Manga Review: Kitchen Princess

Last summer I checked out the first two (of ten) volumes of Kitchen Princess out from my not-so-local library and was surprised and pleased that I liked the series a lot more than I expected but didn't have time to read the rest before I had to go back to school. So naturally one of the first things I checked out from it this sumer was the other eight volumes, it just ended up down a little lower in my stack so I'd have enough time to read all of them at my leisure.

Kitchen Princess written by Miyuki Kobayashi illustrated by Natsumi Ando

Summary: Najika is an orphan from Hokkadio who has recently come to Tokyo to attend school and finds herself in the elite class since she is not only a fantastic cook but can accurate taste every ingredient in a dish and remember it later on. She does also have a second reason to come to the school however, years ago when she was saved from drowning by a young boy who cheered her up and gave her a flan with the school's spoon stuck in it and she's always wanted to find him again and thank him for not only saving her life but for helping her find meaning and a reason to keep on living.

The Good: While romance does play a large role in this series I was pleased to see that it wasn't the driving force of Najika's life, she remains passionate about her cooking throughout and her search for her flan prince remains something that comes up only now and then (although I almost want to give the series credit for creating at least a more interesting than usual love-polygon, even if it was clear from the beginning who Najika would ultimately end up with). The series never gets dark although it does veer a little closer to darkness and tragedy than many shojo do and while sometimes the way it handles that gives the story a little more depth and heart at other times it flounders and becomes simply melodramatic instead.

The Bad: This series likes it's melodrama and overuses it by the end of the series. The best example comes at the series final climax where Najika is at a baking competition when tragedy (from an event outside the competition) strikes and that overwhelms the story. In this particular case the tragedy had been foreshadowed, I could had sworn it had already been taken care of by that point, but it still was just too much for the story, the competition would have worked just fine and this was hardly the only time the series did this. I wish the story had instead had less drama and just had the characters struggle through it to create tension, I think this would have also made the series feel slightly more mature since instead it feels like the creators are so worried that they're audience won't stay engaged unless there is something happening all the time that it's also a tad insulting.

The Art: KP reminds me of Fruits Basket in a few ways including in the art style (which is a bit odd since KP ran in the mid-aughts while it's tall oval shojo eyes look is more of a trait from the mid to late 90s, ie when Fruits Basket started). It's not my favorite type of art style (I prefer slightly less exaggerated character proportions and less screentone, heck it  popped up as a translation note in nearly every volume since Ando was always mentioning it in the illustration notes) but the characters looked distinct from each other and everything flowed well so it technically more than fine.


So while the series didn't turn out to be quite as strong as I had hoped based on those first two volumes I still enjoyed it and will probably get Kodansha Comic's re-release omnibus editions at some point. Overall I'm giving this series a 3.5 out of 5 for being sweet, having it's heart in the right place, yet just missing the beat multiple times with it's fondness for melodrama.

Webcomic Review Month 2013: Chaos Life and Cooking Up Comics

Nope, didn't skip B, just didn't have any comics for that this year that were far enough along in their stories for me to feel comfortable reviewing but next year I should have some! And as another quick note, apparently the rest of the universe also thinks that March is a fantastic time to talk about webcomics and Comic Mix is holding their annual tournament bracket involving webcomics. I think I saw some complaints about it last year (the usual popularity contest/people spamming the polls stuff, although sweet Jesus you can technically buy votes this year) but at the very least it's a great way to find new webcomics, they're starting with 300(!!) this year, so go give that a look!


Chaos Life by A. Stiffler

A semi-autobiographical, but often exaggerated, comic about the life of A. Stiffler and her wife.

I don't read as many autobiographical comics as I used to these days since, well, if they go on for years and years you just get a little bored by them (I certainly don't want people to go through tons of drama but some people are just better than others at humorizing their lives) so perhaps it works in my favor that Chaos Life has a bit of an erratic update schedule. Of course the fact that this comic appeals to my sense of humor, more than a bit whacky and Stiffler makes fun of herself just as much as anything else in the comic.

