Tokyo Revengers by Wakui Ken

Calling all Yankee/Delinquent fans!

Tokyo Revengers is another one that I fell into because the anime caught my eye first. This manga is the 2020 Kodansha Manga award winner in the shounen category. According to Wikipedia, the award is given to serialize manga. I’m not sure it’s awarded to best, since the award seems to be ‘in-house’? It may just be a recognition of best-selling. Because this thing is hot property–not only is the manga still selling like hotcakes, but there is both an anime AND a live-action in progress.

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So what’s all the fuss about?

I wish I could say, but I’m not entirely sure why people are so stoked for this.

Tokyo Revengers feels to me like a retread of another story that I thought I might have reviewed called Erased: The Town Where Only I am Missing / Boku dake ga Inai Machi (by Sanbe Kei) but, apparently, I did not. In that story, as in this, a sad sack adult has a mystical ability to travel back in time and uses that power to solve the crime of the murder of someone close to him.

In Erased, the hero, Fujinuma, has a superpower he calls ‘Revival’ where he can blip back in time when things go wrong. When his mother is murdered, his powers cast him eighteen years back and he has to solve the mystery of how to change the future. He bops in and out of time kind of randomly, but that leads to two timelines running concurrently.

In Tokyo Revengers, the hero, Tachimichi, discovers a girl he knew long ago was killed by gang violence. He also comes and goes from the past, but he’s more in control of it because, early on, he discovers that it is triggered by a handshake with the murdered girl’s younger brother.

Unpopular opinion time! Having read quite bit of Tokyo Revengers (which is on-going, both in scanlations and in Japan), I feel like I enjoyed Erased more?

I suspect that the reason Tokyo Revengers is more popular, however, is the hero. Tachimichi is a classic yankee and people dig that? All the situations are very yakuza and rough and tumble. Morever, Tachimichi is relatable. He’s a bit like Kaizaki from ReLife, who still carries all his adult fears and foibles in his newly renewed teenage body. He spends a lot of time in the past wondering why he was such a dip and why he EVER thought fighting was cool.

Which, I mean… I like it? I read almost all that’s available, so there’s no question that this story is compelling.

I think my problem is that the story asks to believe all of this hassle is worth saving a character we barely spend any time with, on screen, Tachimichi’s girlfriend, Tachibana Hinata. I mean, I’m not a sociopath. Every life is worth saving, ultimately. But, in a story, I have a harder time getting attached to someone who is given maybe one decently memorable scene? Like, I don’t even know how Tachimichi and Hinata met. I don’t know who asked who out. I haven’t FELT their relationship much at all.

Meanwhile, in Erased, Fujinuma’s mom is well-established before she’s murdered and, even if I wasn’t invested in her, Fujinuma is instantly pegged by the cops as her killer. Add to that, there are a bunch of other kids from Fujinuma’s class who also go missing as well, and it’s all interconnected. The stakes feel very high?

Hinata is clearly collateral damage in a gang war. Saving her kind of even an afterthought in the story, too. Spoilers if you are only watching the simulcast anime, but it turns out her saving her life doesn’t actually fix things… so, ultimately, it’s the gang that’s the center of the story.

And, I’m into Draken?

But, everyone else? They mostly feel like run-of-the mill yankee to me. Like, I know I’m supposed to find crazy-Mikey attractive, but I just don’t.

I say this, of course, having devoured most of the manga available, so it’s not like I didn’t keep turning pages. The story is very gripping. The action is intense. The time-travel is cool.

The only other thing that through me a bit is the art style–it feels very retro. I was surprised that the manga was first released in 2017. It has clunky kind of 90s feel to it, but that’s a thing mangaka do. I got used to it, at any rate.

Would I recommend it? Well, yes, of course I would. I would just also recommend the other two stories that I suggested above (Erased, ReLife) as well. If you do start this, there is a LOT, and, frankly, that may have colored my semi-‘meh’-ness about this? 200+ chapters is a big investment, and I’m not convinced that the final payout is going to be anything but more pain and tragedy.

But, you know, all the cool kids are into it. So, there’s that.

Today, We Continue Our Lives Together Under One Roof by Inui Ayu

I’ve been in a yuri mood for some reason. By chance I came across this autobiographical manga called Today, We Continue Our Lives Together Under One Roof.

