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A review by fauxvais
Something's Wrong With Us, Volume 3 by Natsumi Andō
This will be a collective review of the first through third volumes.
As a fan of Natsumi Ando's attention to detail with the variety of desserts she's illustrated across the course of her career, when translated scans of this series were finally available, I couldn't resist! Something's Wrong With Us follows Nao, the daughter of a traditional Japanese pastry chef accused of murdering her employer fifteen years prior by none other than his son, Tsubaki, a boy whom Nao befriended in at the time. In the present day, Nao coincidentally crosses paths with Tsubaki when they compete to provide pastries for the same client, and Tsubaki, incredibly intrigued by her, offers Nao a wedding proposal. Despite all of her apprehensions, Nao takes the offer and goes undercover, determined to uncover the truth behind her mother's framing while keeping her real identity a secret, and desperate not to fall for Tsubaki all over again.
TW's: physical and verbal parental abuse & parental death.
PROS:
- The set-up. Obviously, there's plenty of media out there about women marrying into families due to ulterior motives related to revenge, but I like how Ando cleverly weaves this premise with the very real hierarchy of the world of wagashi, or traditional Japanese sweets. There are specific rules regarding etiquette, seniority, and succession that further ground this story in its setting and distinguish it from others with a similar emotional premise, and I appreciate that!
- The sweets! As a tangent to the first point, I also love that Ando never fails to leave sweets as a secondary side piece to the plot. The intricacies of wagashi are always prevalent throughout the course of the narrative, and we learn about how these pastries are made, what they signify in terms of cultural motifs, and how they're properly served so as to honor guests. It's even better that the use of wagashi parallels directly to plot progressions and motifs.
CONS:
- Pacing. This is a problem I see in a lot of shoujo series that I think can be attributed to the fact that it's not as well-marketed a genre as shounen, so mangaka have less of a guarantee that their series will be allowed to survive for long, hence their plots are often straight and to the point. I personally like to see characters marinate in plot progressions, though, so the quick pacing and escalation of events here was somewhat jarring and made me feel unable to connect strongly to the characters, despite their circumstances and motives being fairly compelling.
FINAL RATING: 3
As a fan of Natsumi Ando's attention to detail with the variety of desserts she's illustrated across the course of her career, when translated scans of this series were finally available, I couldn't resist! Something's Wrong With Us follows Nao, the daughter of a traditional Japanese pastry chef accused of murdering her employer fifteen years prior by none other than his son, Tsubaki, a boy whom Nao befriended in at the time. In the present day, Nao coincidentally crosses paths with Tsubaki when they compete to provide pastries for the same client, and Tsubaki, incredibly intrigued by her, offers Nao a wedding proposal. Despite all of her apprehensions, Nao takes the offer and goes undercover, determined to uncover the truth behind her mother's framing while keeping her real identity a secret, and desperate not to fall for Tsubaki all over again.
TW's: physical and verbal parental abuse & parental death.
PROS:
- The set-up. Obviously, there's plenty of media out there about women marrying into families due to ulterior motives related to revenge, but I like how Ando cleverly weaves this premise with the very real hierarchy of the world of wagashi, or traditional Japanese sweets. There are specific rules regarding etiquette, seniority, and succession that further ground this story in its setting and distinguish it from others with a similar emotional premise, and I appreciate that!
- The sweets! As a tangent to the first point, I also love that Ando never fails to leave sweets as a secondary side piece to the plot. The intricacies of wagashi are always prevalent throughout the course of the narrative, and we learn about how these pastries are made, what they signify in terms of cultural motifs, and how they're properly served so as to honor guests. It's even better that the use of wagashi parallels directly to plot progressions and motifs.
CONS:
- Pacing. This is a problem I see in a lot of shoujo series that I think can be attributed to the fact that it's not as well-marketed a genre as shounen, so mangaka have less of a guarantee that their series will be allowed to survive for long, hence their plots are often straight and to the point. I personally like to see characters marinate in plot progressions, though, so the quick pacing and escalation of events here was somewhat jarring and made me feel unable to connect strongly to the characters, despite their circumstances and motives being fairly compelling.
FINAL RATING: 3