アフターグロウ [Afterglow]

by Wagimoko Wagase, 吾瀬わぎもこ

「最悪な夜に出会った沼な男――」
医学部をストレートで卒業し、心臓血管外科でエリートドクターの出世街道を歩んでいた樋口聖高。
しかし、専門医資格を取る直前に"とある理由"で九州の辺ぴな田舎町に内科医としての異動を命じられ、現在はご老人たちのキツい訛りのリスニングに日々、悪戦苦闘している。
左遷とも言える自分の状況を嘆きヤケ酒を繰り返す聖高は、ある日の夜、酔い潰れて泣いているところを、"テンジュ"と名乗るヤクザの男に助けられ、訳も分からないまま淫らな行為に耽ってしまい――

Genres: Manga, Romance, LGBT, Yaoi, Boys Love, Contemporary, Adult

188 pages, Kindle Edition

Published March 14, 2014

Reviews

[zy忍 · Rating 2 out of 5]

2 stars cuz the art is pretty but the story and character background were lazy and uninspired.

[Peppa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where there are yakuzas, there I go🙏🏻 A good plot and the smut is delicious and hot. Very nice art.
They both make a very good couple!!

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

•4 stars•

The artwork was gorgeous, and even though the story moved a tad too quickly, it stayed narratively cohesive and compelling. Plus, I’m a sucker for anything involving the yakuza~ A solid vibe read with low angst and smutty seggs 😍

[Eric Novello · Rating 4 out of 5]

Boy's love de máfia publicado no Brasil pela New Pop.
Ele é volume único, o que é uma vantagem, mas no final tive a impressão de a história ter sido planejada para um arco maior e a autoria ter dado uma enxugada para fechar em apenas um volume.

Ele conta a história de um médico cardiologista que, depois de ver um paciente morrer "nas suas mãos", não consegue mais operar e vai trabalhar como clínico num hospital menor de uma cidade pequena. Enquanto tenta superar o trauma ele esbarra com um mafioso que fica a fim dele, e a partir daí temos o vaivém de sempre, com o mafioso também lidando com seus problemas de disputa por território, liderança das gangues, etc (você sabe como funciona).

A arte é muito bonita, acima da média, e é um dos pontos fortes do mangá. Isso contribui para o impacto das muitas cenas de sexo protagonizadas pelos dois ao longo da história. Os momentos sexuais intensos são intercalados com interações mais fofas em que um personagem ajuda o outro a superar os seus problemas e com contextos e backgrounds de ambos. Mas o foco mesmo é o romance e isso tem um arco bem fechado.

Sobre o background de cada um e as histórias para além do romance, ser volume único claramente deu uma prejudicada. Não duvido que no futuro a autoria se dedique a escrever uma versão mais desenvolvida da história, trazendo mais personagens para ajudar na missão.

Para quem quer distrair a cabeça ou para quem curte cenas de sexo bem desenhadas, vale muito.
Para histórias mais elaboradas, sugiro ir de "Noite além da janela triangular", com dez volumes.

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ich bin überrascht, dass für die Menge an Sex sogar wirklich noch sowas wie ne Story dazu gekommen ist :D weil wir fangen eigentlich ziemlich pornomäßig an *snort*.
Der Sex is unzensiert und SEHR steamy im vergleich zu einigen anderen BLs, die Charaktere sind wirklich extrem schön gezeichnet und die kleine Hintergrundstory ist überraschend süß und nachvollziehbar. Beide Kerle wirken ziemlich erwachsen udn selbst der Yakuzakerl, von dem man erst denkt, oh das is wieder so ein typischer Proll-BL-Typ, ist viel vielschichtiger als man denkt.
Ich mag auch die ganze Idee mit dem Arzt und seine Anxiety weil er eine OP verkackt hat und was daraus alles gewachsen ist. Dazu kommt dass der Band (trotz der 01 im Titel) eigentlich auch gut abgeschlossen ist. Dazu kommt kein typische misskomunikations-Drama, wie man das gerne hat, es ist irgendwie super ruhig - wenn nicht gerade gevögelt wird *snigger*.

[nicole · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5

[anyi · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.25

[rory (jess' version) · Rating 4 out of 5]

the art is so good !! the characters are all pretty. their romance might be too good to be true but damn this was incredible

[Cas ✨ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another soft-hearted yakuza? Please inject them directly into my veins at this point (might as well add something fun to my infusions 😂 jkjk).

This was so good. I adore that both the doctor with PTSD MC and the yakuza with a sad backstory ML get a chance to be vulnerable despite being a shorter story. Their chemistry was so good too, beyond just being two lonely men seeking comfort and to forget for a bit.

