After Hours

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Read this if you are looking for: A tender yuri story in Tokyo’s nightlife scene with just enough drama.

Recommendation: Pick it up!

“After Hours” follows unemployed Emi who is whisked into the world of nightclubs and raves by new acquaintance and DJ Kei. The two women bond quickly as Emi joins Kei’s group of friends and helps put on events, even as Emi struggles to deal with both her past and future. Kei and Emi are a joy to watch, as Nishio Yuhta’s character art greatly enhances comedy and drama alike, and detailed panels and wardrobes bring to life the dazzling world that has so enthralled ... Emi. Many of the more tiresome yuri clichés are avoided, and while the overall narrative of the women’s relationship is nothing new to the genre, the adult characters and unique setting help make “After Hours” feel very fresh.

I'm not typically the kind of person who reads romance novels. I find them very cliched and formulaic.

Which is exactly what After Hours is.

The thing that sold it to me is the chemistry between the characters, I found them very enjoyable and they felt human. At least to me.

The rest is okay, the plot is formulaic girl meets girl they fall head over heals for silly reasons, contrivance happens and they nearly break up but blondy's conviction results in her patching things up with her girlfriend and everyone doesn't live happily ever after.

I think more than the characters, the thing that stuck with me with ... After Hours was the ending.
Things don't turn out perfectly okay, we don't return to our established status quo but they also don't flop miserably. It felt like a bitter dose of realism in an otherwise silly romance story. A feeling I found deeply relatable and one that moved me to consider After Hours among my favourite manga series.

After Hours was a decent yuri story, although I thought the writing was immature (i.e., poorly architected and constructed), at least in regard to the romantic pieces. I liked the club/nightlife theme and the level of detail afforded to it by the author (although I'm unable to verify the accuracy, not being familiar with this topic myself). The art was fine, but nothing exceptional. While I doubt this will be a memorable story for most, I think it's worth a read if you have an interest in the genre.

The story revolves entirely around the activities of the two main characters, Emi and Kei. The personalities ... of these two are well constructed given the length of the series, and Emi in particular gets a fairly significant amount of character development. The author does a good job of detailing her thoughts, fears, and decisions as she gets increasingly involved with Kei and the DJ scene. However, their backgrounds are shallow, which causes problems with certain components of the story (more on this later) and creates some inconsistencies in their characters. The supporting cast was given just enough detail for them to fulfill their roles. They weren't particularly good or bad.

I enjoyed reading about the DJ/nightlife antics of Kei, Emi, and crew, but the romance was weak. I think the level of detail and coherence of the series' environment and non-romantic elements speaks to the author's confidence in constructing these pieces. This is clearly absent in the romantic portions. Kei and Emi's romance starts early in the series and remains flat for most of it. The climaxes of their romance are short, simple, and ultimately quite ineffectual. One reason I think they fall flat is that some of the most significant events are the product of the baggage Kei and Emi brought with them into the relationship, yet the author barely elaborates on their past (Kei in particular is a victim here) and does not provide what I thought to be adequate foreshadowing. Overall, I think the content of the story was somewhat interesting, but the structure was sorely lacking.