Short Takes: Honey and Clover and Mixed Vegetables

Warning: these reviews may be too shojolicious for some readers. If you prefer car chases and explosions over character development, or get impatient when characters discuss their feelings (beyond “Hey, I’m hungry,” or “Jeez, that robot is bigger than I thought!”), you might not find this column to your liking. If, on the other hand, you love sparkling screentones, dewy-eyed heroines, and Drama with a capital “D,” then this installment of Short Takes will make your heart sing, as I examine volume eight of Honey and Clover and volume six of Mixed Vegetables.

HONEY AND CLOVER, VOL. 8

BY CHICA UMINO • VIZ • RATING: OLDER TEEN (16+) • 196 pp.

If you’ve spent any time around an art school or conservatory, you’ve met students like the Honey and Clover gang, a chatty bunch who are eager to share and compare influences, discuss their romantic lives in intimate detail, and wax poetic about their latest enthusiasms. In Honey and Clover, that chattiness reflects the characters’ deep-rooted need to define who they are and how they fit in with their peers. As characters discover common ground, however, they often find conversation inadequate to the task of bridging the remaining distance between them, a theme that Chica Umino explores throughout volume eight.

Nowhere is that more evident than in the complex relationship among Ayu, Mayama, and Rika. Both Ayu and Mayama find Rika’s silences unsettling and invest considerable energy trying to decode her reserve. For Ayu, Rika’s silence prompts a jealous response: what has she got that I don’t? Why is she being nice to me? For Mayama, Rika’s reticence smacks of emotional detachment, as does her unilateral decision to take a job in Spain. Umino does a beautiful job of evoking the space between the characters, using body language and background detail to suggest their emotional isolation. In between the three-hanky scenes, Umino stages some funny, playful moments that are pitch-perfect; it’s as if the reader is eavesdropping on a group of RISD students hanging out in the local coffee shop. Umino’s ability to move between tear-jerking intensity and light situational comedy makes Honey and Clover a delightful bit of escapism for older shojo and josei readers, as well as for anyone who’s ever been an art student.

Review copy provided by VIZ Media, LLC.

MIXED VEGETABLES, VOL. 6

BY AYUMI KOMURA • VIZ • RATING: TEEN • 192 pp.

Hanayu Ashibata dreams of being a sushi chef. The catch? Her parents run a successful bakery and expect Hanayu to apply what she’s learning in cooking school to the pastry trade. Classmate Hayato Hyuga has the opposite problem: he’s an aspiring baker whose family runs a sushi joint. In an effort to circumvent parental opposition to her career goals, Hanayu curries favor with Hayato, hoping he’ll fall in love with her, pop the question, and allow her marry into the Hyuga family business. The teens’ courtship gets off to a wobbly start, however, thanks to Hanayu’s naked ambition and Hayato’s easily wounded pride, postponing their inevitable romance until the later volumes of the series.

Promising as the set-up may be, Mixed Vegetables is about as flavorful as a stalk of celery. Manga-ka Ayumi Komura seldom shows us her tyro cooks learning their craft, preferring instead to serve up generous helpings of manufactured drama: a handsome baker who competes for Hanayu’s affection, a potential conflict between Hanayu and Mrs. Hyuga. The artwork is as cookie-cutter as the storyline, relying heavily on close-ups of visually interchangeable characters and nondescript screentone pattern rather than background detail. Most disappointing, however, is that food plays a minimal role in the story. Hanayu and Hayato almost never talk about what attracted them to sushi and cakes, respectively; one could substitute just about any other professional aspiration for chef and baker and yield the same story. About the best I can say for volume six is that Hanayu finally realizes that she wants to earn her place in the sushi kitchen, rather than marry into it. Let’s hope that Komura develops this theme in subsequent volumes, as My Brilliant Sushi Career would be a much more interesting manga than My Big Fat Seafood Wedding.

Review copy provide by VIZ Media, LLC.