Customer Reviews

Happy Cafe, Vol. 1

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I once heard an anecdote where director Frank Capra (It's a Wonderful Life) was accused by a critic of only making simple feel-good movies. Capra's response was something along the lines of "What's so bad about just making people happy?"

That's pretty much the same answer I have for enjoying "Happy Café" (Japanese title "Shiawase Kissa San-chome" or "Happy Café in the 3rd District." This is not a ground breaking series, or terribly original or well done, but somehow reading it...makes me happy. And what's so bad about that?

The series starts off with the spunky gal Uru heading to the door of the Café Bonheur. Uru is sixteen years old, and recently left her home to try and live by herself due to her mother getting re-married to a twenty-nine year old man. Uru wants her mother to be happy and thinks she will be getting in the way at home. Answering a local flyer, Uru is hunting for a job at the Café Bonheur, and hopefully some happiness to go along with it. In the café, she meets the two other employees. Shindo is a cold and somewhat harsh guy, but whose skill at preparing the dainty sweets of the shop reveal another side to him. Ichiro is much more open and lively but has his own quirks as well.

In fact, "quirks" go along way in creating the atmosphere for "Happy Café." Aside from the simple story, all of the characters are odd in their own little way. Uru is a small girl, who everyone mistakes for an elementary school kid, but she is freakishly strong. Uru has a hard time working in the café because she keeps breaking everything she touches. Ichiro only stays awake so long as he has food in his stomach, and keeping him fed is a running joke. Shindo likes to keep an aura of mystery about himself, but his small attacks of kindness show what lies between the surface.

In this first volume, some of the plots get resolved, like Uru and her step-father, as well as a new character being introduced in the form of Mitsuka, a girl so beautiful that Uru is blinded by her and keeps humming the theme to Cutie Honey whenever she comes by. A bit of romantic feelings start to blossom between Uru and Shindo, but just enough to give you a taste of things to come.

Like the story, the art in "Happy Café" is simple, but perfect to the story. Shindo and Ichiro are pretty much twins except for their hairstyles, and the backgrounds are almost non-existent. Uru is really cute, and shifts from realistic to cartoony as the situation calls for it. Everything is kept light and happy, which is suited by the art style. The only thing I can really think of to compare it to is Yotsuba&! although "Happy Café" is different in style.

If you are looking for a comic that is just fun to read and makes you feel good, then "Happy Café" is going to do you good. Just don't expect depth, angst or any other clouds on a sunny day.

My manga experience is limited to previewing titles for my 6 & 10 year old Manga fanatics. I'm not a fan of the genre for itself, so this review would be from a parent's perspective.

While the rating on this book is 13 and up, I think that the content is more appropriate to the reading interests of an 8 to 10 year old. There is mild suggested violence, but it's not even on the level of a Pokemon episode. There are teenagers living outside the home and a few flirtatious sentences. I think that only the most rigid parent of the pre-tween could object to anything in the book. The female lead has moved out at 16 and is trying to be self reliant, perhaps overly so. She's (of course) drawn to the moody loner at her job with a genial slacker serving as the counterpoint. If I had to pull a theme for the book it might be 'talk to your parents' as each problem seems to resolve around lack of communication and is solved or mitigated by the character speaking openly about how they feel.

I found it slight and forgettable, but my 10 year old did ask for further volumes in the series. I don't know if the age rating kicks in later, but my experience with the manga world is that they can be confusing and conservative in their rating system. She reads several other 13 and up series that have no objectionable content to my eyes. This is no Yotsuba, but it's a harmless diversion for a manga crazed youth.

I admit it. When I first read the synopsis of this manga I rolled my eyes & thought "another stereotypical 'let's get the boy' manga". As some of my other reviews can testify, sometimes I'm proven wrong about my first initial impression of something. This manga was adorable. I'm not going to bother giving a manga synopsis as there's already another review here that does that quite well. I'm just going to jump to my review.

