. But the sex scenes are just shoehorned in there for the sake of having the sex scene. This is understandable to an extent, but it seems like it’s every sex scene that feels like this. In the previous three hentai manga I’ve read, this is not the case and the sex often feels like it’s put there after earning the place. It built up to that moment instead of having it there.
In Summary:
My biggest problem with the book is my own, in that I did not read the previous two volumes. That aside, the character interactions are quite nicely done and the internal struggle Ryou went through, deciding between his job and his girlfriend, was somewhat touching. Little moments, like between Todoroki and Souma, were few and far between (that might have been the only one?), but satisfactory. The story proved simple enough for me to jump in without previous knowledge, which is cool. I felt like the story was resolved a little too easily, and it almost felt deus ex machina-y. That aside, it was a pleasant enough hentai manga with great artwork and I could jump into it at the end without losing much integrity.
Content Grade: C
Art Grade: B
Packaging Grade: A
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: 18+
Released By: Project-H
Release Date: October 9th, 2013
MSRP: $17.95
