Pop Culture Gadabout | ||
Thursday, January 21, 2010 ( 1/21/2010 06:46:00 AM ) Bill S. ![]() The two somewhat older, dreamy boys running the café (Bonheur’s manager remains offstage throughout the first volume) are fairly familiar shojo types: “dark-haired crank” Shindo is snappish with a wounded childhood history, while light-haired Ichiro is the more lighthearted half of the duo. The latter’s most distinguishing characteristic is a tendency to inconveniently fall asleep when he’s hungry, a mild running gag that Matzsuki milks for all it’s worth. Ichiro proves just as capable of picking on Uru, though, who notes that whenever either boy is nice, “it’s always out of left field. It’s like . . . stealth sweetness.” Isn’t a whole lot that happens in Café’s first volume -- the biggest conflict rests in whether Uru’s mother and new stepfather will force her to abandon her big city bid for independence, and we know that won’t happen because the series would be over if it did. Instead, we get tiny bits of character comedy, like a sequence where Uru attempts to uncover a reluctant Shindo’s first name, and slapstick revolving around our gal’s strength and clumsiness, plus Ichíro’s tendency for falling asleep on the job. Matsuzuki’s art is light and simple -- if a bit over reliant on detail free round-headed cartoons -- and her panels showing Uru beaming out at the reader or the half-smile Shindo gets when he’s actually doing his baker thing have an unforced cuteness. Happy Café may be about as weighty as its pint-sized heroine, but it has a likability to it that should snag a decent ‘tweengirl readership: not-so-stealthy sweetness, in other words. Labels: sixty-minute manga # | |
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