Tag: Kodansha

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josei Manga Reviews REVIEWS

Matcha Made in Heaven, Vols 7-9

Matcha Made in Heaven Volumes 7-9 by Umebachi Yamanaka

Time to check in on this low-key extremely slow-burn josei series! Chaco and Isshin are continuing with their faux marriage of convenience, which has of course led them to develop feelings for each other. Isshin is an intense, grumpy tea-making perfectionist, while Chaco is much more free spirited. Despite growing up in a family of tea producers, she’s been away for so long that she’s not super familiar with the business, so her support of Isshin also means that she’s connecting with her roots in a new way.

Matcha Made in Heaven 9

After a separation where Isshin is working in the corporate tea business, he returns home. Chaco is excited to take their relationship to the next level, but childhood friend Jin appears with a girl named Roa, who happens to be a tea social media influencer! The traditional craft of tea-making clashes with Roa’s approach, which seems to stir up some distressing sentiments against the small business that Chaco’s family is trying to take to the next level with Isshin’s help. The trash-talking is mild, and the stakes are fairly low in this extremely relaxing manga where one can always count on respect for tea to further bond the characters and see them through any crisis. While Roa ends up not be as terrible as Chaco originally assumed, she leads Isshin into accepting a challenge at a high stakes tea blending competition. With Isshin, Jin, and Chaco’s brother who is such a non-entity it is not really worth remembering his name as the main competitors things are surely not going to go very smoothly.

For fans of the grumpy/sunshine dynamic, this series delivers. I find myself constantly rooting for Chaco and Isshin even though they cycle through excuses to not progress in their relationship. The latest barrier is Isshin’s nobility, as he doesn’t want to ask Chaco’s dead father for her hand in real marriage until he has proven himself as a tea master. As always, the illustrations are clear and dynamic. Chaco’s niece is reliable both for comic relief and expressing the readers’ point of view that Chaco and Isshin should just get together already.

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Manga Reviews REVIEWS

Honey Lemon Soda, Vol 2

Honey Lemon Soda 2

Honey Lemon Soda Volume 2 by Mayu Murata

Shy girl in love with popular boy is a fairly common subgenre of shoujo manga, but with the second volume, I do think that Honey Lemon Soda is pulling it off better than most manga. Uka is still adjusting to her new school, and fighting through her instinctual reactions to situations and other kids that she developed when she was horribly bullied during middle school. Fortunately in her new environment she keeps being pleasantly surprised by her classmates, who are generally very kind. When she shows up in full hiking gear to a trip that everyone else knew was a low key walk in the woods, her classmates are perplexed, but not cruel. Kai, the object of her affections, finds her gaffe sort of adorable because Uka is showing up for events with everything she’s got.

Honey Lemon Soda 2

Uka ends up being a defacto leader of the group when they accidentally go off trail, and her giant hiking backpack has enough snacks to take care of everyone. She slowly starts trusting her classmates more, but she also starts getting a sense of Kai’s popularity. Murata’s art continues to be stylish and a little quirky. I especially liked the way she portrayed Uka and Kai’s smiles and attitudes towards each other as documented in other students’ photos of the hiking trip, it gave a little preview to how their relationship might eventually develop.

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Manga Reviews REVIEWS

Matcha Made in Heaven, Vols 1-4

matcha made in heaven

Matcha Made in Heaven, Volumes 1-4 by Umebachi Yamanaka

I need to get over my tendencies of forgetting to keep up with digital only releases, I am bad enough about unread manga when I have piles of it to remind me of my backlog, but I’m even worse when it comes to digital releases. However, sometimes a series is so charming that it sizes my attention, I overcome my usual inertia, and I end up absolutely delighted. This was the case with Matcha Made in Heaven!

Chako is a fairly typical big-city dweller, making her way through life, engaged to be married until she starts having reactions to being surrounded by sexism. When she sees her future Mother-in-Law wiping off her fiance’s feet her immediate feelings of revulsion (and the fact that her fiance is seriously creepy) has her fleeing to the countryside to her family’s traditional tea farm. Chako has been out of touch with her family for some time, so she’s a bit startled when she runs across a little girl named Futaba and a giant stern man named Isshin who demands to know what she’s doing in the house. It turns out that Isshin has taken over the family tea business while Chako’s brother works as a writer on the side to earn extra income. Being a writer apparently means abandoning all household duties, as Isshin is basically acting as Futuba’s guardian as well as working in the fields. He makes a comment about how Chako’s not going to be suited to working on her family’s farm and her instinct to rage against sexism and prove him wrong is awakened

matcha made in heaven

Chako’s mysterious yet terrible ex-fiancee shows up at the farm, and in attempt to dodge him, she leaps onto Isshin as he drives a tractor in the fields with Futaba, claiming that he’s her husband. Futuba is absolutely delighted by this development and obviously not over the death of her mother and her absentee father, so Isshin and Chako agree to go through the motions of having a fake marriage. This also has the benefit of all of the neighbors backing off a little bit from trying to set Isshin up. A fake marriage of convenience isn’t a terribly surprising story to structure a multi-volume manga around, but Yamanaka’s execution is top notch. Futuba is an amusing combination of needy 4 year-old and an old soul who is filled with delight about Chako and Isshin’s slowly developing relationship. Isshin is passionate and expressive only about tea, but Chako finds herself more and more charmed by him as she gets to know him.

