Nomoto likes to comes home and cook after work, but she can’t eat as much as she cooks. By accident, when she sees her neighbor coming home – a woman carrying large buckets of fried chicken – and asks if she’s got a family, the neighbor says that it’s all for herself. The next time Nomoto makes too much, she has a idea and brings some to her neighbor, Kasuga…and a friendship is born. In Volume 1 of She Loves to Eat, She Loves to Cook, Nomoto’s life is about to change and food is the catalyst.
I’ve already raved about this manga in reviews of Volume 1 and Volume 2 in Japanese. But now that you can read it, let me get into the weeds of all the things I really like about this series. ^_^
Obviously…food. I’m not a cook. I just love food and I love both eating it and enjoying other people’s enjoyment of it, and the mitfreude of enjoying it with other people. This manga is very much about a woman who enjoys someone else’s enjoyment.
Kasuga seems intimidating initially, as a large woman with a flat affect. As we read, it becomes clear to both Nomoto and us, she does have reactions and we become more able to interpret them. Her body type is a nice change of pace and the way she eats with obvious gusto is drawn with care and a lot of attention. Whole panels go by which are just her eating, but it is not disturbing. There is an intensity in the ways the scenes of Kasuga eating are drawn. In my review of the JP volume I say this, The focus on eating and mouths here is not gross, completely unlike a similar obsession in Blue is the Warmest Color movie, which I found creepy and intrusive. Kasuga’s a fantastic, fully-rendered character.
Nomoto is also instantly relatable. Disgusted that the guys at work think women exist for them, Nomoto’s journey will continue to be something that has a lot of feels. She’ll also flesh out as the story goes on in ways that make us relate to her even more. Both of them have complicated relationships with their families, as we’ll learn. Like, y’know, people do.
Ultimately, the thing that sold me on this book is the relationship between Nomoto and Kasuga. They like each other and like to do stuff together and they tell each other that. It’s so refreshing, in a surprising way to just have adults say “I had fun today, let’s do something together again.” This relationship may (cough/will/cough) change, but it’s super nice here to see a relationship rooted in friendship first. The chapter in which Kasuga intuits that Nomoto is not well, and just goes out and gets her pads and painkillers and food made me, and Nomoto, love her. (The rule around my house is food, then caffeine, then drugs, then more food. It almost always works.) This whole manga is just…women taking care of each other. Wow. I love it for that most of all.
And then again, there’s the food. Sometimes it’s simple, or goofy, or complicated. But most of it is something you could do at home, because they do it at home. ^_^
Yen Press has done a decent edition. Caleb Cook’s translation provides a bit of a nod to Nomoto’s regional accent, without flooding the dialogue. Phil Christie’s lettering is clean, with the Yen house style of not retouching or replacing even the easy sound effects, so all s/fx are transliterated, then a translation is provided in parentheses. In the more crowded panels, this feels cramped and on big s/fx, the teeny script to the side just looks…small. I hope one day Yen will give letterers time and money to do retouch on at least the easier stuff. This manga has a lot of s/fx over the art, so maybe I’m whistling into the wind, but that’s on my wish list.
So, Yuri. Not here. Not yet. But it will happen. And it will be realistic and queer, so hang on for Volume 2! In the meantime, this book is absolutely guaranteed to be one of my Top 10 of the year here on Okazu. So just go get it now and enjoy. ^_^
Ratings:
Art – 9
Story – 9
Characters – 9 We don’t know much about them, but what we know is sufficient to know them
Service – Does massive platters of food count? No? Then…no.
Yuri – 2 in this volume, more to come.
Overall – 9 but only so there is somewhere to go up.
What a fantastic manga. Cannot *wait* for Volume 2, which comes out in March 2023. (And Volume 3 in Japanese, which will be out in November of this year!)
