The manga publishing world with a dash of love.
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Syusyusyu Sakurai
Translation/Adaptation: Christine Dashiell
What They Say
Suzu Sakura, a shoujo manga artist, is shocked at the news that the editor she’s been working with since her debut is leaving her! The good news is that her new editor is a super-hot guy. Bad news? He totally looks down on shoujo manga…
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Suzu is a mangaka that is talented, but just can’t get her act together. She’s always late, falls asleep really easily and has a hard time keeping on task. Her editor she’s had since debut is being transferred and so he introduces Suzu to her new editor, Hasegawa. He’s a hottie, but she’s stumbled across the fact that he has a terrible personality, doesn’t like shojo and thinks very little of her.
Despite Hasegawa’s issues, he takes his job seriously. Suzu’s never had an assistant, so he makes her become one before assigning one to her. Her assistant is another hottie, Shimada, but at first doesn’t take her seriously. However, Suzu puts him in his place when he talks smack about her genre.
Suzu’s about to get her first compiled book, so Hasegawa takes her to Nanami, a designer and the third hottie in the book. Nanami is rather taken with Suzu and catches up with her later where she is working on thoughts about a cover drawing. Nanami doesn’t waste any time and encourages Suzu to try love with him.
After a dinner with the editorial team, Suzu is pumped and Hasegawa gets a fever. Another editor, Kaji, helps out, but isn’t really aware of how much work Suzu actually is. Meanwhile, Suzu is messaging frequently with Nanami. The amount of time she is spending on her phone slows her progress down and Kaji is furious with her. Shimada alerts Hasegawa of the situation and though he’s still sick, he approaches Nanami to stop it, because not only is he interfering with Suzu’s work, Nanami already has a girlfriend. Hasegawa then goes to Suzu, takes her phone away and gets her back to work.
Suzu approaches Nanami and learns all of his true intentions. He also challenges her to review her own feelings regarding Hasegawa. Suzu’s manga continues to need improvement after improvement. Suzu finds herself a little jealous when she overhears Hasegawa treating a different mangaka so nicely. It gets Suzu down and take Shimada’s encouragement to get back into drawing again.
When Suzu finishes early for a change, she waits for Hasegawa to give her pages to him. While she is waiting, Tanaka appears (another hottie), and offers her to work for him. He is also Hasegawa’s senior, so she’s really happy at the acknowledgement. She talks to Hasegawa about it and he tells her it’s a good opportunity for her. She can only feel as if she is being casted aside by Hasegawa and that he doesn’t need her. Even when she is reassured by another mangaka, Suzu still feels insecure. It takes Tanaka showing her all the side work Hasegawa is doing to make sure she sells well to convince her differently.
Since Suzu is always running late, Hasegawa gives her a lesson what happens after the pages leave her hand. Even after learning about all of that and vowing to never do it again, Suzu is right back where she was before, late. When it comes to the meeting to discuss how many books of Suzu’s will be published, Hasegawa is passionate about getting more copies in the first run. The editor-in-chief reminds him to not be too blind from all his passion. That reminds Hasegawa that he was too hard on the previous mangaka he had, and they failed. He reconsiders and thinks giving Suzu to another editor is the best choice.
Suzu hits up Tanaka for some advice. He convinces her that it’s really Hasegawa’s fault because he’s afraid of repeating his past. She doesn’t ask what happened, but instead asks who is responsible. Suzu meets up with the mangaka and is ready to tack Hasegawa head on. She challenges him to push her harder and to never give up on her. He is a bit taken aback at her directness, but in the end, he sticks with her.
With one bad review of her book, Suzu down and is doing a whole bunch of things she shouldn’t. She’s posting too much on social media and going to concerts instead of doing her work. Hasegawa chewed her out but didn’t know about the bad review. He cheers up and tells her she received fan letters for the first time.
All this time, Suzu was sure that Hasegawa knew shew as serious about her feelings toward him. Shimada reminds her that he doesn’t think she is serious at all. They both talk to Nanami and he tells Suzu she should just be honest and not be afraid of being rejected. But when she confesses directly to him, Hasegawa says that if that’s the case, he can’t be her editor anymore. She thinks it’s love or work, but Hasegawa is saying he actually doesn’t have feelings for her. Shimada challenges him and reminds him each time he praised Suzu on her manga it was like also praising her as a person.
Hasegawa tells Suzu he would never fall in love with her, because she is both a mangaka and a woman at the same and she needs to work hard at both. Suzu devotes her all to being on time, but Shimada sees something is lacking in Suzu. She no longer smiles or laughs, so Shimada confronts Hasegawa about why keep dangling this hope in front of Suzu. Hasegawa tells Suzu if she sells millions, he’ll kiss her.
The last two chapters are fun extras with Suzu having delusional thoughts about all the hotties in her life and when she gets a new assistant and how Shimada is doing with his own work.
In Summary:
Wow, where to start. This is a big book. There are three volumes in this omnibus. Though I don’t really have any preferences for omnibuses or single volumes, but this was nearly too big to hold. However, it did have a lot of extras in it. There are several color inserts at the beginning of book and in between each volume are a few author notes. At the end of the book there are translation notes, under the jack art from the original volumes and more author notes. Another nice touch is at the beginning of each chapter there’s a small dialogue from the actual editors of the mangaka comparing the characters in the story to the mangaka herself. It gives a little insight to how accurate the story just might be.
As far as the story itself, it’s pretty aptly named. There are tons of gags as the Suzu, the mangaka in the story, seems to have a very wild imagination. However, no matter the number of comedic elements and crazy antics in the story, there’s not really any relationship building. Even though there’s continual efforts to make it seem like Hasegawa actually loves Suzu, as a reader, we just don’t see a thing happen even if it might be implied. That’s probably my biggest disappointment about the story. I really wanted to see some romantic elements to punch through all the comedy, but it just didn’t happen.
That doesn’t make the story entirely bad. There’s great insight to the manga world, especially the craziness of some mangakas. Also, just like Suzu, the actually mangaka does draw really hot guys. They are really beautiful men. And to be fair, all the girls are pretty too. I also like the occasional narration from Hasegawa in the book. It’s a little different to have the point of view change like that, but it’s not to hear what he’s really thinking.
So, should you invest your time in it? Absolutely, if you are looking for something fun and not a lot of romance. If you are looking for the super sweet love story of a lifetime, this isn’t the story for you.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: B+
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: June 5, 2018
MSRP: $25.00
