Sungji is entering the corporate world, the newest hire of a game development studio. Young and beautiful, Sungji quickly draws the attention of her coworkers...but she only has eyes for her aloof team leader Sumin. Unfortunately, the older woman is tied up by her ex, company president Seju, who has one thing Sungji severely lacks―experience in love and lust. And so a love triangle ensues, following Sungji's present pursuit of Sumin and Seju's tumultuous relationship with her in the past…

What Does the Fox Say? has a story by and art by Team Gaji. English translation is done by TAPAS ENTERTAINMENT INC. and lettering by Chi Bui. Published by Yen Press (August 25, 2026). Rated M.

Erica Friedman
Rating:

Of course I had heard of this series when it was popular a few years ago, but beyond it being a yuri manhwa with adult content about a toxic office relationship, I knew very little about it.

I can see why it might have been so popular when it launched. It's a full-color yuri manhwa about adult women, with sex scenes that are explicit, rather than graphic. As a younger person getting into lesbian media, I could see this being significant. For me, this manhwa fell somewhat flat.

The story itself is 100% soap opera in narrative and visuals. The art is mostly bodies static in space, talking, very much like the soap operas my mother watched when I was young. There is little movement beyond the turning of a head or body, an arm reaching out or being swatted away. The story is told in expository chats, with the occasional flashback. This is very much an office life series – nothing happens, per se. They go to work, eat, drink, talk, do more work. And, as office life often is, the drama takes up all the space, even when it's nothing, really. That is exactly as I remember life in an office.

The art has not aged that well, unfortunately. With almost another decade in manhwa since, we're more used to full pages with developed backgrounds and character art. The box panel structure here, which was clearly meant for an early vertical scroll comic, feels tight, flat, and sadly a little dull. That said, if you like tense toxic workplace romances, this story may still be of interest to you.

Like a famous actor whose time has passed, one can see why What Does The Fox Say? was so popular, and why its time is now in the past. It was good for when it was and what it is, but we've all moved on now.

Bolts
Rating:

Reading this story felt like I was taking a drag of the longest cigarette ever. For a book that is almost four hundred pages long, there is so much meandering and so many scenes that arguably go absolutely nowhere. By the time I got to the end of the volume, I was actually waiting for things to fully wrap up, considering the direction of the story's narrative progression. However, things end with such an abrupt cliffhanger that I almost feel cheated, which is ironic given that a lot of the drama takes place within this book's pages. I never like getting to the end of a book and feeling like a good third of it could've just been ripped out wholesale, but that is how I felt reading. What Does the Fox Say is a title that arguably doesn't even play a major role in the story itself outside of the fact that a fox plushy is briefly involved.

Maybe that's too harsh. Obviously the fox is supposed to be an allegory for how sly and cautious all of the women in the story are. It's not that any characters are overly deceitful; it's just that everybody is so gosh darn messy. While smoking this long lesbian cigarette took an incredibly long time, I can't say that I was bored because I did enjoy the characters more than I originally thought I was going to. It almost felt addicting seeing them spin their wheels in a surprisingly realistic way about how they all feel about each other. Whether it's the boss who gets drunk too easily and really wants to bang the new coworker or the new coworker whose most redeeming quality is the fact that she comes off as an emotionless robot. The story edges me constantly about these two getting together throughout the entire book, and while there is definitely a sense of chemistry there, it once again does not justify the length considering the lack of payoff. There's more buildup to the various random sex scenes that take place throughout the course of this book than what should be in the core romance.

I understand you can make the argument that this is a more realistic and grounded office romance story, or at least grounded in a soap opera kind of way considering that you really shouldn't try to bang your boss or vice versa. But I do feel like a good chunk of my time was wasted by the time I got to the end of this volume. I was enthralled and drawn in because the character writing was solid, but the story also felt like it didn't know what it wanted to do or what it wanted to be. It almost felt like this was a story promising a more engaging drama, only to constantly distract from it with scenes that arguably didn't really tie into anything. I would say maybe check it out if you're interested in a really messy office lesbian romance story since there aren't really a lot like this out there. But just understand that you might not reach any climax by the end of this volume.