The story being autobiographical, I don’t feel I can say a WHOLE lot about the actual content of the story in terms of whether or not the storyline was satisfying because, you know, it’s just someone’s actual life.

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Our story is just as it says on the tin: the continuing saga of the mangaka, Inui Ayu, and her real-life girlfriend, Kon (pictured above.) They pretty much prove the rule that the real Gay Agenda is… (drum roll, please!) …watching movies together and doing laundry! Yeah, basically, just living normal, boring lives together.

It is clear that the two of them are very lovely-dovey, but if you’re tuning in hoping for some funny stories or misadventures, this is not the manga for you. It’s very, very, VERY slice-of-life in a way that I adore.

We do, as the above set of panels shows, get to know both women though the story. Inui tells us how they met, etc., but, as I have already suggested, there’s not a huge amount of actual story, per se. However, that didn’t stop me from enjoying the eighteen chapters that are currently available on Mangakakalot.

I found the art style cute. Plus, I am always up for stories about adult lesbians being… lesbian-y. This could very much be the manga I would write about myself and my wife (only I’d be the one with short hair,) and there’s something very comforting about that?

I mostly tune into slice-of-life manga to get a bit of insight into Japanese life and culture and there’s a bit of that here? We get to see some of Inui and Kon’s social life, what they think of their friends, etc., and that’s enough for me?

Would I recommend it? If you don’t mind another slow-paced, more sweet-than-sexy story, then yes. Absolutely.

You got to like any autobiographical story where the author draws an arrow to a picture of themselves and writes “Likes attention.” I feel this is true of most authors, myself included.

Fainda-goshi no ano ko / That Girl Through the Viewfinder by Kabocha

There are only six chapters scanlated in this two volume series, but since the last update was only three days ago, there is hope that Fainda Goshi no Ano Ko / The Girl in the Viewfinder has not been completely abandoned.

Our heroine Hajime is a type I’ve been seeing a lot–a girl who seems a little ungrounded, with nothing that really motivates her in her life, UNTIL…

There’s always an UNTIL, right? Otherwise there wouldn’t be much of a story. In Hajime’s case the “until,” is when she meets a girl, Kei, in a meet-cute that could be straight out of a movie… a movie that Hajime has always secretly wanted to film.

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Even though we are introduced to Hajime as someone who has no purpose in her life, it turns out that’s not exactly true. She’s always wanted to be a filmmaker, but, even though her high school had a film club, there were only two other members who mostly just wanted to sit around and watch films, rather than make them. Hajime just sort of went with that for years, but now it’s her senior year and she feels like maybe it’s time to finally seize the moment.

Maybe.

She’s not really sure how to go about seizing the moment UNTIL she turns a literal corner just as a girl, Kei, drops the papers she was carrying. The sheets drift through the air carried by a light wind and the whole thing looks exactly like some scene in a movie where two lovers meet for the first time.

And, you know, Kei is pretty darned beautiful, as it happens.

Even so, Hajime hands back Kei’s papers with a blush and doesn’t say anything. But all this talk of school being finally over is starting to gnaw at Hajime and so she ends up chasing after Kei and asking her to star in a movie. Her movie.

The rest of the chapters follow what happens next.

The sixth chapter (which is where the story ends when this review was written) is a cliffhanger. Kei has to transfer to another school because her mother has moved. Even though there’s been a kind of love confession between the girls nothing is resolved except to say a few more words about how they motivate each other.

Hopefully, if we get the full two volumes there will be a happy ending?

I will say that I liked the artistic style, even though it’s somewhat simplistic. I am often drawn to clean lines, however.

It’s hard to recommend this story at this point. Perhaps, if the idea of this romance appeals, check back in a few months and see if there has been further updates? I will say that, of course, this title called to mind the very first yaoi series I ever read, the Finder Series, which I first read under the title “You’re my Love Prize in Viewfinder.”

This ‘viewfinder’ is decidedly less smutty. In fact, I think the girls awkwardly hug… once? So, your mileage may vary, depending on why you read these stories.

Super Cub by Kanitan

Long time readers of MangaKast know that I am a sucker for really slow placed slice-of-life manga. The lower the dramatic stakes, the more I am into it! Super Cub is basically a story about a girl who gets a scooter… and rides it around.

Yep. That’s the whole thing.

For… five volumes and counting.

And, I am all in!