Frankly, I really enjoyed this manga. There were parts of it that made me smile and others that made me laugh out loud at how cute & silly they were. (Which got me a few odd stares in the bookstore.) I absolutely adored the main character Uru, who is a rather tomboyish & insanely strong young girl. Uru lives on her own due to her mother remarrying & thinking that she's bothersome to her mom & new father. The whole "on my own" thing isn't new & moving out under such circumstances isn't either, but somehow Uru just brings a whole new flavor to it.

I also liked the two male characters, Shindo (the main love interest) & Ichiro (eating machine). Now normally in many manga of this type, the fated relationship (& it's obvious that they're destined for each other) seems a little forced & "meet cute". The love building seems more natural in this book, although it still does fall under the "meet cute" category in many ways. Still, I like how Uru is willing to call Shindo out on many things rather than sit around & fret like so many other manga heroines do.

If you like cute, get this manga. It's one of the better romance comedy mangas I've read lately & it's something I believe I'll be buying within a week of each volume's release.

Sixteen-year old Uru may look like an elementary school kid, but she's living on her own and needs a job. She is hired provisionally at the Happy Cafe, and despite her penchant for breaking dishes (she's both klutzy AND possessing super-strength) allowed to stay. Her two coworkers are quite strange: Ichiro falls asleep whenever he gets hungry and can only be revived by food, while Shindo is cold and distant. But as Uru gets to know the two boys, friendships grow and may eventually lead to something more...

It's happy, it's quirky, and it's fun. So far, every problem that has come up for Uru and her co-workers is neatly resolved at the end of the chapter. There are several running gags, like Ichiro's constant sleeping or cracks about Uru's youthful appearance/short height, that are humorous now but over the life of the comic could lose their charm.

The art is nice, very simple and clean. Kou Matsuzuki does a great job pacing the story, so the panels and plot are easy to follow. The characters are easily distinguishable from one another, although if lined up with main characters from other popular series in the genre Shindo, Ichiro and Uru would be pretty indistinguishable. Given that the characters themselves are pretty average, the generic quality of the art matches the story.

Happy Cafe promises to be a frothy, light sort of shoujo series. High school romances are a dime a dozen and a good many of them do center on cooking/baking/restaurants. But from the basic ingredients of sugar, eggs, flour, and baking powder you can get a huge range of cakes that taste great; Happy Cafe's first volume may not break new ground through its art or story, but it is still an enjoyable snack for the mind.

I'm not the regular audience for manga but I've read a few before and enjoyed it. This one was hard for me to get into. I like the art and the overal story was simple and fun to some extent. It just wasn't enjoyable enough for me to want to continue it. The girl Uru is 16 and looks 12. She left home to live on her own and work in the cafe. The guys look the exact same except for hair color. One is dark and cold but brilliant and the other is usually asleep. He has to be fed to be kept awake (which is a little weird, but funny). I think this would be a good manga book for the younger set, instead the the more violent ones. I intend on giving it to a young teen as a gift.

Happy Café, as its name suggests, is a cheerful, lighthearted manga series depicting the daily triumphs and pitfalls Uru Takamura, a clumsy yet endearing 16-year-old girl. The setting is the Café Bonheur bakery and occasionally Uru's apartment. The two other main characters, Shindo and Ichiro, the guys who run the bakery, are great foils for Uru and each have their own distinctive personality quirks; for instance, Ichiro falls asleep when hungry, and Uru and Shindo must feed him in order to wake him up.

There's a little innocent romance, lots of comedy, light drama, and exaggerated humor, all while Uru deals with her feelings on her crush, school, and her family. The illustrations are fun and often convey the point through emotion and facial expressions rather than words. I really loved Kou Matsuzuki's (the author's) gorgeous, expressive illustrations as well as her simpler ones, which provide a nice variation for the reader. I'm also happy to see and support a female artist in the mostly male-dominated world of manga.

