The charming cooking manga continues by looking at how food helps in times of stress. In Gido Amagakure’s Sweetness & Lightning volume 3, it’s exam time — which means that both teacher Kohei and student Kotori are working hard, so there’s no time for their joint cooking lessons with Tsumugi. Midnight snacks consist of comfort foods, like custards and noodles. Tsumugi wakes up in the middle of the night and wants to join her father in eating, so he learns […]

Now that’s odd. In this volume, Real Account changes lead characters suddenly. I liked the beginning of this series, where Ataru gets pulled into a social media virtual world where actions have real-world consequences: survive the games, or you die, and so do all your followers. He’s driven by his desire to get back to his younger sister, Yuri, who believes in him. In the second volume, the life-or-death game involves revealing messages you’ve deleted, particularly those that show the […]

I was disappointed with Kiss Him, Not Me! volume 11 because it didn’t have enough of what I read the series for. I like the fan behavior and the various goofy activities the cast engages in for their love of anime and related pop culture. This installment, instead, is all ridiculous action sequences. When this storyline began in the last book, Kae had met again her childhood friend Takeru, now an established voice actor for her favorite anime series. There […]

I thought, by this point, the series would have settled down to a comfortable familiarity, but by introducing a new character, Kiss Him, Not Me! volume 10 adds an interesting dimension to the gang of fans. Kae finds out that a long-lost childhood friend is now a key voice actor in her favorite anime. She used to defend Takeru from bullies when they were young, and he craves her protection again now, to help him manage the stress of a […]

I let a bunch of volumes of Say I Love You stack up, and coincidentally, it was right when the series took an interesting turn. The previous book, volume 9, was more of the high school love story that I was enjoying, but with these books, author Kanae Hazuki begins treating these kids as the adults they’re about to be. It’s fascinating to see the characters grow and the series transition from love story into meditations on growing up and […]

Now that we’re firmly into the run of Kiss Him, Not Me!, the series about a yaoi fangirl with four potential boyfriends and a potential girlfriend, it’s settled down into typical harem antics, only with a fannish twist. Volume 6 continues from the previous book, with Mutsumi planning to confess his feelings to Kae. His determination spurs everyone else to realize they should do the same. As he tells them, “You’re all free to do whatever you want.” That is, […]

As if having four guys and a girl after Kae wasn’t enough, in Kiss Him, Not Me! volume 5, we meet the older brother of strong-and-silent Mutsumi. He’s a student teacher in the kids’ school, and he decides he’s interested in Kae as well, although there’s a strong implication that it may be just to annoy his brother, or that he enjoys manipulation. First, though, the gang goes on a treasure hunt based on a map found in the history […]

Sweetness & Lightning combines two favorite types of manga series: the uncertain single father raising a child (as in Bunny Drop or Yotsuba&!) and learning more about food and cooking, complete with recipes (as in What Did You Eat Yesterday? or Food Wars!). Inuzaka is taking care of his little girl, Tsumugi, after his wife died. He doesn’t know how to cook, so he feeds her pre-made boxed meals, but he worries about nutrition and whether he’s doing the right […]