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According to Wikipedia, Super Cub started out as a light novel written by Tone Kōken and illustrated by Hiro. It was later adapted into a manga illustrated by Kaitain (which is what I have linked to above) and is now also an anime available on Funimation.

Our heroine is a “nobody” girl named Koguma. She should be really tragic, since we learn at the start that her father died and her mother basically abandoned her. However, since that’s not what the story is about, none of that seems to touch her. Instead, Koguma is insanely stoic and practical. She likes to do things methodically and by the book. Initially, she doesn’t seem particularly bothered by her nobody status. She simply remarks that she has no parents, no friends, no real life…

Until one day she decides she’s sick of the uphill pedal to school on her bicycle. Some random person passes her on a scooter and she thinks, I should see about getting myself one of those. After school, she bikes to a scooter shop, but all the bikes seem too expensive. The kindly shopkeeper suggests that maybe used would do and wheels out a Super Cub that he’s willing to part with for (approximately) $40. When Koguma asks how he can afford to let it go so cheaply, he tells her “It killed someone.” Even so, Koguma doesn’t hesitate. She’ll take it.

Cue: sitting on the bike and feeling the wind lift her hair. FATE has sealed the deal.

After getting her license and such, Koguma imagines a scenario in her head where she stands up in class and announces how she rode to school on her scooter, and she suddenly becomes popular. She doesn’t do that of course, this is Japan, after all. However, it does, very slowly, start to become true.

In sewing class, she ends up making a cloth bag for her helmet and when some kids tease her about it, she explains it needs to be big enough for her motorcycle helmet. At first everyone crowds around asks her what kind of bike she has, but when she explains it’s just a scooter, a Super Cub, everyone drops her like a hot potato… except on girl.

This is the beginning of a deep friendship.

And facial expressions.

And, this is about the general level of drama throughout.

I read the chapters available so far online, and, mostly, there’s just a lot of driving around and seeing things. I am reminded of Laid-Back Camp in terms of the kind of slow-build friendships over shared scenery.

Would I recommend it? Of course I would. I love this kind of story. But, I always hesitate to tell people to run out and find it, because it’s honestly about people just doing every day things almost at a real time pace. It is SLOW. It is… basic? But, again, if you like stories about life in Japan and women’s friendships, this might be for you.

I mean, at one point she runs out of gas and it gets pretty darned intense.

If you think you can handle this kind of excitement, then go for it.

Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?! / 30-sai made Doutei da to Mahou Tsukai ni nareru rashii by Toyota Yuu

I’m unfortunately still in a phase where I’m consuming more anime than manga. However, when I run across things that I’m watching that have a corresponding manga, I’m still reviewing them here.  I feel a bit like a fraud, since part of why I started this blog was so that I could write about things that no one was reviewing because they DIDN’T have an anime.

Ah, well.

This too shall pass, I’m sure.

So… I came across this show with its absolutely ridiculous name: Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?! / 30-sai made Doutei da to Mahou Tsukai ni nareru rashii because I’d watched a few things that would qualify as yaoi on Crunchyroll. There among all the various anime was this live-action show.  

And I’m not quite sure what made me pull the trigger and watch it, but I’m really glad I did.

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The conceit of the show is that if you remain a virgin for thirty years, you become magical–a magician. In this case, specifically, you can read people’s minds when you touch them.

Our hapless hero, Adachi, is one such virgin. He has a rather uneventful thirtieth birthday, but the next day at the office, thanks to an overcrowded elevator, not only does he discover that this rather insane seeming rumor is true, but also that the super-hot, ace salesman Kurusawa has a crush on him. 

Wacky hijinks ensue.

Adachi is, in the way of many yaoi, straight… though, like with a lot of stories with this kind of set up, it’s clear that Adachi has an appreciation of the male form… which helps set the stage for the romance.

In the live-action, it’s set-up that Kurusawa is the experienced aggressor and has always had a thing for Adachi. In the manga it’s much more clear that crushing on a guy is kind of new for Kurusawa, too. He’d always assumed he was also straight until one night when Kurusawa ends up getting set up as eye-candy for the president (who is a lady) and Adachi comes to his rescue by apologizing for him when he reacts badly to a lewd proposal.  They have a drunken heart to heart on a park bench and Kurusawa confusingly hears his heart go ba-dum when lying on Adachi’s knees. 

It’s a meet cute that actually comes late in the story, around chapter 5.1.  

