As most long time MangaKast readers know, I’m a sucker for stories involving yakuza. However, this might be the first time I’ve read a Korean story about the Japanese mafia.
SPOILERS
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The official back cover copy reads:
Min Joon thought studying abroad in Japan would mean the beginning his fabulous gay life. But instead, he’s scammed by his boyfriend, loses his passport and is basically screwed. What’s worse, a kid comes up to him calling him “mama” and before he knows it, he’s being kidnapped by the yakuza. Then the hot yakuza boss makes him an offer he can’t refuse… so now it’s either be “mama” to his little kid or to not live at all. What to do, what to do? And this yakuza boss is just too hot for his own good…
I often complain in my yaoi reviews that, because so much Boys’ Love is written by (mostly) straight women (mostly) for (mostly) straight (mostly) women, many of the relationships don’t feel very queer. In fact, they feel almost entirely heteronormative.
Enter When The Yakuza Falls in Love which is just says to that accusation: “And? So what?” and fully embraces the het vibe from the very first chapter. As Lezhin US notes above, Min Joon is on a pier one day, cursing out his Japanese boyfriend who scammed him out of all his money and his passport, when a cute little kid escapes this very scary black car and runs up to him shouting, “Mama! Mama!”
And thus Min Joon becomes a mafia wife (and mother) to Toma, the son of hot yakuza boss, Daiki.
And, that’s kind of the whole story in a nutshell? I read all 64 chapters available via the pirate sites and, yeah, there’s a bit of the tension of the “pretend relationship” trope (which admittedly, I tend to enjoy) and a couple of kidnapping attempts to add some drama, but, basically, you have to enjoy the mama/daddy dynamic to get a kick out of this manhwa/webtoon. I should warn that they do play this dynamic for comedic effect a lot? So, if you are sensitive to queer, feminine men being mocked for being the way they are, this might set your teeth on edge. I found it mostly gentle and acceptable, but I’m a bit older than a lot of my readers, and also this is the sort of thing where mileage might vary a LOT.
But, the daddy thing is hit hard, and, you know, Daiki is certainly a DILF.
All the things that feed into this kink, Daiki has going on. He’s a tough guy who melts for his child and who would do anything to protect his baby… and the baby’s “mother” which is where the romance comes in.
Do not mistake, however, When The Yakuza Fall in Love is pretty darn smutty. It opens with a “I must now search every cavity of your body for a wire or a microphone” scene played out to its most extreme version. And, I don’t know. I probably should not have enjoyed this as much as I did. I will tell you that I cut a lot of slack for this very, very specific dynamic, which is the guy who ends up playing the role of the “ane-san,” the yakuza boss’s wife.
It’s a dumb kink. I don’t expect it to work for anyone but me.
The sex is 100% censored. I just checked the official version, which can be read at Lezhin comics pay-as-you-go, and… honestly, the only reason to pay is for the better English (some of which is quite sketchy on the pirate sites,) because all the penises are invisible there, too. I’m unsure why they need to check my age if they’re not even going to show the parts, but I guess the erased outline is fairly evocative in its own right? Maybe. Normally I hate the pay-as-you-go model because you always end up spending far more per chapter than you would an entire book, but, while the scanlators did their best, there are several head-scratcher chapters where I had no real sense of how the dialogue should have read. I’m often really good at guessing through context and I could not. It was a bit word salad-y. Again, I could not do this job? And I have very mixed feelings about pirates because without them there are stories we would never get because they are not seen as marketable to American/English-speaking audiences.
But, back to the manhwa… if you’re here mostly for the situation and the smut this might be fun for you. The art is very manhwa. Like, the lines are clean, but boxy… I guess that’s a good descriptor? It’s hard to describe, but you know it when you see it. A very exaggerated version is in another manhwa with a mafia guy that I enjoyed more than I should have: Dangerous Convenience Store.
Anyway, do I recommend it? It’s kind of fluffy and smutty all at once. If you like kid fic at all, you may adore Toma (Daiki’s son) and all of the family dynamics that end up playing out between Daiki, Toma and Min Joon. There is a quirky cast of yakuza underlings, which are a fascinating look at the stereotypes of Japanese yakuza from a Korean point of view.
I find it deeply interesting, too, that two-thirds of the way into this story we discover that Daiki is actually Daiki Jo, a quarter (or it might even be half) Korean, himself. Like somehow, without the ethnic connection, these two could never be forever matched. I mean, it comes out in a funny way? We discover that Min Joon spends a lot of his alone time speaking Korean, and like a lot of immigrants (my grandmother, included) he swears in his own language, mostly to avoid offense, but also to have a kind of freedom of speech that you’re only allowed when no one else knows what you’re saying. But, of course, all along, Daiki Jo understands a lot of Korean, thanks to his mixed heritage.
Okay, y’all, enjoy responsibly!
Oh, one side note. If part of what you like about yakuza is all the tattoos, be warned that, as cool as Daiki is, his tattoo does not fit the mold. Let’s just say… I would have pegged him for a furry, not yakuza, if I only had his tattoo to go by.
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