Yuki Yoshihara’s Butterflies, Flowers has a bizarre approach to male/female politics with a twisted take on relationships, but readers may relate to the characters’ confusion and control-swapping. Choko Kuze used to be a rich daughter, but her family went bankrupt. Now she’s an office lady for a company run by her former beloved servant. The tables are turned, as he trains her personally and harshly to be his perfect executive assistant. She’s cheerful and works hard but isn’t particularly talented […]

I thought the Sushi volume would be the most authentically Japanese, or maybe the Sake book, but no. It’s The Joy of Rice that sums up the Oishinbo series and its unapologetic championing of Japanese cuisine. The first chapter of the book is an early episode from the long-running series that establishes key themes: Yamaoka, the lead researcher for the Ultimate Menu project, is a jerk to co-workers but really knows his food. Fancy dishes are only good if they […]

After enjoying Solanin, I was curious about Inio Asano’s next translated work. The two-volume What a Wonderful World! is a set of short stories created earlier. Like Solanin, the characters here are urban young adults unsure of their direction or place in life. Unlike that longer work, I found them annoying here when I didn’t before. Maybe it was because the shorter lengths meant less time to get to know them as people, so they become more defined by their […]

It’s been a while since I’ve read any of Ai Yazawa’s Nana, even though it’s my favorite manga series. I have a bad habit of saving the best for last — which is great in concept, except in practice, I often run out of time before I get to the good stuff. I wound up with five installments stacked up, most of what had come out this year. So a long weekend seemed the perfect time to dive back into […]