After Hours Edit What would you like to edit? SynopsisBackgroundAlternative TitlesPictureChapters/VolumesPublishing DatesRelationsTypeExternal Links   394o

Read this if you are looking for: A tender yuri story in Tokyo’s nightlife scene with just enough drama.

Recommendation: Pick it up!

“After Hours” follows unemployed Emi who is whisked into the world of nightclubs and raves by new acquaintance and DJ Kei. The two women bond quickly as Emi s Kei’s group of friends and helps put on events, even as Emi struggles to deal with both her past and future. Kei and Emi are a joy to watch, as Nishio Yuhta’s character art greatly enhances comedy and drama alike, and detailed s and wardrobes bring to life the dazzling world that has so enthralled ... Emi. Many of the more tiresome yuri clichés are avoided, and while the overall narrative of the women’s relationship is nothing new to the genre, the adult characters and unique setting help make “After Hours” feel very fresh.

After Hours was a decent yuri story, although I thought the writing was immature (i.e., poorly architected and constructed), at least in regard to the romantic pieces. I liked the club/nightlife theme and the level of detail afforded to it by the author (although I'm unable to the accuracy, not being familiar with this topic myself). The art was fine, but nothing exceptional. While I doubt this will be a memorable story for most, I think it's worth a read if you have an interest in the genre.

The story revolves entirely around the activities of the two main characters, Emi and Kei. The personalities ... of these two are well constructed given the length of the series, and Emi in particular gets a fairly significant amount of character development. The author does a good job of detailing her thoughts, fears, and decisions as she gets increasingly involved with Kei and the DJ scene. However, their backgrounds are shallow, which causes problems with certain components of the story (more on this later) and creates some inconsistencies in their characters. The ing cast was given just enough detail for them to fulfill their roles. They weren't particularly good or bad.

I enjoyed reading about the DJ/nightlife antics of Kei, Emi, and crew, but the romance was weak. I think the level of detail and coherence of the series' environment and non-romantic elements speaks to the author's confidence in constructing these pieces. This is clearly absent in the romantic portions. Kei and Emi's romance starts early in the series and remains flat for most of it. The climaxes of their romance are short, simple, and ultimately quite ineffectual. One reason I think they fall flat is that some of the most significant events are the product of the baggage Kei and Emi brought with them into the relationship, yet the author barely elaborates on their past (Kei in particular is a victim here) and does not provide what I thought to be adequate foreshadowing. Overall, I think the content of the story was somewhat interesting, but the structure was sorely lacking.

This is a relatively short story about a girl who's lowkey kind of a NEET until she meets up with a girl who works as a DJ at a club and suddenly her life changes. I found it to be rather boring for the first two volumes with random conflict added in (like the blonde girl (can't name) has a boyfriend apparently and her own apartment and she struggles to break up with him and move out. The last volume is fine for the first half. They build up their DJ group and things are looking up and then the black haired girl just ... disappears. So the second half of the last volume is them trying to find her and apparently her dad died so she's gotta take care of business and the two MCs get together officially and tell eachother that they love eachother but it's kind of just left there. She says she'll be back in a year but the manga ends before they reunite and eh. It's just kind of boring. Also I didn't really like the art so there's that too. Love most of the backgrounds but the character designs were fine...

Anyways, it's short so if you gotta couple hours to kill, go for it. However I don't really recommend it, there is much better Yuri out there.