Ase to Sekken

Synopsis

At Liliadrop, a high-class manufacturer of women's cosmetics, employees are just as outstanding and glamorous as the variety of their products. In contrast stands Asako Yaeshima, a worker formerly nicknamed "Aseko"—"ase" meaning sweat—due to her unusual problem of excessive perspiration. To deal with her crisis, Asako develops a morning routine: she mixes different scents of Liliadrop soaps and unscented deodorants to mask her body odor. But her effort does not fool Koutarou Natori, a genius fragrance developer at the company with a sensitive and infallible sense of smell. Koutarou, astounded by Asako's natural smell combined with the soap, insists on sniffing her every day for a week to save their company's reputation by creating new Asako-inspired fragrances. With such an important reason at stake, Asako consents but never imagines how close she and Koutarou would soon become. [Written by MAL Rewrite]

Background

Ase to Sekken placed second at the third annual Tsutaya Comic Awards in 2019. In the same year, it ranked ninth in the Web Category of the Tsugi ni Kuru Manga Awards. In 2020, the series placed sixth on the Nationwide Bookstore Employees' Recommended Comics of 2020 by Honya Club's online bookstore. In 2021, it was nominated for the 45th Kodansha Manga Awards in the general manga category. The series was published in English as Sweat and Soap by Kodansha Comics USA from February 25, 2020, to January 11, 2022. It was also released in Polish by Waneko from November 3, 2021, to February 15, 2023.

Characters

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