What Makes This Manga Stand Out: Workplace Romance in On and Off

There are many many BL series now in which work peers fall in love. Sometimes, the couple joined the company around the same time. Sometimes, they are rivals from high school or college. Sometimes, they work in the same department. Sometimes, one becomes a superior. And so on. 

I am not opposed to the same plot concept being used and reused. I admit I don't have much tolerance for endless vampire stories. But even there, I think there are exceptions, tales that are unique. 

By "unique," I don't mean avant-garde or "rule-breaking." 

I want story, not some stream-of-consciousness experiment. 

"Unique," for me, refers to a story that is memorable and engaging. It is different for HOW it handles material, not for trying (impossibly) to invent new material.

In the work romance genre, On or Off stands out. No Love Zone, despite also being a full-color manhwa, strikes me as a bit samey and forgettable (No Love Zone is only recently gaining something like a plot: in Volume 3!). 

What makes On or Off unique is not only that the characters have an actual task/account/app to complete (getting that work completed underpins the volumes so far)--the characters also retain core characterizations. 

As I mention in the post on Semantic Error, a good romance keeps the characters' individual oddities even as they fall in love. The characters don't abruptly turn either coy or flawlessly understanding and affectionate. They continue to be idiosyncratic.

In On or Off, Kang keeps his poignant awareness that romance requires negotiation. He misreads Ahn more than once; unusually for an alpha character, he not only takes responsibility for his miscalculations, he studies his lover, whom he finds endlessly surprising. His older age (by about 15 years) aligns with his ability to assess how he and Ahn can find middle ground. 

Meanwhile, dedicated, hardworking, charismatic yet guileless Ahn goes at everything in his impulsive yet tactful way (as when he covers for Mina's bluntness). With Kang, he is straightforward yet abashed. Being in love enhances those qualities!

Ahn and Kang don't transform into blokes who react in the "proper" romantic ways. Rather, they react to their relationship as distinct individuals. 

 

What Makes This Manga Different: The Flower That Seems to Truly Dance

A while back, I read a wish by a reviewer that more BL series had historical settings. I have to agree! 

I do understand the difficulty regarding historical settings with live-action. Unless they produce characters who look like they are wrapped in bedsheets, they cost. My Roommate is a Detective is so marvelous to a large degree because it is so incredibly beautiful, nearly lush in its settings, clothing, props, and music. The acting is good too. The storylines vary considerably--but the look: oh, my! 

Manga can take more chances--yet a great deal of manga is nevertheless contemporary or fantastical. Blue Morning is a notable exception as is Gorgeous Carat and Black Sun. Maiden Rose is technically fantasy but is actually circa WWI Japan and Europe. 

The Flower That Seems to Truly Dance by Saki Tsukahara is another nice exception. It takes place during World War II. The protagonist, Soutarou Kuramoto, meets a young man, Haruomi Asuma, who is an onnagata, especially renowned for his dancing.  The story runs from 1941 to the end of the war. It involves fire from a bombing and a meeting in a hospital--and great clothes, of course. 

The theme is not too heavy-handed. It is implied that the war has changed expectations and goals: traditions continue through art, aesthetics, while traditional familial expectations have a lessening hold. It is a theme that Agatha Christie tackles in her mysteries: the cozy English village looks the same but in truth, it will never be quite the same again.

What Makes This Manga Different: On or Off, Volume 1 by A1

For one, as manhwa, it reads from left to right.

For another, all the pages are in color!

Otherwise, the story appears to be standard fare: young man at a company encounters and falls for the Darcy-like tough, fair, tall, stern head boss. 

What makes the manga so delightful is that the young man, Ahn Yiyoung, is the de facto head of a group of misfit programmers. At least, one of the misfits is a programmer. The other misfits are a designer and a business planner. 

They create an app in a garage and win a contract (after various misunderstandings). The company offers to set them up in a room, which turns out to be a dingy closet with non-working light bulbs. In one of the funniest scenes, the team considers removing itself to another garage until Ahn points out that if they move into a new space, they will have to return all the tech goodies they got with the money they would have spent on rent. 

The boss of the company at first dismisses Ahn but grows to appreciate his role in the group. He was brought on as a salesman but is now the guy who keeps everyone on the right page and communicates their ideas to the outside world. 

And this person is very important. As Joel Sposky points out in an article I like to read to my English 100 students:

The difference between a tolerable programmer and a great programmer is not how many programming languages they know, and it's not whether they prefer Python or Java. It's whether they can communicate their ideas. By persuading other people, they get leverage. By writing clear comments and technical specs, they let other programmers understand their code, which means other programmers can use and work with their code instead of rewriting it. Absent this, their code is worthless. 

The same could be said for the person who organizes the team and makes sure that they aren't simply playing with their new tech toys--they do have to earn money, so they can eat...and buy more tech toys! 

In or Out understands this basic truth.