If you've never read manga before, or perhaps are looking for tween-appropriate manga, Happy Café would be a fine place to start, as the story is easy to follow and the characters, although not terribly deep, are quite likeable. Additionally, there are no language, violence, or sexuality issues that would be too mature for tweens. The book itself is set up so that you read right-to-left, in traditional manga format that preserves the original artwork and layout. There's also a handy explanatory guide immediately inside the back cover (to American readers, this would be the "front" cover) that explains how to read the boxes and text in the correct order on each page.

I really enjoyed reading this happy, lighthearted manga and am looking forward to the next volume.

"Happy Cafe" is about a cafe that makes people... happy.

Okay, it's not really about that -- it's technically the core theme for "Happy Cafe Volume 1," but it soon becomes evident that Kou Matsuzuki is focusing more on the trio of likable characters who work at the cafe. The first volume is a lightweight little comedy that doesn't really stand out as of yet, but it's a pleasant warm'n'fuzzy diversion.

A misunderstanding with her parents causes Uru Takamura to move into her own apartment, and seek a job at the Cafe Bonheur. Despite her tendency to break things, Uru gets the job, and finds herself working with the cold, reserved Shindo and the quirky, absurdly hypoglycemic Ichiro (he falls deeply asleep when he's hungry). And though Shindo seems hostile at first, Uru soon discovers that he's got a warmer side.

However, she and Shindo have some awkward moments when she discovers that they're next-door neighbors. While working at the Cafe, Uru struggles with upcoming tests, confronts a nasty ex-classmate of Shindo's, helps out a runaway teen model trying to escape her parents, and gets a surprise visit from her stepdad -- but even if she doesn't realize it, Shindo and Ichiro are always backing her up.

It probably gets more complex later on, but "Happy Cafe Volume 1" is thus far a pretty standard dramedy manga -- tragic pasts, quirky characters, gorgeous guys lots of sweet moments with emotional revelations, and the occasional storyline about somebody struggling mightily with exams. There's nothing really outstanding about it, but it does give you a pleasant case of the warm'n'fuzzies.

Matsuzuki also has a distinct knack for light comedy, usually from Ichiro falling asleep (in the doorway, the freezer, on the floor) or Uru having over-the-top reactions to stuff (donning riot gear!), and funny dialogue ("Did your curse of the minister of ground meat dissolve?"). The romance is rather predictable, with Uru and Shindo starting to fall for each other, but fortunately it's not too overwhelming yet.

It also has some truly lovely art, which vacillates between silly and polished. Matsuzaki lavishes special care on the two gorgeous male leads, and seems to take every opportunity to picture them.

Uru is a rather endearing little heroine -- she looks like an elementary school student ("Isn't she cute? She's my daughter?" Ichiro says while tying her hair in a fountain ponytail), has superhuman strength, and tends to think more of others than of herself. Ichiro is a hilariously quirky character who can say anything with a straight face, and who lapses into a coma when he isn't fed often enough ("Here, candy!").

But Shindo is something of a blank at present. We know he was abandoned and has a terrible past, but it's still kinda murky how that directly connects to his baking or his "crank" demeanor.

"Happy Cafe Volume 1" is a sweet, fluffy confection that doesn't have much substance, but which is endearing and funny enough to keep reading.

Uru Takamura, the engaging heroine of this wry comic is not your average 16-year old schoolgirl. She's shorter than average, wears an A-cup and people keep mistaking her for a child half her true age. Her parents are divorced and when her mother remarried, Uru found it more comfortable to move out and find her own place. With her step-father's permission and her mother's reluctant agreement, Uru moves into her own tiny apartment.

The story opens with Uru going to the Bonheur Cafe to apply for a job. She saw some happy customers leaving on her first day in the new neighborhood so she thinks it would be a fun place to work, but things don't quite go as expected.

While struggling to open the push door by pulling, Uru snaps off the door handle. Like many manga characters, Uru has been born with super-strength. It's an attribute played for occasional laughs, but it serves as an ironic counterpoint to Uru's sensitive and caring nature. When she hugs one of her new co-workers at Bonheur, she almost snaps his spine. She's terrifically clumsy because she's so eager to help and so unaware of her own strength.