Though their meet cute is similar in both, the manga is actually quite a bit different. For one, there’s a classic sento scene (except instead of a high school trip, it’s a company retreat,) where Kurusawa wonders if he’ll find Adachi hot naked. (Surprise! YES, very much so!)  A lot of the scenes play out similarly, but come in a different order  or under different circumstances. 

That being said, both are cute?

If you are interested in live-action, I totally recommend the Crunchyroll version. If not? Try the manga. It’s not very smutty, but the story is actually quite charming. 

Cells at Work/Hataraku Saibou Spin-offs

I’m fairly certain that my readership does not need an introduction to Cells at Work (aka, Hataraku Saibou), the manga/anime about anthropomorphized cells inside the human body. However, if you haven’t heard of this one, it’s… I mean, I will admit that I resisted watching the anime for a long time because the concept sounds so stupid. Cells? As people? Red blood cells running around delivering oxygen? White blood cells fighting off germs? SERIOUSLY?

Seriously. It’s weirdly awesome. Not gonna lie, I totally found White Blood Cell kind of hot.

I could write a review of the main two manga, Cells at Work / Hataraku Saibou or Cells at Work: Code Black / Hataraku Saibou: BLACK, but I sort of figure everyone has already done that by now. Instead, my review will focus on two of the other spin offs I found: Cells at Work: Baby / Hataruku Saibou: BABY and  Platelets Hard at Work / Hataraku Kesshouban-chan

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There is only one chapter scanlated for Cells at Work: Baby.  It’s kind of exactly what you’re expecting? The story follows a bunch of baby red blood cells as they learn to take oxygen from the placenta along with iron and calcium for a growing baby body. There’s a bit of drama over the labor contractions, but the baby is otherwise healthy.  There are three volumes available in Japan, so presumably the story continues after birth.  

One of the things I found both off-putting and yet totally fascinating at the same time about Cells at Work: Code Black was the willingness of the anime to just GO THERE with things like sperm and erections.  So, it should be no surprise that birth seems to be being treated with the same matter-of-factness.

Platelets at Hard at Work is a little less health focused than any of the other spin offs. 

Platelets follows the gang of adorable, chibi platelets that we met in the original body, original storyline of Cells at Work, including Backwards-hat and Leader-chan. There are cameos from other favorites, including Dendritic Cell and Macrophage. 

But, the stories are less focused on what platelets actually do in the body and more excuses to show the cute anthropomorphized cells playing games while they work, etc. There are twelve chapters of this scanlated so far, as of this review. Like BABY, there are also three volumes out in Japan, according to Baka-Updates. 

I liked following the platelets more than the baby focused story, but part of that is a fannish desire to see favorite characters from the original reappear more than anything else. Obviously, the spin offs are the sort of thing that may only appeal to hard core fans, anyway.

The number of spin offs is legion. For instance there’s Hatarakinai Saibou / Cells NOT at Work about some red blood cells that don’t end up working for some reason. There’s another one that follows Killer T Cells from the original series: Hataraku Saibou and Friends. There’s another spin-off about life specific to being female, called Cells at Work: LADY / Hataraku Saibou: LADY that doesn’t seem to be scanlated yet.  White blood cells get their own spin-off, too, which may be new enough not to have been picked up yet by someone either.

The one I am the most curious about is called Bacteria at Work / Hataraku Saikin, which has seven volumes in Japan, which is supposedly about “A spin-off of Hataraku Saibou, a story about anthropomorphised blood cells battling against infecting microorganisms, this series focuses on personified “good bacteria” and “bad bacteria” waging war in the intestines.”  Which has its OWN spin off, called Hataraku Saikin Neo, about the female bacteria in the body. I only just now found this one. It has sixty-three chapters available, so I may actually have to write up a separate review of that one if I decide to tackle it. It is clearly by another author? I’m not sure the art is as good, but it might be a fun read for the medical info??

… I can’t believe I just typed that.

A person could devote their whole lives to tracking down and reading various Cells at Work manga… and probably end up with an MD at the end.

I don’t know about any of you, but I have now started looking at my body wondering if my own body is a nice work environment or not….

White Day by Hyun-Jung Gu

I was wrong about when White Day occurs! Women have to wait a whole month after Valentine’s Day to get a return gift–March 14!  