Chaos Life updates a bit erratically, usually once a week,  but can be found over here and they have plenty of ways to let you know when it has updated, no print edition as of writing..



Cooking Up Comics by Alisa Harris

Weekly recipes in comic form!

I was a little hesistant to talk about this comic, while I do talk about autobio comics, which are non-fiction, this almost seemed a bit too non-fictiony for my blog. And then I remembered that I review whatever I want and that I want more people to read these recipes so of course I should talk about it! The recipes are all easy to follow, her illustrations and written directions are quite clear, although I'll admit that I haven't used any of the recipes yet since I've been too busy since I discovered the site (she also posts a lot of vegan recipes which I'm less interested in but I know that's a big plus for other people). But she has a wide variety of recipes (all handily laid out in a single page and arranged by type no less!) so if you enjoy cooking at all peruse the site a bit and see if anything catches your eye!

Cooking up Comics updates every Wednesday, although it looks like it might currently be running guest strips right now instead of the regular comics and it sounds like the comic will end and be collected into a book in the next year or two.


2012 "B" Comics
2011 "B" Comics

2012 "C" Comics
2011 "C" Comics 

Movie Review: Rataouille

I didn't see this film back when it first came out (2007 which was high school so this was probably during the period where I was a bit snobby about American cartoons, oh well) and suddenly thought of it the other day. 


Rataouille

Summary: Remy has always had an unusual interest in food for a rat, he's practically a gourmet but the rest of the family is content to keep their heads down and eat garbage. It takes some some extraordinary circumstances but he does find a way to make his dream of becoming a famous chef come true, it just involves a few lies along the way.

The Good: I really liked a lot of the characters here and I liked them quite a bit more expected. When I saw Colette in the commercials I thought she would just be a rather tsundere love interest but then she had a great little speech about being the only female cook in the kitchens which I thought rang true with a lot of male-dominated careers. And then the food critic also had a great little speech in the end about reviewing that I also liked, heck even the "villain" of the story (erm, not the critic) starts off mostly reasonable, this was a pretty good movie for characters and the plot turned out to be a bit more complicated than I expected.

The Bad: The ending did seem to resolve itself a little too neatly and I didn't think that Linguini had enough character development as he should have (he's not the lead character or the main character, that role is unquestionably Remy's, but considering how important he is to the story and how prominent he is in all the advertising). Really though those are my only two real complaints with the story and they are hardly major ones, this was a pretty solid film all in all!

The Audio: While I liked the voice acting and the background music none of it was very memorable for me. The voice acting was a bit more memorable than the music and it certainly wasn't bad, this is just one of the times when I remember the visuals and the store more than the music.

The Visuals: Since this is a few years old it doesn't have the more photo-realistic look that Pixar is moving to but I rather like their more cartoony style as well. Everything looked polished, finished, and it never seemed like they were restrained by technological limitations. Sometimes I think it's rather silly that modern CGI cartoons are aspiring to look more and more like live action films so I'm rather happy to see cartoons that aren't afraid to look, well, cartoony.


So I'll happily give this film 4 out of 5 stars and will have to keep an eye out for it the next time I'm at the local used bookstore. Now I'm wondering if there were any other Disney/Pixar films I missed during that time period that are worth catching....

Manga Review: Kitchen Princess (volumes one and two)

Yep, two food related shojo manga two weeks in a row, bit odd but considering that's what the library had that I was interested in it just happened (funny enough I checked out Honey and Clover at the same time but I won't be talking about that since I think I already finished reading the manga regardless). I'd heard some good stuff about the story but had put it off for years since it turns out I was confusing it with yet another shojo cooking title, Yumeiro Pastissiere which just sounded too young for my tastes. Bit of a silly mistake, especially since the titles sound nothing alike, but better late than never right?

Kitchen Princess written by Miyuki Kobayashi and drawn by Natsumi Ando

 

Summary: Najika Kazami is a young girl whose always loved to cook and enrolls in the prestigious Seika Academy not only to learn how to cook but to meet her "flan prince," a boy who saved her from drowning years ago and then gave her the best flan she's ever tasted. This is a school for the rich and talented however and when orphaned Najika shows up without any obvious talent to start with it's clear that she's in for a rough time while she finds her place.