Dark-haired Shindo runs the cafe in the manager's absence. His surly exterior is a first frightening, than intriguing to Uru as she begins to understand the kindness he conceals. Uru's other co-worker is Ichiro, who has a startling disability: he falls sound asleep if he doesn't constantly eat. The other two have to watch him like a hawk and stuff food in his mouth when he falls down.

The interactions between these three and with the customers in the cafe make for poignant drama. Girls and women of all ages can identify with Uru in both her strength and her vulnerability. I wasn't aware that there were such people as female manga artists, but Kou Matsuzuki is outstanding. One aspect of her work reminds me of Calvin and Hobbes; she changes her artwork to reflect the emotional changes her main character experiences. Sometimes Uru is a super cute teenager drawn in a sophisticated style and sometimes, when she gets really mad or scared, Matsuzuki scribbles in a child-like representation of her.

It's brilliant but it can be confusing. This book is presented just as it would be in Japan with everything back to front. (When you look at the front of the book the spine will be in your right hand.) I think this is great because it means that none of the artwork has been flipped or muddled. Anyone opening the book to the back page will find a little diagram illustrating how to read the typical manga page. It says "start in the top right panel and follow the numbers" and it gives a sample page with numbered panels. The only snag is that many pages are laid out creatively, with slanting lines and sometimes the correct path through the page is not immediately apparent. On some of the complex pages I found myself wishing for tiny numbers just to help me follow the plot and the emotional developments more clearly. I know purists scoff at this, but I would love to see this fine artist find the wider circulation she deserves.

This is a manga by a girl for the girls. It's cute, sweetly romantic and emotionally complex. Lots of things happen and some of them are scary, but it's a girl thing...meaning Lisa Simpson rather than Bart!

Be warned, this manga is super sweet and sugary like cotton candy. It's like Kitchen Princess (before the sadness) and Furuba. Ok, now I have to be in a mood for sweet manga, normally I go for the more gothic ones or violent ones or fantasy ones. Happy Cafe was really cute though.

Uru looks like she's an elementary school student, but really she's just a short high schooler. She's on a mission to find her own happiness which brings her to this bakery Bonheur. There she meets two guys, one who is angry and secretive unless he's baking cakes, and one who falls asleep whenever he's hungry, which is a lot. Volume one is just an unfolding of the slight back story of Uru's life, and her new life in the bakery. I can't wait for it to get deeper into the plot, it's an adorable manga.

This particular manga series is really geared more to Teenage girls as it's a Shojo Manga where the two main male characters are bishonen (Modern slang useage). Now I've read and enjoyed several girl oriented romance manga from Tokyopop before such as Dramacon Ultimate Edition or Love Hina, Vol. 1 or Mark of the Succubus, Volume 1 (v. 1), but I wasn't really feeling this one. The characters are nice, but the premise and individual issues contained in this volume are a bit flimsy and generic.

We have URU, a 16 year old girl living on her own to giver her mother and new stepfather some space, even though they don't want or need it. Uru is super strong and every more super clutzy. She gets a job at Happy Cafe, whose owner we never see in this volume, but works with Shindo and Ichiro. Ichiro is a diabetic narcoleptic and Shindo is a gifted but grumpy baker. He also happens to be Uru's next door neighbor and the last third of the volume sets up a slow burning romantic subplot between the two.

The art is hit or miss with me, and the story was cute, but not in line with the manga I tend to prefer like Louie the Rune Soldier Volume 1, No Need for Tenchi!, Vol. 8: Chef of Iron or Fist of the North Star #1, (A Cry From The Heart), January 1989.

I did find bits of Happy Chef to be cute and amusing, but I can't say I'm interested in seeing what happens next. If I was half my age and of the opposite gender, I'd have probably liked this far more, but at least I can see the quality here, even if it's not to my taste.