The Spring 2023 Manga Guide

My Dear Agent

What's It About? 

Riichi is a man everyone describes as being ice cold. He's a talented agent who manages bodyguards for the heir to a major financial conglomerate. One day, he's ordered to be a buddy for a bold but capable newbie who shows great promise, Tachibana. Tachibana uses up his salary right off the bat and says he doesn't even have an apartment to live in. Riichi allows Tachibana to stay with him and orders him around both in his work and private lives, but every day, he has his hands full with Tachibana's nonsense. And on top of all of that, Tachibana fell in love with him at first sight and tries to seduce him day and night!

My Dear Agent has story and art by Ebino Bisque, with English translation by Katie Kimura, lettered and touched up by Vibrraant Publishing Studio. Tokyopop released the first volume digitally in February and will release the manga in physical format on May 23.

Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

It's a good thing that My Dear Agent has a second volume coming because even for the first book in a series, this feels woefully incomplete. That may be deliberate – Riichi, who the story makes a big deal about having never dated in his twenty-seven years, is someone who needs a lot of time to think things through. He's blindsided by Tachibana's interest in him and completely unsure of what to do about it. His default reaction is to bury everything under his devotion to his job as a bodyguard, and that's really where things get too slow. Riichi's sense of duty, compounded by the fact that he's the latest scion in a family that has been guarding the Tounos since the Edo period, is so all-consuming that it doesn't really make for compelling reading.

It is, presumably, intended to show us just how serious and romantically inexperienced Riichi is, particularly when compared to fellow bodyguard Tachibana, who takes a much healthier view of what a work/life balance is meant to look like. Tachibana also isn't great with reading Riichi's discomfort, but we don't truly find that out – or the depth of his feelings – until almost the final chapter of the book. Add in the relationship between Riichi and his charge, some implications about said charge's high school friend having a crush on Riichi, and a random stalker plot that comes out of nowhere, and this is the sort of book that might politely be called “clumsy” in its execution.

That's not to say that it doesn't have good points. Riichi does work through his complicated feelings, and Tachibana is good for him because Riichi's at grave risk of burning out or losing himself completely. Late-breaking reveals about Tachibana show that volume two has some promise, and the art makes good use of the fade-to-black sex scene, although they never actually get that far outside of one dream. I do appreciate that Ebino Bisque wants to develop the characters before getting too far into the romance, but this just takes a little longer than it strictly needs to do so. It's likely worth giving this its second book, but I would suggest waiting until both are out before picking up this first volume that doesn't really get into the meat of its story until the final pages.