The beginning starts a little dubious due to the alcohol factor & Doc being a skittish former virgin, but ML is so likeable that it’s easy to hang in there for the explanations/backstory and their bond to slowly form.

[Nayli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me sorprendió que me gustara, fue incluso más soft de lo que esperaba, no es tan común con yakuzas i guess

[Zephorah Dove · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid 3.5

[Janina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Expliziter als erwartet haha. Ich hatte nur den Klappentext gelesen, aber wenn man den Manga umdreht, steht da noch fettgedruckt drunter 'Hot - sehr explizite Erotik im Yakuza-Milieu' lol. Aber hat mir gut gefallen, obwohl der Dirty Talk etwas gewöhnungs-bedürftig für mich war. Die beiden Hauptcharaktere mochte ich zusammen, bin aber etwas verwirrt, weil die Geschichte sehr abgeschlossen wirkte, es aber 01 heißt. Vielleicht ein anderes Pärchen in der gleichen Welt?

tw/cw: Mafia, traumatisches Erlebnis, Sex / mit und ohne Spielzeuge/Extras

[Hayeley Norris · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite 💖

[Frank Chillura (OhYouRead) · Rating 5 out of 5]

OMG! They are so hot!!! A Yakuza and a Doctorate student, both of which have a lot of past trauma, finding and saving each other. This was trauma porn, but also actual porn and I loved it.

[ross! ★ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Me habría gustado que hubiera más desarrollo. Usualmente, no me atraen las historias que empiezan con gogogo; prefiero aquellas que avanzan lento pero seguro! Aun así, estuvo bien 👍

[空 · Rating 4 out of 5]

After a traumatic experience, Kiyotaka, our “elite doctor”, is serving as sort of a GP, listening to patients’ complaints instead of performing high-octane surgery or whatever. It’s here that he meets “Tenju”, who is part of the local yakuza, and his life is ~irrevocably changed.

I mean, for one thing, he gets fucked on the regular.

This manga seems largely self-indulgent and I’m OK with that. I know we can’t be all “THIS ISN’T REALISTIC,” when nothing about BL is remotely realistic, but for realsies, Wagimoko was like “I want to draw a hot man with a back tattoo, and he will have a happy ending.”

Here follows a mix of thoughts and spoilers, you have been warned:


✦ Tenju is unreal. He’s everything Maya (see 酷くしないで) wishes he could be, only Tenju actually is a bad boy. Scratch that: he’s a bad, bad man. Possibly an actual killer—he has definitely beaten up a lot of people in his lifetime—but the manga is like, “shhh, don’t look at that. Don’t think about that. Don’t you see how sweet and tender he is towards Kiyotaka? How crazy he is about Kiyotaka?” This person does not exist in real life, only in manga—and only in アフターグロウ.

But this is not a complaint, because I am on board with Wagimoko’s self-indulgent manga where, despite Tenju not leaving the organization, they have a happy ending (a happy for now ending?). Tenju can be happy with a カタギ, and apparently his indulgent adoptive father (also the head of the organization) is happy to have Tenju shack up (for all intents and purposes) with someone outside of the family. That said, it’s probably useful to have a medical doctor outside of the family very closely linked to someone in your organization. And also it’s probably good to reward loyalty (Tenju was so loyal he took a bullet for his adoptive father); you don’t want to alienate the man who saved your life.

Aside: I do like the idea that at some point Kiyotaka will no longer be quite so “clean.” I imagine him being persuaded to offer under-the-table medical services to members in the organization. Everything you touch, Tenju, will fall into shadow. Tenju would absolutely be so torn up about it, because he is that kind of dramatic fucker.

✦ Kiyotaka is also this remarkable combination of sweet and sexy, and you can totally understand why Tenju went nuts for him. I can’t believe he was like, “I don’t care about what you do! I’m not going to interfere!” (*cue Backstreet Boys’ As Long As You Love Me in the background*) when he was confessing his love to Tenju.

It was a good monologue though, coming on the heels of Tenju telling Kiyotaka to “leave and never show your face here again”:

お前の生きてる世界が危険だってことも
そこから逃げ出す気が更々ないことも
覚悟はできてる
お前の生き方に干渉するつもりはない
でも
この俺を落とした責任とって
せめて傍にいさせろ

I mean, that’s why Tenju afterwards tells Kiyotaka:

落とすつもりが
落とされたんは俺のほうやったか

✦ I couldn’t help but root for Kiyotaka and Tenju though, despite thinking how much of a mindfuck it was to root for the happiness of a man who probably beat someone to death and is engaged in distributing illegal, possibly lethal drugs, and potentially also the skin trade. You ignore all of that because the manga tells you to ignore all of that. It’s not really all that important to the story, only that this is a love story and don’t these two hot dudes deserve a happy ending?

