Kanzaki is your typical businessman: He's stoic, dependable, and respected by all of his subordinates. But he has a secret he can't tell anyone: Five years ago, he became involved with a male sex worker named Nagi. The more nights they spent together, the more lust gave way to love, and Kanzaki hasn't been able to get Nagi off his mind since. After being sent to work abroad, Kanzaki returns to Japan and meets one of his new subordinates--a young man named Futagami, who looks exactly like Nagi. As the part of Kanzaki's past that was once frozen in time begins to thaw, can the two men find their way back toward each other, or will the passionate nights they spent together remain a thing of the past?

You're All Mine Tonight has story and art by Takiba. English translation is done by Kevin Steinbach and lettering by Dietrich Premier. Published by Kodansha Comics (December 23, 2025). Rated M.

Content Warning: sexual assault

Rebecca Silverman
Rating:

What if the one who got away doesn't want anything to do with you because they're trying to leave their past in the past? That's not a question businessman Kanzaki ever considered, which is particularly relevant because the one in question was a sex worker. He met Nagisa one night while drunk and agreed to buy the younger man for the night, but that never seems to have fazed him at all – he loved Nagisa no matter what his profession. But then he was transferred to his company's Malaysian branch, and he wasn't able to bring himself to tell his lover – the only time he actually treated him as disposable.

That's a decision Kanzaki has regretted ever since, which is one of the central points of this dark-but-sweet BL story. When he returns to Japan, he finds Nagisa working at his company but wanting nothing to do with him, and the thrust of the plot is the two of them attempting to reconcile their five years apart, how they parted, and the fact that they both very much still love each other. It's a difficult situation for them both for very different reasons: after Kanzaki left (which obviously hurt Nagisa quite a bit), Nagisa was sexually assaulted by other clients, and has avoided sex ever since. He still loves Kanzaki despite the hurt he caused him, but he's also afraid to go back to him because of his trauma. Part of his narrative is coping with that sexual assault and his own idea of himself as a sexual being, because he very much still desires Kanzaki. But bodies and hearts don't always consult each other before reacting, and he's tormented.

Kanzaki, meanwhile, has to recognize that this Nagisa is someone with more baggage than the man he knew before. His journey is one of respect: leaving without a word was absolutely not respecting Nagisa, and neither are his many attempts to touch and talk to him now that he's back. He needs to learn how to approach Nagisa in a way that makes the other man feel safe, and that's frankly both a good lesson and a positive way to approach the romance. Mutual respect and care, both self and of each other, are the order of the day, and more romances, queer and straight, would do well to embrace that idea.

Being only a single volume, these issues aren't fully explored. We don't know much about Aoi, the friend Nagisa is apparently living with, nor do we get quite enough character development for the leads. There's a sense that perhaps those things were shunted aside in favor of more sex scenes (plentiful and explicit), but sex is a large part of their relationship, so I don't think that's the case. In any event, You're All Mine Tonight takes a different approach to its romance, and one that works in its favor.

Bolts
Rating:

Nobody likes feeling broken. Sometimes in life, we get torn down so much to the point where we might feel like there's very little that we have to offer others. If there's one thing I think this book absolutely nails, it's that idea of desperately broken people responding to the same situation in very different days. There are some people who seek companionship, whether it's emotional or primal, when they feel like they have nothing to lose. But the problem with that is it's very easy for people to break even more, thinking that physical comfort is all they are good for. It's the kind of thing that makes it feel like you have no real value as a person. Exploring the different branches of those types of coping mechanisms lies at the heart of this story.

You're All Mine Tonight follows two people who feel very desperate for love but internalized it differently. One has shut themselves off from intimacy while the other is chasing an old flame. The latter doesn't know what to do about any of these newfound feelings, constantly needing to hold themselves back from hurting the other, while the former doesn't know how to trust that love any more. Seeing their former relationship filled by shallow passion juxtaposed with their current jaded one was fascinating. I love the careful introspection that these characters go through as they try to figure the other one out and really ask themselves if what they're feeling is real or valid.

It actually adds a new layer to the intimacy scenes of the book because while they are passionate and dynamic, they also just feel very sad. The presentation did a good job of capturing the fact that these characters always feel like they're on the verge of tears, whether they are in an office or masturbating in the closet. The deep, angular lines on the characters faces also really sell that fear for love but desire to hold it.

I spend pretty much the entire book hoping for these two to be happy, not even with each other, just in general. My only complaint is that the final conclusion of the story feels a bit rushed. It's not that the ending comes out of nowhere so much as it feels like there was an extra chapter or two of development that went missing. The conclusion makes sense but I would have liked just one or two more steps to bring everything home. Still, I think most people would be able to appreciate this journey. Sometimes you need to read something sad to evaluate what exactly makes you happy.