It’s a battle between Najika and her rival—over high tea!
Creative Staff
Writer/Artist: Natsumi Ando
Translation: Satsuki Yamashita
Adaptation: Nunzio DeFilipis and Christina Weir
What They Say
HIGH TEA SHOWDOWN
Najika’s world is falling apart. Lavender House, the orphanage where she grew up, is being shut down, and there’s only one way she can save it. When Najika is challenged to a High Tea cook-off against Seiya, her nemesis, the scheming director of Seika Academy makes Najika an offer: lose the contest on purpose, and he’ll save Lavender House from ruin. Will Najika throw the fightûor will her true self shine through?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Director Kitazawa has a huge grudge against Najika, and he’s determined to humiliate her publicly no matter what it takes. He arranges for Seiya and Najika to face off again — this time over high tea with some of the biggest names in fine dining as the judges. However, Najika’s excitement for the upcoming event quickly turns to anxiety when she learns that Lavender House is being forcibly shut down. Soon thereafter, the manipulative director puts an offer before Najika: lose the competition on purpose and he’ll save the orphanage from ruin. Doing less than her best goes against Najika’s very nature, but with her beloved Lavender House at stake, will this force her hand?
Najika and Seiya have another one-on-one competition. However, the focus of the high tea story arc is actually less about Najika’s cooking ability and more about the drama resulting from the director’s underhanded efforts to get Najika to throw the contest. Najika’s pre-contest cooking preparations take up all of five pages, and the remainder of the approximately two chapters leading up to the high tea competition are all allocated to Najika’s struggle to make up her mind about the director’s proposition. Honestly, though, the director’s elaborate arrangements with the Mizuno group seem a bit excessive to crush one little girl.
At any rate, the circumstances are set up such that Daichi has yet another opportunity to come to Najika’s rescue. However, the ultimate outcome of the high tea contest is quite interesting as Seiya’s role shifts from simply being a rival for Najika to being Daichi’s rival in a completely different arena.
As a nice bonus, this installment also includes a page of Kitchen Princess stickers. Other extras include table of contents, an explanation of honorifics, story thus far summary, cast of characters, closing remarks from the manga’s writer and artist, recipes for five foods made in the manga, three pages of cultural notes, an untranslated preview of Volume 9, and ads for other Del Rey releases.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: B+
Packaging Grade:A –
Text/Translation Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Del Rey Manga
Release Date: October 14th, 2008
MSRP: $10.99