There are not a lot of manga that I could find about White Day, however.(If you find any good ones let me know!) However, I did find a one-shot comedy manhwa about it called, White Day.

This manhwa is too short for me to really explain beyond saying that there is a girl in South Korea who gets ALL the men. Check out the manhwa to find out WHY.

So, I mean, it’s hard not to recommend when it’s this short? Go for it. It will take you about three seconds to read and the punchline lands pretty well?

Kiga au to iu Koto de by Asou Kai

Continuing the Valentine’s theme but making it GAY, I read the one-shot Kiga au to iu Koto de. It turns out that Kiga au to iu Koto de is a sequel to Kiga au to iu Koto wa, which I then also read, just to be a completist.

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The one-shot follows Shiraishi a bespectacled salary man who has fallen into a romantic entanglement with super-gay Iizuka. Iizuka, as we learn from the main manga, has been gay since high school.  

Shiraishi, meanwhile, just isn’t sure about the whole ‘love’ thing. Like, he’s sufficiently into Iizuka that there is a lot of sex, but he’s kind of new to the whole behaving like a boyfriend deal. Overhearing a fellow office worker talk about how he hopes to get Valentine’s chocolate, Shiraishi thinks maybe since he is “playing the female role” (his words!) he should go buy some chocolate or something for Iizuka. 

Only, he gets home to discover that Iizuka has bought some for him! I kind of like that Iizuka is all, “Hey, since we’re queer, we get to make the rules up, so… looking forward to your gift on White Day!” And, Shiraishi is all, “Sorry. I actually bought you chocolate, too?”

That’s kind of the whole thing? Plus, sex and some feelings, of course!

So, it is sort of worth going back and reading their meet-cute in the original manga. It’s actually kind of a sad story, in that Iizuka ends up forcing himself on Shiraishi after helping him move house after Shiraishi’s divorce. Guilt-ridden by this, he disappears. This causes Shiraishi to remember how they were in high school and to freak out over the fact that Iizuka implied that if Shiraishi was ever upset over how into him Iizuka was, he’d “disappear and never come back.” So, you know, seems possibly suicidal.

Luckily, it’s all a misunderstanding due to Iizuke having his own housing crisis and problem solved by moving into together!

Yay?

I actually liked the second story (which, in the version I read was actually the first,) about a guy who is haunted by hisnow-dead teenage lover and the grocery store employee who can see ghosts. That story really reminded me of Natsuyuki Rendezvous in that the ghost initially seems pretty cool, but then starts considering things like “well, if I can’t be with the living, maybe I should convince the living to be with me…” aka DEAD. So, you know, that’s a bit creepy!

The art style of these are decidedly… fine? But, nothing to write home about. That being said, there are only the usual one volume’s worth of chapters to the main manga and a single extra one-shot, so it’s not a huge investment. 

I totally recommend it for the ghost story, if nothing else.

Chocolate Confusion by Seisou Natsume / Miike Romuko

I very rarely review straight romances, but I was looking for stories that featured Valentine’s Day and I liked the look of this one. It also features one of my new favorite character tropes: The guy with the scary face. 

*His surname Kitakaze is literally translated as “North Wind.” So, a cold wind blowing from the north is the furthest from a spring sensation (“spring” is also often used to imply the first blush of a new love in Japanese.)

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Kitakaze is a salaryman with a scary face who has never, ever gotten Valentine’s chocolate that wasn’t given as an obligation in his entire 35 years. As I’m sure most of my readers know, in Japan, the girls give the boys they like chocolate on Valentine’s Day. The more homemade and personal the chocolates are, the more of a love confession they are considered. Valentine’s is one way–the boys get the gifts. 

Women will get treated by men on White Day, two weeks later.

Kitakaze is going about his business, looking grumpy, and giving off a terrifying air, when Valentine’s day rolls around again. He spends the day being extra mopey because, well, he’s not going to get any chocolate once again… except for that one box that all the men in the office get, because, you know, it would be rude to leave someone out. 

He has, however, a secret crush on one of the office ladies. Miharu (her surname, incidentally, likely refers to spring, as ‘haru’ is the word for spring, “Behind the Name,” suggests it means spring’s beauty) is one of the only people who smiles at his grumpy face and so he’s always deeply admired her for her ability to see past his handicap.

We find out, however, in the second chapter that Miharu is only able to do that because she feels confident in high heels, which she always wears to the office. She feels like her high heels allow her to face anything… even Kitakaze’s terrifying scowl.