The Good: The story has some unexpected dark aspects to it which, rather than feeling like an attempt to draw in older readers because of how "edgy" it is, feels like the genuine kind of darkness you find in a lot of kid's stories. Those moments work well and give Najika time to develop and Najika herself is a likable character who tries, succeeds, fails, and tries to give up at times which makes her feel more rounded than some other shojo I've read lately. She reminds me a lot of Tohru Honda from Fruits Basket actually with her determined cheerfullness yet breaks some of the time. It was a much more engaging story than I expected and if I came across more volumes, I'm regretting not grabbing more from the library when I had the chance, I would keep reading it. 

The Bad: I really couldn't find much wrong in this story after just two volumes. I would like there to be a slightly more central plotline, which I doubt would happen since that just doesn't feel like the manga's style, and I hope Najika makes some progress finding her prince soon (tvtropes accidentally spoiled who it was for me, although I had already guessed before the first volume was over). The series is at least eight volumes long so it seems silly to complain about stuff like that yet so I'll say it again, this was a much stronger series than I expected and if you like shojo, give it a shot.

The Art: The cover gives you a good idea what all the character designs look like (another reason Najika reminds me a bit of Tohru, they both have those extra huge eyes) and it has a lot of other normal shojo hallmarks as well. It's nothing new for shojo readers and will probably put off non-shojo fans a bit (if the premise doesn't already scare them off since it is a rather girly one) but it's consistent and detailed so it didn't bother me.

As I mentioned earlier the omnibus editions that are coming out now (by Kodansha I guess since Del Ray doesn't exactly exist anymore) are tempting me since it would be a pretty cheap way to collect the series, although I have so much other stuff to buy that it's going to be a while before I get around to them, maybe during a sale on TRSI next year. 

Manga Review: Mixed Vegetables (volumes 1 and 2)

Due to an interesting sequence of events I actually got yet another library card this summer, this time for another town in my county which had some books mine didn't (and it seems like they can't simply ship books between the two systems, boo) and I was pleased to discover that they had an interesting and well-stocked manga section. So I grabbed what looked interesting (including one title that I can't remember sadly) and went to town on it.

Mixed Vegetables by Ayumi Komura

Summary: Hanayu has a problem, her family owns a bakery which she is expected to inherit but her real passion lies with making sushi, something that doesn't go well with sweets. So she hits upon a plan when she encounters her classmate Hayato, eventually become his wife so she'll now have the excuse that her husband is inheriting a sushi shop and they can't possibly do both at once. But it turns out that Hayato is interested in her for the exact same reason.....

The Good: I've seen some rather "mixed" (hey put down those pitchforks!) reviews of this series, some bad and some okay, and the series did turn out better than I expected. Hanayu has some spunk to her and a lot of drive, even if she's ultimately too fixated on just making sushi, and there was some amusing humor in there. It's not a ton but it is enough to keep someone entertained for an afternoon.

The Bad: So the plot point that Hayato also wants out of the family business was mentioned in all the advertising I've seen for the series over the years yet it takes a full manga volume to get to that reveal which honestly frustrated me a bit (partially because it was slow and then partially because it's then revealed that all of his act so far has been a lie and that means the series will be even longer since he then needs to be developed). Also, for a series that is so obvious a romance it certainly takes it's sweet time

The Art: The art here is very average looking shojo, which readers can probably tell from the cover where the characters look like they could be from any number of other series from over the years. It works but I don't remember very clearly any of the details from it (compare with House of Five Leaves which I read around the same time and remember fairly distinctly). I think the art sums up the series, it's not terrible, you won't feel worse off for having read it, but I can't recommend it knowing that there are better shojo series out there (one of which I will get to next week).

Doubt I'll be trying to find more volumes of this series in the future (the library did have more, I just already had so much manga that I decided to hold off checking out the entire series at once), next week's manga will be an interesting one to compare this to at least.