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Friday, November 15, 2019

Manga Review: Kakuriyo: Bed & Breakfast for Spirits, Volume 4, by Waco Ioka, Midori Yuma, and Laruha


Rating (Out of 5): ~3
Publisher: Shojo Beat (VIZ Media)
Release Date: July 2019
Volumes: 6+
Spoilers?: No.
Volume: 1. 3. 5.

Goodreads Synopsis:

Faced with the choice of being married to a strange spirit or being made into dinner, Aoi creates a third option for herself!

Aoi Tsubaki inherited her grandfather’s ability to see spirits—and his massive debt to them! Now she’s been kidnapped and taken to Kakuriyo, the spirit world, to make good on his bill. Her options: marry the head of the inn her grandfather trashed, or get eaten by ayakashi. But Aoi isn’t the type to let spirits push her around, and she’s determined to redeem her grandfather’s IOU on her own terms!

Aoi is finally ready to open her restaurant on the grounds of the Tenjin-ya inn, but not everyone is as excited about it as she is. Some of the chefs of the main restaurant are doing everything they can to destroy her business before it even has a chance to start! Aoi is determined to keep going, but her detractors are deadly serious about stopping her.

Review:

In this volume, Aoi is finally opening her new restaurant, Yugao. They're setting everything up, preparing, and even having a soft opening. They're trying hard and getting good responses from the people who come, and yet someone is trying to make this harder on her. Someone doesn't want this restaurant to work, and their plans are working, since no one is showing up. Their location is just too hard to find, it seems.
This volume was all right. Aoi is working hard, and she's a good cook, but she's fighting against yokai who have been there a lot longer than her. Her relationship with the ogre seems to be getting better, and I like how it appears that he likes her. They're forming a kind of friendship, I think, or at least growing more comfortable with each other, which I like.
It's very clear that this is trying to be a food manga, and yet I forget that, because there just isn't enough food in it. The things Aoi makes sound good to me, but there isn't enough detail or description in any of it, for me to consider this a food manga.
This is an all right shojo. I don't mind it, but it feels very meh and not fleshed-out enough, still.

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