All You Want, Whenever You Want Manga Review – Review

If there’s one thing I very much appreciate about Tokyopop‘s current incarnation (apart from the fact that they’ve been doing quite well with their BL licensing choices), it’s how they list content warnings on their product pages. Rather than simply noting that a book has explicit sexual content, they detail the issues a reader might have with a given title. For example, the page for All You Want, Whenever You Want contains the following warning: “This book contains mature content including explicit sexual content, alcohol use, romantic/sexual relations between coworkers, and a relationship between a manager and subordinate, and is not meant for anyone under 18 years of age.” While it may feel overdone for readers for whom none of those are issues, readers who might find it challenging to get behind the sort of power imbalance that is implied by a manager and his subordinate having a sexual relationship know that this isn’t the book for them to spend their money on. Helping readers make good choices for them is, in my opinion, a very good thing.

It’s also worth noting that this series means it when it says that it has explicit sexual content. Although there is more to the story than just sex, creator Omayu doesn’t shy away from drawing pretty much everything when it comes to that. Penises, testicles, pubic hair, penetration – it’s all there with no censoring. If you want BL raciness, this fits the bill admirably, but the bonus is that there’s a decent story here as well. Tsubaki, the older of the two men, is a middle manager at a company, and he’s figured out that the best way to get through work is to grin and bear it when dealing with borderline abusive upper management. As far as he’s concerned, it’s easier than fighting back, and if he just smoothly steps in and takes the blame onto himself, he can also protect his subordinates from the wrath of petty people. Does this mean that Tsubaki takes a disproportionate amount of work on himself? Yes, but it feels like a reasonable tradeoff since he’s recently had a bad enough breakup that he’s now living in the company dorm.

Tsubaki has had a run of bad luck when it comes to love, with men falling for his pretty face and sweet demeanor and then later realizing that it wasn’t, in fact, love at first sight as they originally professed. Because of this, Tsubaki has primarily sworn off serious relationships, which makes him very leery of Makino, the new hire at the company. Makino witnessed Tsubaki standing up for a coworker almost as soon as he joined the department. He’s impressed by the man’s gentle approach to the situation – and then when they bump into each other (fairly literally) in the shared bath at the company dorm, where Makino has just moved, he adds a healthy dollop of physical attraction to the list. Makino realizes early on that he’s falling head over heels for Tsubaki, but because of his past experience, Tsubaki can’t entirely trust that. Instead, he suggests they become friends with benefits, to which Makino reluctantly agrees.

The main drive of the romance plot is Tsubaki attempting to ignore the fact that he’s rapidly falling in love with Makino. While Makino is perfectly comfortable with his feelings and the fact that, technically, Tsubaki has power over him as his superior at work, Tsubaki needs time to come to terms with all of those things. He’s keenly aware of their work positions and very hurt by past breakups, which makes him question the advisability of sleeping with Makino, much less dating him. He’s also a bit concerned about the other two men living in the dorm finding out about them, completely unaware that they’re both aware and fine with it – one of the sweeter pieces of the story is how completely supportive their dormmates are. The conflict is entirely internal, and that works well for the plot, keeping the focus on romance and emotions rather than office politics.

All You Want, Whenever You Want is surprisingly sweet for such a raunchy manga. The sex scenes serve to do more than titillate the reader; they function as a way for Tsubaki and Makino to express emotions that they can’t bring themselves to say or to listen to. (Okay, that Tsubaki can’t bring himself to say or listen to; Makino’s pretty open about everything.) The power imbalance noted in the content warnings exists. Still, it barely factors into the story except as an additional point of concern for Tsubaki, and Omayu‘s art is attractive, with several color pages included. This is a safe bet if you’re looking for a BL read that’s racy but still mostly about the emotional component of a relationship.