Thoughts on Black & White: Tough Love at the Office Volume 1

Black & White: Tough Love at the Office is a yuri manga written and illustrated by Sal Jiang. It focuses on two office ladies; Junko Shirakawa and Kayo Kuroda. Both of them perform phenomenally at their roles, so much so that a rivalry forms between the pair. Theirs goes a bit beyond a simple office rivalry, though – things get violent when the two are alone together.
Seven Seas Entertainment licensed the series for English release. This first volume contains chapters one to six.

Front cover of the first volume of Black & White: Tough Love at the Office, featuring Junko Shirakawa and Kayo Kuroda

Yuri slugfest at the office
Shirakawa Junko is headed for the top of the corporate ladder in the Overseas Investor Department at the bank where she works – until Kuroda Kayo transfers over from Corporate Sales. Kayo is another all-star employee, and she has a foreign university degree to boot. When Kayo and Junko are assigned to work together, their heated rivalry reaches critical mass. Whether they’re banging each other’s heads or simply banging each other, these two office rivals are ready to go at it!

I quite often see people saying that they want more yuri stories with adult characters, so perhaps Black & White: Tough Love at the Office will scratch that itch. You know, provided that you don’t mind the violence the two leading ladies inflict upon each other here.
Is it a healthy relationship the two have? Uh, probably not in the slightest. But they do make quite the team when working together at the office – even if they do so with teeth gritted. It is pretty interesting to see Junko and Kayo try to keep things civil between themselves around their co-workers, but things are very different when nobody else is around.

Black & White: Tough Love at the Office opens with a scene of Junko and Kayo going at it, immediately giving you an idea of what you can expect every now and then further down the line. The pair of them don’t hold back, and both tend to come away full of scratches and bruises. It certainly won’t be to everyone’s tastes, but I have to admit I am curious to see how this strange relationship between the pair of them will develop.

This first volume has got me intrigued with where things will go between Junko and Kayo, Will their rivalry become more apparent to their co-workers, or will they manage to keep things strictly professional at the office? Another burning question I have is just how far their acts of violence towards each other will go? If there even is any affection between the two of them, it is incredibly warped.
An intriguing start for Black & White: Tough Love at the Office.