The Spring 2024 Manga Guide

Yoshino's Secret Cleaning Service

What's It About? 

Sawanoi is over the moon when he finds out that the cleaning boy he has a crush on also offers sexual services—but he doesn't account for the possibility that there's another Yoshino available for hire at the same company…

Yoshino's Secret Cleaning Service has a story and art by reitou. English translation by Kai. Happy Negi lettered this volume. Published by ‎Irodori Inc. (March 8, 2024).


CW: This manga contains graphic depictions of sex and is intended for mature readers only.

Is It Worth Reading?

Based on the cover alone, I would never have picked up this short, smutty story. The characters look way too young! But the simplified art inside the book makes the characters look quite a bit older, as does the quick reveal that one is a pent-up office worker, and the other is in college. It has the kind of outlandish premise you only find in porn: a housekeeping service that, if you buy 20 cleaning sessions, unbelievably grants you the opportunity to book your housekeeper for prostitution.

Mr. Sawanoi is an exhausted white-collar worker, and perhaps all that overtime has made him hallucinate because he's now in love with his paid housekeeper. He quickly requests the cleaner 20 times to unlock the “secret cleaning service” of urban legend, only for a completely different housekeeper to show up for the appointment. What ensues is a raucous, raunchy night of hate sex. If you wish the trope of “enemies to lovers” went more like “enemies to enemies who also have sex,” this is for you.

This short comic is about 30 pages long, with only 6 pages of setup before the characters get down and dirty. Mr. Sawanoi is determined to hate Yoshino, his cleaner turned callboy, but his wrecked expressions and heart-dotted moans show that the man clearly doth protest too much. But far from simply letting their bodies do the talking, there's nonstop banter and dirty talk throughout. Though this is just a job for Yoshino, he keeps the fantasy alive by asserting that he's going to make the resistant Mr. Sawanoi fall in love with him (even as the latter man continues to insult and belittle him up to the point of climax). It's the kind of whirlwind fling in which name-calling and cursing count as pillow talk.

Out of all the porn comics Irodori sent to the manga guide this season, I thought this one was the hottest due to the constant tension of the characters' feelings for one another, forever teetering between loathing and desire. It's certainly no masterpiece, but it's sexy enough.

There are plenty of ecchi manga out there about someone learning their kinks. This is sort of one of them – the protagonist dreams of having a sweet vanilla encounter with Yoshino via the ~secret~ extra service provided by the housekeeping agency Yoshino works for. But he doesn't pay enough attention when he's selecting his cleaner and ends up with Jotaro Yoshino, who doesn't do sweet or vanilla. Or so he thinks, because while the protagonist learns that he might enjoy what Jotaro's offering, Jotaro learns that he likes the simple things in sex, too. There are just awakenings happening all over the place here.

Most of this short doujinshi is just comprised of sex scenes and questionable dirty talk, and hey, that's what some of the readers are going to be looking for. Reitou knows it and offers up a variety of angles and differences on that front – the protagonist has pubic hair, Jotaro doesn't, there are different penis sizes involved, one toy, a bathtub, various orgasms…it's kind of an impressive list for a thirty-four-page story, never settling on one particular theme other than “dudes have sex.” It's also something that Reitou, who has non-doujinshi works serialized in more conventional formats, clearly wanted to write and draw. Jotaro is a side character in the series they were working on at the time, and they just had a bug in their ear about giving him some kinky backstory. Given that a lot of writers and artists don't always get the chance to realize that little story urges, much less show them to their readers, I have to say that I admire that Reitou put this one out there for everyone. It certainly makes me more inclined to hunt down their other work.

There isn't quite enough here to make it a fully realized story. I also don't think that's at all what the creator was going for; it's just a little daydream about a character. On that level, it's enjoyable without having a lot of staying power, but I suspect that if you're familiar with the work it's spun off from this could have more impact. Either way, it's a nice little break from life.