Volume 1 Introduction: Two working people have a company life (on) and a personal life (off). One is office worker and women's clothing Lolita. The other is office worker and masculine punk. The gap between their on and off lives will make you fall in love with them! The popular manga, which has received over 2 million likes on Twitter, has been adapted from an illustration to a comic book with a complete panel layout!
(Translator: DeepL)
Be Still My Beating Heart
Paragrpahs edited into a different order to prevent spoilers showing in the preview.
Language wise, it's a bit interesting. It has full furigana, which I didn't expect, but it seems part of the publisher's standards. The furigana makes the office terminology a bit easier to look up. As for specialized terms outside of the office, there's usually a little note about lolita terms, so you don't have to know/learn lolita vocab to pick this up. There wasn't really any punk terms, but I think that's probably because it's a relatively low-density text. It was a super smooth read, and I will nominate it for a book club at some point. Just not sure if the queer book club, beginner book club, or absolute beginner book club is best. I don't know if I'd consider this entry level since being familiar with office and fashion culture in Japan will make it a much more satisfying read, but anyone who's watched enough anime before learning Japanese would probably have a good go of it.
Ok, first off, as a genderqueer bisexual, I absolutely loved this. It's a romance between a man who dresses in lolita dresses and a woman who wears punk clothing in their off time. It's implied gently for the man, more openly for the woman, that they think each other is the gender associated with their clothes and not their actual gender. If you check out the labels in the manga, it specifically says the man is crossdressing and for the woman, it doesn't say she's crossdressing and affirms she is female, but the man gives her compliments more typical for guys. So either they're gay/bi/pan and I am so so so here for it.
On top of my queer delight, they are both working adults with seemingly healthy work/life balance and they don't seem to have major communication issues?? Additionally! The mangaka seems to be a married man and the pair was his wife's suggestion! So this seems to be an adult (not in the sexual sense) romance created by someone who has the life experience of a healthy marriage! Exceeds expectations!