On Valentine’s, when they are both working late, Miharu has an accident familiar to a lot of office women: she comes down a bit twisty on one foot, and bam! Off snaps a heel!  Coming to her rescue like the prince she always dreamed of…. Scary Kitakaze! With a pair of one-use disposable slippers. 

In her flustered gratefulness, Miharu thrusts a valentine chocolate gift at him that she’d gotten because her much more outgoing and flirty friend had overbought.  Unbeknownst to Miharu? The chocolate actually says, “I love you.”

Kitakaze assumes this was actually intentional.

He decides that the plan is to start an exchange diary of his feelings with Miharu and he gives it to her in the alleyway near work (she, of course, assumes he’s planning to murder her or worse.)

The chapters end there? I suspect the scanlators gave up? But, it’s clear that in manga (Baka-Updates tells me that the full run is three volumes/tankoban,) they are actually likely to find a connection with the whole heel thing because not only does Kitakaze recognize her brand of shoe, but also he has a sister who is shoe obsessed. If I had to guess the final plot points, it would be that Kitakaze is off buying his sister a pair of shoes, spots the exact shoes that Miharu broke and buys them. Meanwhile, she’s been working up the courage to tell him that they have nothing in common and, ta-dah, a sign of true love. The end?  Maybe. If I were writing it at least.

Do I recommend this? 

It’s kind of hard to given how few chapters of it exist, but I do like the art and the set-up is fun. So, maybe? If you aren’t driven crazy by series that just sort of peter out because the scanlators run out of steam, go broke, or whatever else happens to make the translations stop.

Fungus, perhaps?

Shinya Shokudou / Midnight Dinfooder by Abe Yaro

A friend of mine recently reminded me of the Netflix live-action show Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories that I watched years ago.When we were chatting I expressed surprise that there was more to it than a single season and he said, “Oh, I thought you’d know all about it because there was a manga.”

There was?

Yes, apparently, there was.

Wow, I feel like a dummy! I had no idea.  So, I finally tracked it down Shin’ya Shokudou and read it. What a delight!  Just like in the Netflix show, Shin’ya Shokudou is about the characters who frequent a cafe that is open from midnight to 7am in Shinjuku, a Tokyo district known for its nightlife. 

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Abe-sensei’s art style is atypical in its roughness. The style is very crude, not at all what I’m used to from manga. In fact, I checked to see when the manga was published and it seems to be 2006–so, that’s some time ago, but not like the 1960s or something. 

I eventually got used to it?

Each chapter is a complete short story, which maybe helps?  There are recurring characters, but because each chapter tells a full story, you could read a few here and there. It’s not the type of manga where you might feel compelled to binge–though I ended up reading all of the currently available chapters (at the time of this review 53) in two sittings. 

There is something that I find weirdly compelling about this particular subgenre of manga. As I’ve talked about before on this blog, I love slice-of-life partly because it gives me a  window into daily life in what is, for me as a Westerner, a foreign country.  I’m aware that these stories are idealized versions of life, but slice of life often has very heartwarming storylines and Shin’ya Shokudou is no exception. 

Food cures all ills. It can heal a broken heart or bring together lost twins.

Or so this manga would have me believe.

But, I like that message? Food is, in point of fact, one of my love languages, so I resonate strongly with the idea that simple food is curative. 

The thing that is very unique and particular to Shin’ya Shokudou is that the regulars in the restaurant are sex workers, yakuza bosses, taxi drivers, gay bar owners, trans women, and all manner of people that would normally be awake in Shinijku between the hours of midnight and seven in the morning. What I love about this manga is that these people are all presented as matter-of-fact. One of the later chapters, in fact, is this mystery about a woman who appears in the shop who is beautiful and “foxy” to the point that the regulars wonder if she is a kitsune… only it’s revealed that it’s a man who was trying out his crossdressing skills. He’s not gay, nor a drag queen–he just likes the make-believe and dressing up. Everyone in the restaurant is like, ‘oh, okay, cool.’ And the only joke/punchline is squarely aimed at the guy who believes that this mysterious kitsune-woman  is magic and can make his lottery tickets pay out. 

It’s really nice.

If you can get past the art, the stories are well worth it. I also really enjoyed the live-action, so I can whole-heartedly recommend that as well.