Sure, why not. Tenju and Kiyotaka are hot together and apart, so they absolutely deserve to be happy.

✦ I can’t help but think of some of the dark paths their story could end. They could die together old and happy. Or they could die together in a shootout or beaten to death. Or someone could kidnap Kiyotaka and use him as leverage against Tenju, only to kill both him and Tenju after. Or Tenju could die first, leaving Kiyotaka to live the rest of his life alone, unable to regret giving his heart to someone who he knew could die anytime, and also unable to move on (because how do you move on from Tenju). But sure, we can go with the very first option.

✦ To end on a more upbeat note: Wagimoko’s art is so good. Tenju and Kiyotaka are both grown, actual men who reasonably have means to get fit and keep being fit. (Tenju is 32, but for the life of me I can’t figure out how old Kiyotaka is. He’s got to be in his 30s considering he’s a doctor. 35?) I’ll be on the lookout for more of Wagimoko’s work.


In conclusion:

♪
I don’t care who you are
Where you’re from
What you did
As long as you love me...

[K · Rating 2 out of 5]

Was pretty hopeful about this one; the cover art was gorgeous, the character design and art looked promising, and the synopsis was intriguing. A young cardiovascular surgeon winds up working in a countryside medical office after a mysteriously traumatic incident, and forms an unexpected relationship with a local yakuza.

Great potential, right? Except there's just no emotional connection at all. There were a ton of ideas packed into a story that was too thin to hold them. (Like an artery that's primed to burst, I guess.)

We start off with Higuchi outside of a bar late at night, following his usual routine of trying to drown away his sorrows. A handsome guy wearing sunglasses (at night) comes up to him, speaks to him in Chinese, then switches to Japanese (for some reason surprised that he's meeting a Japanese guy in a remote Japanese seaside town?) and offers to cheer him up.

They go and have marathon sex, which is a little dodgy on the consent side due to how extremely sloshed Higuchi is, but he's aware enough to enjoy it and to remember it the next day. When Tenju shows up again - letting himself into Higuchi's house without an invitation - he decides he's going to make Higuchi fall for him, and proceeds down a seduction path that lasts a couple months, maybe.

During this time, Tenju shows up whenever he's in town (not sure where he actually lives, but he only seems to check the ports periodically), semi-abducts Higuchi, and then sleeps with him. Which he engages in as a sort of Educational Exercise, because Higuchi is a 29 year old virgin doctor. Unlikely, but sure. It's part of the story's kink, I guess. Even Tenju's subordinate says "that's hot" when he finds out.

Speaking of kinks...there were a couple included that I'm super not into, which is two too many for a single volume.

This could've all been fine if there had been actual conversations or relationship development happening, but Tenju just shows Higuchi some factory lights, tells him what you do in a place is more important than where you are, and listens when Higuchi tells him his big traumatic medical story.

Higuchi had been trapped in an unexpected situation where he failed to save a patient who'd had a sudden rupture that hadn't even been flagged in a pre-surgery check, and with no other surgeons around to step in. Higuchi wasn't experienced enough to handle it on his own yet, but all his colleagues assured him a skilled, certified surgeon wouldn't have succeeded either. Nevertheless, because he has a kind heart and truly cared about his patients, valuing them as people and not just bodies on a surgery table, he couldn't get over it, and had panic attacks when he heard patients coding or had to pick up a scalpel.

Yet he was still upset and offended to be sent away to be a country doctor who wasn't doing surgeries anymore.

And, somehow, even though he has tons of actual medical professionals who are very gentle and caring with him, he only gets over his panic when Tenju says no, you did your best, you'll save lots of other people.

And then disappears for weeks! And is ready to never interact with him ever again!

The only reason Tenju returns to sleep with him once more is because his subordinate convinces him to go see his "lover." Whom he doesn't consider an actual lover because he doesn't want to drag "civilians" into the yakuza life. Then when he tries to abandon Higuchi again, the same subordinate shows up and takes him to Tenju.

There's this speech where Higuchi says he's in love with him and he's a doctor so he's not afraid of death and would be okay with losing him. Which is...fine I guess. Except that's exactly the opposite of who he is, considering his breakdown.

He ends up deciding to stay in this small town, mostly because he doesn't want to leave Tenju. And they live happily ever after. And then have more sex.

That's pretty much all the depth there is. It's not a terrible story, but it's not a great one, either.

