[...] in her strips, her voice here is amusingly down-to-earth. Unlike some other diet manuals in comic form, she doesn’t mess around with quick fixes or fad diets or promises that don’t work. [...]

FYI – It’s common in Japan for people to refer to their family members by their position. They won’t refer to their brothers and sister by their first names, but rather “nee-san” (older sister), “nii-san” (older brother), “imouto” (younger sister) or “otouto” (younger brother). So, I don’t think it’s lack of imagination, but a common social practice which the editors carried over from the original Japanese.

[...] on vol. 17 of Sgt. Frog (AstroNerdBoy’s Anime and Manga Blog) Johanna Draper Carlson on So I Need to Lose 15 Pounds (Comics Worth Reading) Julie on vol. 1 of Sumomomo, Momomo (Manga Maniac Cafe) Lissa Pattillo on [...]

“…More background information on why these various treatments were supposed to work and how they really acted on body chemistry wouldn’t make them less gimmicky, but it would at least feel more informative. For something that claims to be educational, it’s almost criminal that these fads and expensive scams are billed as successful. In the spa section, the idea that high heat should be followed by drinking no water for two hours is actively dangerous, since it could cause dehydration…”

Yikes. Interestingly enough, this also reminds me of a non-comic book I recently read.

Adam Gopnik Says in his memoir Paris to the Moon, © 2000, section 2 “Distant Errors,” chapter 1 “The Rules of the Sport”:

“…The absence of the whole rhetoric and cult of sports and exercise is the single greatest difference between daily life in France and daily life in America. It’s true that French women’s magazines are as deeply preoccupied with body image and appearance as American ones. Rut they are confident that all problems can be solved by lotions. The number of French ointments guaranteed to eliminate fat from the female body seems limitless, and no pharmacy window is complete without a startlingly erotic ad for the Fesse-Uplift–an electrical buttock stimulator, guaranteed to eliminate fat by a steady stream of “small, not unpleasing shocks administered to the area,” the ad says. Votre Beaute, the Self of France, recently had a special issue on losing weight. There were articles on electrical stimulation, on nutrition (raw carrots will help you lose weight; cooked carrots won’t), on antiobesity pills, and on something called passive exercise. There was also, of course, a long article on reducing lotions. Finally, buried in the back, among the lonely-hearts ads, was a single, vaguely illicit-looking page of workout diagrams. If all else fails…”

Now I’m wondering if So I Need to Lose 15 Pounds will be released in French translation as well. I know “Healthy! Fun! Japanese!” will move some units in the Anglosphere since some people will buy anything from Japan, but would « Sain ! Amusement ! Japonais ! » (WorldLingo rules! :) ) have the same appeal in the Francophonie?