Ase to Sekken

A manga about a soap maker who finds a co-worker with a scent he can’t get enough of.

Yup, this is problematic.

On the surface this is a romance series that leads to a relationship between a man and a woman but I really take issue with how everything starts. The soap maker smells the woman and literally drags her to a wall where he starts sniffing her. He apologizes and explains that her scent is the key to his new product and she reluctantly agrees to him using her as “inspiration”.

The poor woman is already self conscious about being overly sweaty all the time and now she has a man invading her personal space. When she implies that their smelling time is over because he finished his new project, the man ends up putting his hand up her skirt because he wants to keep smelling her. Though he does realize what a horrible thing he did after she shoves him off and runs away, I thought is was REALLY convenient that he ends up saving her from a creeper smelling her on a train later. It’s hard not to roll your eyes as she tells him he’s nothing like the train pervert and she actually wants him to smell her more.

Eventually they start dating and seem to genuinely love each other but this romance is justifying that a man’s aggressive approach is just what a woman wants. And that is a bad message to sell, even if the rest of your story is about them being in love.

~dakazu