Showing posts with label 2010s manga. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 2010s manga. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 23, 2017

[BOOK REVIEW] Food Wars! Volume 1 by Yuto Tsukuda






Title:  Food Wars!  Volume 1


Author:  Yuto Tsukuda


Artist:   Shun Saeki


Genre: Action / Cooking / Comedy / School


Year Published: 2012


Year Read: 2017


Series: Food Wars! #1


Publisher: VIZ Media



Source:  Library


Content Rating:  Ages 16+ (Sexual Imagery)


Buy on:  Amazon  //  Book Depository 




Now, I have been a huge fan of anime that deals with cooking and I had decided that I wanted to try my hand into a manga series that deals with food!  What luck I had when I picked up this popular manga series called “Food Wars! Volume One” by Yuto Tsukuda along with artwork by Shun Saeki and I was quite impressed with the bizarre creativity of this manga!


The story starts off with a young teenage boy named Soma Yukihira who works at his father’s family restaurant in a poor part of town and yet, the family restaurant is well known for their extremely tasty dishes.  One day however, Soma’s father decided to sell the family restaurant and send Soma to a classy culinary school.  At first, Soma is skeptical about all this since his major goal in life is to surpass his father in cooking.  But, when Soma’s father mentions that if he passes this school, then Soma might have a chance at surpassing him, Soma decides to give this high class culinary school a chance!

Can Soma graduate from this high class culinary school?

Read this volume to find out!


Wow! I have to admit that this was one of the most unusual yet creative manga that I had read that dealt with cooking!  Yuto Tsukuda had done a great job at writing this story as I found myself being immersed with the bizarre cooking world established in this volume and how each character treats graduating from this high class culinary school as serious business.  I also loved the fact that we get some kind of “Toriko” vibe here as this series may not be as action heavy as “Toriko,” but it still treats the cooking scenes as scenes you would get out of an action movie!
I really loved the way that Yuto Tsukuda wrote each character, especially Soma Yukihira, who is probably one of the most interesting characters in this story!  Even though Soma can be a little rude towards other people at times, he is always determined to make the best dishes no matter how much the odds are stacked up against him and I always enjoyed this determined attiude that Soma possesses since it makes him a really likable character.  Shun Saeki’s artwork is fantastic to look at as the characters are gorgeously drawn and I loved seeing some of the lighting around the characters as it makes them glow on the pages.  I also enjoyed seeing the various tasty dishes that are shown in this volume, such as the image of Soma making a bacon wrapped potato dish, which looked quite tasty and unique!



The reason why I took off half a star from the rating was because of the sexual imagery that came up whenever the characters are experiencing Soma’s cooking and you can see images of the characters imagining themselves halfway naked whenever they are describing the taste of the foods they sampled.  Now, I usually don’t mind seeing sexual imagery depending on whether or not the story is a romance or something of the sort, but because this is a series about cooking, it just felt a bit too out of place in this setting and I sometimes cringed a bit whenever the sexual images come up in the story.



Overall, “Food Wars! Volume One” is a fun volume for anyone who loves manga that deals with cooking and action and I am definitely going to try to check out the next volume in this series!




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    • Saturday, December 7, 2013

      [BOOK REVIEW] Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix Volume 2 by Shiro Amano


      Title:  Kingdom Hearts:  Final Mix Volume 2

      Author:  Shiro Amano

      Genre: Comedy / Adventure / Sci Fi / Video Game



      Year Published: 2013



      Year Read: 2013



      Series: Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix #2


      Publisher: Yen Press

      Source:  Library

      Content Rating:  Ages 9+ (Nothing Objectionable)

      Buy on:  Amazon  //  Book Depository 



      After reading the first volume of “Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix,” I just had to check out the second volume of this fantastic manga series! Behold, I had finally managed to read the second volume of “Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix” and man was this volume just as brilliant and exciting as the first volume!

      In this volume, Sora and his new friends Donald and Goofy continue to search for King Mickey and Riku and they ended up going to more new worlds!  They meet up with Pinocchio and his father in the belly of Monstro the Whale, end up in Atlantica and meet Ariel, go to Neverland and meet Peter Pan and ended up in Hollow Bastion while meeting the Beast!  Also, Sora will soon discover that his best friend, Riku might have turned to the dark side and Sora will have to find a way to bring Riku back to normal, while defeating the heartless!