[Sol · Rating 2 out of 5]

I genuinely might have just not been in the right mood when reading this, so please take my review with a grain of salt :') Sometimes I Read Grouchy TM

But god, the main love interest of this bothered me so much. I found him so incredibly dorky. He's a yakuza, but we never really see him do anything super yakuza-esque at all. With his dorky glasses and his haircut and this sweet little smile he's always wearing, I honestly never found him sexy or intimidating at all. He is just such a goober, I can't. It also makes any kind of dirty talk he does very cringe-inducing for me because he so doesn't even have any kind of dom vibe to me. Bro is as sweet as a teddy bear, don't lie to me!

I also had no interest in our main character, and found their circumstances of meeting very dull. Again, I might have just been grouchy while reading, but I felt like every time I flipped the page I was waiting for something interesting to happen. But I feel like the mangaka chose two very exciting character types -- a surgeon and a yakuza -- and chose to do absolutely nothing interesting with that. The surgeon can't perform surgery and the yakuza is actually a really nice guy. Okay then, why make them those things if you're going to tell a perfectly normal and vanilla love story? Yawn.

Overall, not egregiously offensive or anything, but I didn't like the story, I didn't like the characters, and unfortunately, I didn't like the art. There were a few panels that wowed me but a lot of times, the anatomy looked weird to me, and the love interest's face just pisses me off for some reason. (Sorry for my grouchy) (Thank you for reading)

[ℂ ✧ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una història BL d'amor entre un yakuza i un doctor traumatitzat després de perdre un pacient que es refugia en un petit poble per fer de metge de capçalera. Inevitable pensar en Jealousy, Vol. 1 o Pájaro que trina no vuela, Volumen 1, però tal com apunten algunes ressenyes, aquí s'obvia deliberadament la mala vida que duu el Tenju, amb la qual cosa hem d'assumir que tracta el metge amb delicadesa malgrat la brutalitat de la seva feina. Per mi el problema és la visió edulcorada de la relació, que per descomptat no pretén ser realista, però acaba sent poc coherent, precipitada i un pèl superficial quan els protes expliquen els seus rerefons. Amb tot, és un bon volum únic amb unes il·lustracions precioses, sobretot de l'esquena tatuada del yakuza, que han circulat molt per les xarxes :3

[Paula (lovebookscl) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diría que 3.8 ⭐ pero lo dejo en 4⭐

Es un manga con más smut que plot, lo cual no es mi forma predilecta pero tampoco es algo que encuentre malo. Hubiera preferido más desarollo de la relación entre los protagonistas, de todas formas disfruté de la historia.

Para ser un manga con un Yakuza, no hay mucha violencia en el relato. Se deja fuera de página y en general la relación es bastante soft.

Además me encantó el estilo de dibujo, precioso en todos sus detalles.

[Fer Reyna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Definitivamente el edit de The Archer x Not Strong enough es para ellos.
No esperaba que esta historia me gustará tanto al punto de releerla en ese momento.
Quisiera que fuera más largo pero supongo que eso es porque amé a los personajes y estaba más curiosa en el como ellos dos se desenvolverían como pareja.
Yo los tqm mucho y espero poder ver más de ellos, aunque sean ilustraciones ㅠㅠ 😭

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 3.5*

I feel like I've read this several times, but this is the first time I've ever marked it as read lol. I really enjoy this story and the art and the relationship. I just want more. It was all done really well, but I can't help, but feel like it's missing something. I'll probably read it again in the future though maybe when the physical copy comes out.

[natan · Rating 4 out of 5]

quando li o primeiro capítulo achei que seria só mais pegação entre eles, mas me surpreendi com uma história mais profunda com traumas. foi rapidinho e bem gostoso de ler. o traço é muito lindo e os dois uns fofos juntos.

[emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded down because the story was a little lacking in exposition. If things were more fleshed out the plot points would have had more impact. There is so much potential here. The art is so insanely good and beautiful though!

[eesee · Rating 2 out of 5]

— 2.5 stars


What a great waste of art and impeccable character design on such mediocre writing. Emotional buildup? We don’t know her. We do know instalove and flimsy explanations of feelings though!

[Paloma · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally some characters that communicate smoothly and behave like adults do. Tenju is a green forest, 10/10.
I’ll add that the smut scenes were one of the most detailed and beautiful I’ve ever seen.

[Anj · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

the 0.5 is for the really pretty art (tenju's tattoos!!!)

anyway, the plot was a lot more serious than i expected. however, i think the soft-hearted yakuza trope is pretty tired at this point.

[Aleksandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

The art is so pretty

[Linny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not everyday you find a Yaoi with medical talk which was done well. Felt like a grey’s anatomy episode..? :) I do wish for a bit MORE just a bit but 4.5 stars

[July · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.0
Story is simple but cute. The translations I read were sadly very lacking...