Holiday Review: SWEAT AND SOAP

Is it strange that one of the sweetest, sexiest romance manga I read all year wasn't the one about buff fireman but instead one involving a scent fetish?

SWEAT AND SOAP (Ase to Sekken), by Kintetsu Yamada.  First published in 2018 and first published in North America in 2020.

PLOT:

Asako has struggled all her life with excess sweating.  That's why she's so happy to work at a place like Lillidrop, a company that manufactures great smelling toiletries that allow her to manage her condition and hide any hint of BO.  That's not enough to throw off Kotaro, a product developer with an uncanny sense of smell who finds her scent irresistible.  She finds his attentions embarrassing at first, but the more time Kotaro spends with her the more these two find themselves drawn to one another.

STORY:

Who could have expected that a premise as strange and horny as "overly sweaty office lady falls for a guy who is turned on by her scent" would turn out to be one of the most sensitive and sweet romances I would read all year?

It helps that it doesn't take a lot of deep reading to figure out that Asako's issues are less about her overactive sweat glands and more about her crippling lack of self-confidence.  A childhood full of bullying has led her to suppress not just her sweat but her feelings and personality from the world.  The best part is that her eventually relationship with Kotaro doesn't instantly fix this.  While she can rest a little easier about her physical condition with him, she still struggles with her insecurity with the additional anxiety that comes with an office romance.  It's a slow and steady process, and while the sweat thing never goes away, the focus shifts more and more to her romance with Kotaro.

It would have been easy for Yamada to sexualize Kotaro's scent fixation or the embarrassment Asako feels over it.  It certainly feels that way at the start with how weird and pushy he can be about it.  Yet as Kotaro grows to know and love Asako, he learns to be not just more conscious but also more conscientious about her needs, boundaries, and feelings.  He gently boosts her up, encouraging her to speak her mind and not to mentally denigrate herself.  When he does screw up, he gives proper and sincere apologies.  It's a sincerely wonderful thing to read, and I would have never expected it from such a strange premise.

ART:

Yamada takes a light hand with the characters, using fairly fine line work and relatively simple faces.  This works in the manga's favor, as it allows for some great reactions from the main couple.  That's not to say that they slack on the details.  There's a lot of nice, varied fashion on display.  There's a lot of tenderness and personality in the body language, particularly that between Asako and Kotaro.  The sensuality is handled tastefully, as what sexual charge it may possess comes from the story and dialogue.  

RATING:

Don't be scared off by the weird premise - Sweat and Soap is one of the best romance manga I've read all year.  It uses that premise to serve a springboard for some sensitive character writing and a heartwarming couple that you can't help but root for.  

This series is published by Kodansha Comics.  This series is ongoing in Japan with 9 volumes available.  4 volumes have been released and are currently in print.

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