matcha made in heaven

A fake marriage is nothing without additional obstacles to overcome, and they appear in Chako’s old friend Jin and Isshin’s ex-girlfriend who happens to be the heir to a tea conglomerate. The art is expressive and delicate, with Isshin’s normally stoic expressions only shifting when he’s enraptured by tea or utterly perplexed at how to react to Chako’s presence in his life. I enjoyed the slice-of-life aspect to Match Made in Heaven combined with all the details of tea farming, blending tea, going to markets and trying to salvage a struggling family business. I recommended this series for those who like uncomplicated josei romance.

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Manga Reviews REVIEWS

Knight of the Ice, Vol 11

Knight of the Ice Volume 11 by Yayoi Ogawa

I often feel a little wistful at the end of a series, especially one as consistently entertaining about Knight of the Ice, but the final volume concludes in a fashion that will satisfy readers, even though the outcomes were easy to foresee at the start of the series. As Kokoro prepares to take the ice at the Sochi Olympics, the field of skaters is shaken up by a dark horse contender with multiple quads from the United States. Kokoro also has to face a major competition without Chitose by his side to support him, since she’s recovering from necessary heart surgery. It is great to see the progression in Kokoro’s personality and how he’s able to make more decisions and assert himself as a skater, instead of drifting through life in an attempt to live up to his family’s expectations.

Ogawa nails the tension of Olympic ice skating as different skaters attempt to skate their best due to a variety of reasons, sometimes succeeding and sometimes having the small mistakes and spills that happen in competition. I always appreciate the paneling and action sequences of Knight of the Ice, which really serve to heighten the When Kokoro pops his quad lutz, readers are treated to a detailed discussion of scoring system issues, making the moments of Kokoro’s next decisions to modify his program on the fly even more dramatic. Even issues with Russian judges come into play as the final scores are tallied, making this manga enjoyable for a casual or more serious skating fan. One thing I really liked about this series was the way it developed all the supporting characters as well, and many of Kokoro’s compatriots get a sense of conclusion at the end of this volume as well.

One thing I appreciated was a bonus story that takes place before the first volume, which shows how Chitose and Kokoro reconnected after being close as childhood friends. It served as a nice way to think about how far they’ve both come as they’ve evolved over this series. I’m very glad that we’ve now gotten two Yayoi Ogawa series translated into English, but I have to say after reading both Kima wa Pet and Knight of the Ice, I feel a little greedy for more.

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Manga Reviews REVIEWS

Nina the Starry Bride, Vols 1 and 2 by Rikachi

Nina the Starry Bride Vol 1

Nina the Starry Bride Volumes 1 and 2 by Rikachi

I’m really bad at buying digital volumes of manga and then totally forgetting to read them, but I got a new tablet recently so I’m hoping to start getting caught up on some digital series that have been out for awhile. Nina the Starry Bride is likely one of those series that I would have glommed onto immediately if it had a print release, but I’m coming to it a bit late.

Nina the Starry Bride Vol 1

Royal duplicate plots are fairly common in fantasy manga, but Nina the Starry Bride is a solid example of the genre, helped a great deal by charming and detailed art. Nina is an orphan with unusual blue eyes who has found a family of sorts with a couple brothers. They spend their days hiding out and stealing occasionally to support themselves. When they fall on hard times, Nina is betrayed and handed over to slavers and her unusual eye color leads to her being recruited to be a stand-in for a recently deceased princess by the amber-eyed Prince Azure.

After some initial resistance, Nina works hard to develop her knowledge of etiquette and ability to behave like a princess. As only Azure and a few trusted servants know her secret, Nina grows closer to the second prince as she learns more about the royal family. Azure has a younger brother who is the acknowledged heir, a snarky stepmother, and his mysterious father is king. Nina and Azure share a certain loneliness, and it is nice to see how they begin to open up to each other. This series is fairly fast-paced as by the second volume Nina has a strong grasp of geopolitics and decides to save Azure, even though he’s attempting to prevent Nina from being sent off to a neighboring kingdom as part of a political alliance.

Rikachi has attractive character designs, with Azure looking particularly cool with his standoffish manners and asymmetrical earrings. Nina shifts from orphan to princess, and the lush detail of her life in the palace contrasts with the sparseness of her previous life. While Nina might not have the royal background of the people surrounding her, she’s true to herself in a way that makes it easy for her to deal with the political and family issues that she she encounters. While the elements of Nina the Starry Bride aren’t used in a particularly novel way, it is overall a strong fantasy manga that should appeal to fans of Dawn of the Arcana