Sometimes you can’t worry about if the camera is rolling.
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Nekomata Naomi
What They Say:
This foxy babe works her butt off, but…
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Originally serialized in Comic Kairakuten BEAST from the April 2024 installment, Sour and Sweet-Up is a twenty-six-page story from creator Nekomata Naomi, who has over two dozen or so other works on the service. I’ve been hit or miss with their material because of the tags but this one had all the right ones, and after having a decent story with the With a Realistic Touch chapter a couple of months ago, I wanted to get back into the groove of their work with more of their work. The simple thing, however, is that the artwork is great as I really like their designs in general, especially with clothing and settings, and that helps to really make it feel far more immersive and real in a way than so much of the very bland and basic hentai I grew up on.
The premise for this is straightforward as we get a small restaurant run by Koharu and her grandma and it’s a pretty busy place. She’s all smiles and doing the selling side of things during the day but they need help. She’s not keen on the help though, hence the low wages, but also the big surprise when Tamaki applies for the job after she encourages him. When he goes for the interview, however, he stumbles upon her in the back room where she’s off-duty, drinking, and just decompressing. Which means she doesn’t have the adorable seller vibe thing going but more of a weary and blunt person. She ends up in a bit of a tussle with Tamaki until they figure out what’s really going on and she decides to try and buy some of his silence on the matter with a little fooling around.
Of course, the fooling around goes into something else pretty quickly, especially for a first-timer like Tamaki. While she pushes him over the edge quickly he’s able to get back on track just as quickly and she realizes it’s been a while and she’s game for some real fun. This leads to her tormenting him a good bit more – he’s certainly embarrassed at times throughout this – but quickly finds his pace and that kind of enthusiasm goes a long way in driving into Koharu. It’s a pretty simple wham bam thank you ma’am kind of piece in a lot of ways but you can tell there’s a vibe at work here and the two definitely click at least in this way. And you can see how over the course of it that Tamaki gains a bit more confidence and he’s in no way turned away by her personality shift when not serving the public.
In Summary
The story has a pretty good if familiar concept behind it and overall it works well. But, for me, the character designs didn’t quite click and some of the pacing just felt a bit off. The personality shift wasn’t as strong as it implies either so there wasn’t like a radical change or anything here, just someone decompressing a bit. The face someone wears to work versus what they have in private is a familiar one, however. Tamaki basically lucks into a great life here by getting to know the real here and likely seeing a lot more of her and it’s fun overall. But it just wasn’t as strong artistically or character-wise for me to really get into it and enjoy it.
Content Grade: C+
Art Grade: B-
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: 18+
Released By: FAKKU
Release Date: April 2024
MSRP: FAKKU Subscription
