snarp: small cute androgynous android crossing arms and looking very serious (Default)
Snarp ([personal profile] snarp) wrote2011-05-16 11:36 pm

Not Love But Delicious Foods Make Me So Happy!, by Yoshinaga Fumi

This is a semi-autobiographical manga about a BL manga artist, who is totally not Yoshinaga Fumi, and 1) her obsession with food, 2) her habit of sexually harassing men, and 3) her peculiar fashion sense. Mainly the food, though. Probably 80% of the manga is Not-Yoshinaga-Fumi going to restaurants in Tokyo with her friends and discussing the food with them. The remaining 20% is bickering.

The bickering is very funny, as one would expect from Yoshinaga Fumi, and I feel confident in recommending the manga on these grounds. But still, it really is mostly a Tokyo restaurant guide. For some people this may be interesting in itself, but for me, I think I'd need to be in Tokyo and financially in a position to go to these restaurants.

Yoshinaga draws herself alternately as "frumpy" with bad skin and frizzy hair, and "slutty" with too-heavy makeup, glaring fashion sense, and (judging by the translation, since I haven't read the original) a masculine speech style. She also writes herself as being morbidly obsessed with the idea that she's too old to get married, but also too neurotic to follow through on a relationship. These are all pretty standard negative stereotypes of Japanese women, and their presence here makes me kind of sad. Can't you be self-deprecating in ways that don't reinforce the patriarchy, Yoshinaga Fumi? The man is keeping you down! Saute him with garlic and ginger, or something. You possess the tools.

(I don't know why I can't adopt a standard order for writing Japanese names on this blog. I think my brain just had some of them fed in surname-first and some given-name-first, and they always have to come back out the same way.)
darkelf105: (Default)

[personal profile] darkelf105 2011-05-17 03:45 am (UTC)(link)
I actually just read this like two weeks ago (yay! I have actually read a manga you have reviewed!) and I kinda feel the same way. I have to say I did enjoy it even though I know nothing of Tokyo or its food scene. It made me laugh a few time, but mostly made me hungry. I am glad I read and am glad to see something like it in English because at least it was josei and different from a lot of what is being brought over.
estara: (Default)

[personal profile] estara 2011-05-17 09:04 pm (UTC)(link)
Ditto! And I just like food manga if it's combined with a nice story. I totally love Oishii Kankei, for example.
darkelf105: (Default)

[personal profile] darkelf105 2011-05-18 03:27 am (UTC)(link)
I like food manga, too! I get good ideas for dinner and such from them. I've never read Oishii Kankei. I will have to check it out.
estara: (Default)

[personal profile] estara 2011-05-18 01:51 pm (UTC)(link)
It hasn't been licensed, but it's fully available in English *cough* - oh and it's josei, too!