      Shiro Amano has done it again with the stellar writing and the hilarious and dramatic artwork for this story!  I loved the fact that this manga series remains faithful to the video game it was based off of as the characters act exactly the way they did in the games (except a little sillier in some places) and the situations from the games play out so brilliantly in manga format!  I loved the fact that we get the mystery surrounding the heartless solved in this volume and after I discovered the true purpose of the heartless and the person who was responsible for creating the heartless, I was truly taken aback and I started enjoying the story even more then!  Shiro Amano’s artwork is truly hilarious and dramatic at the same time as the Disney characters are drawn extremely well! I really loved the artwork of the characters from Neverland and Atlantica, especially the images of Ariel and Tinkerbell as they are the cutest looking characters in this book!  I also loved the way that Shiro Amano drew the dramatic scenes of Sora and his friends trying to fight the Heartless as the scenes look truly intense and at times frightening!

      Overall, “Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix Volume Two” is a fantastic conclusion to the “Kingdom Hearts” series and a possible beginning to a new story (in the form of “Kingdom Hearts Two!)”  I definitely cannot wait to check out the second part of the “Kingdom Hearts” series in “Kingdom Hearts Two” and this is definitely a series that fans of “Kingdom Hearts” should check out!



      Sunday, November 3, 2013

      [BOOK REVIEW] Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix Volume 1 by Shiro Amano



      Title:  Kingdom Hearts:  Final Mix Volume 1

      Author:  Shiro Amano

      Genre: Comedy / Adventure / Sci Fi / Video Game



      Year Published: 2013



      Year Read: 2013



      Series: Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix #1



      Publisher: Yen Press

      Source:  Library

      Content Rating:  Ages 5+ (Nothing Objectionable)

      Buy on:  Amazon  //  Book Depository 





      I just want to say that I am a huge fan of the “Kingdom Hearts” games, as I played all of them (at least, the ones that came out on Playstation) and I enjoyed the game play and the storylines involved.  So, imagine my surprise when I found out that they were making a manga series about the famous “Kingdom Hearts” games and I just had to pick this series up to see if it is just as good as the games were!

      In this volume, Sora is separated from his friends Riku and Kairi when a terrible storm hits his home island and he is thrown into another world.  In that world, Sora meets up with Donald and Goofy, who were travelling to other worlds to find King Mickey, who had suddenly gone missing.  It was then that Sora, Donald and Goofy decided to work together to find both King Mickey and Riku and Kairi while Sora defends the world from the monstrous Heartless, using his newfound Keyblade.

      Shiro Amano had done a fantastic job at adapting Tetsuya Nomura’s concept for the “Kingdom Hearts” video game series into manga format.  I loved the fact that Shiro Amano made the manga faithful to the original games, with a few changes here and there, and it was great seeing my favorite characters from the “Kingdom Hearts” games come to life in manga format.  I also loved the strong friendship built between Sora, Donald and Goofy as it was a hilarious yet heartwarming type of friendship as they were bonded when they were all trying to find people that they care about and I loved how this story emphasized the importance of friendship, even during rough times.  But, what always intrigued me about the “Kingdom Hearts” series was the fact that we are able to see our favorite Disney characters intertwine with the characters from “Final Fantasy” and such.  Even though Sora was a made up character for the “Kingdom Hearts” games, it was great seeing him mingle with other Disney characters such as “Hercules,” “Alice in Wonderland,” and “Aladdin.”  It was also interesting that Shiro Amano made the manga version of “Kingdom Hearts” much funnier than the original games as Sora seems to act more childish in this version than in the games and I really enjoyed the hilarious bantering between Sora, Donald and Goofy.  The artwork for this volume was extremely well done as the characters look both realistic and slightly exaggerated, which gives this volume a dramatic yet comedic feel.

      Overall, “Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix Volume One” is a fantastic volume for anyone who is a huge fan of the “Kingdom Hearts” games and I will definitely be checking out the second volume to this series!  I would recommend this volume to children ages five and up since there is nothing inappropriate in this volume.