The Fall 2024 Manga Guide

At 25:00 in Akasaka (18+)

What's It About? 

Yuki Shirasaki finally landed his big break. But the pressure is on when he's cast alongside the current superstar (and his former classmate!) Asami Hayama. Determined to do his best, Shirasaki decides to dive deep into researching playing the role of a gay man and visits a gay bar for a one-night stand. To his surprise, Hayama is there and gives Shirasaki the shock of his life by suggesting they become friends with benefits! Can Shirasaki keep his attention on the role, or will he be captivated by Hayama's good looks and irresistible charm? Recommended for Mature Audiences.

At 25:00 in Akasaka has a story and art by Hiroko Natsuno, with English translation by Chinko Shujinko. This volume was lettered by Mo Harrison. Published by Seven Seas (September 3, 2024).

Content Warning: This title contains graphic sex and is intended for audiences over the age of 18.

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

If there's such a thing as “middle explicit,” this would be it. At 25:00 in Akasaka is full of sex, and there are definite penises involved, but there's also a real attempt to make it look less explicit than it is. If I'm making a big deal out of it, that's because it's sort of fascinating – the story is based around two men having a sexual relationship, but it tries very hard to make it not about the sex. It more or less succeeds, but it's also a bit awkward in a way that is either more or less graphic would have alleviated.

It's also leaning into one of the more bizarre constructs of romance fiction: the idea that to write or act out a love story, you need to have lived one. This baffling idea isn't one you ever hear about in other genre fiction (with, perhaps, the exception of Benjamin Stevenson's mystery novel Everyone in my Family has Killed Someone), and it always risks pulling me right out of the story. In the case of this book, however, it uses this trope to build the central romance. Hayama, a successful actor, is just a little too enthused to meet his old kohai Shirasaki when he joins the cast of a TV drama. When Shirasaki has trouble with his lines (the show in question is BL), sexy shenanigans ensue. Hayama implies that this is to help Shirasaki with his work, while also being very cautious about the whole thing. Shirasaki, for his part, is falling madly in lust (and later love) and realizing that maybe his orientation isn't what he always assumed it was. (Annoyingly, bi-and-pansexual are never mentioned; it's gay, straight, or nothing.)

There's not enough development for this to fully work, although the fact that there are at least two more volumes to the series does give me hope. The plot relies too much on the TV drama and not enough on the characters themselves, with really only Hayama's reluctance to move on to penetrative sex showing his fear that his emotions are more engaged than Shirasaki's. The art is pleasant, with close-ups of Shirasaki's eyes being excellent in a pseudo-seventies shoujo sort of way, and Natsuno resists the urge to exaggerate physiques. The result is a volume that's middle of the road in all aspects – good enough to read and enjoyable enough to recommend, but never quite rising above that middle ground.

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Lauren Orsini
Rating:

I'm under the impression that actors take their roles pretty seriously. So I'm assuming that 25:00 in Akasaka must be based on a fairly common situation. An actor wants to deliver a more realistic portrayal in his first major role as a gay man, so he becomes friends with benefits with his co-star. After all, it's not like they have feelings for one another. The protagonist just wants to improve his acting! And that's only the first unrealistic storyline that readers will be expected to swallow. If you can suspend your disbelief that two extremely good-looking people might not be lying when they call one another attractive, you'll enjoy this fluffy fanfiction trope of a manga.

Shirasaki Yuki has finally landed his first major role: he'll be playing a romantic lead opposite superstar Hayama Asami, who just so happens to be his old college friend. Feeling nervous about living up to Asami's star power without any real-life romantic experience, Yuki heads to a gay bar (at 8 PM in Akasaka, one can only assume), where he runs into none other than Asami. The two begin a friends-with-benefits situation that leaves Yuki so enraptured he doesn't even need to act to play Asami's lovestruck boyfriend on the screen. I wonder if Yuki really will have acting chops when he has to act as a character who isn't in exactly the same situation as he is IRL. Anyway, these handsome dum-dums have never talked about their feelings, so they both assume that the other person doesn't return them. TV stars: they're just like us!

This is a hot and heavy story with frequent (and lightly censored) sex scenes. A major part of the plot centers on Asami's reluctance to perform a specific act with Yuki because he doesn't think Yuki is interested (and Yuki, idiot that he is, isn't about to tell Asami otherwise). That focus makes this manga a bit more graphic than others you'll find in this guide. This is pretty typical fare for a BL manga with art to match, but it nails the earnest, unself-conscious commitment to the bit that's necessary to make this fanfic trope function.