Beauty and the Feast

How simple of an idea, having a warm meal back home. An entire manga made around the idea that you can suffer any level of mundane pain, if there's that meal when you're back. Dipping my fingers into the slice of life genre, this story does the non-fresh aspect of the story, with slivers of a better story lying behind. The simple dynamic right on the synopsis, unchanging, unmoving, and all about looking at the slowest progression of the bonds we make from the smallest of coincidences. Everything that happens around the story centers around the food that's presented by Yakumo, a widow that's remindedof her husband by the very person eating her meals, a neighbor. The story's as simple as that, days starts, both have problems around that day that stresses them out, they meet, eat a warm meal while bonding, rinse and repeat. The repetitiveness did start to grind at me. This is a series that works as a weekly watch, but not as a read from beginning to end. A pallet cleanser, but not a full course. Maybe the mistake was watching it constantly instead of alternating, but if it fails as a straight watch, it speaks volumes about how it doesn't work on some levels. I was bored constantly at the beginning of the midpoint. I couldn't bare again the same thing again and again without change or interesting moment. Sadly, there were parts that explored the grief, and the concept of toxic replacement, including that age gap the characters share, but it didn't lead anywhere. The great didn't try, and the normal stayed for far too long. The characters had to be great for this to work, and even with them, the story needs compelling aspects. Only our protagonist shows the layers necessary to carry the story. A widow that longs for connection, and finds it in the people around her neighbor. She's the star, but we required something to foil her dynamic, and it didn't work for me. The minor characters had way better moments than the ones we spend most time in. I wish we had something more to cling to, since the great moments are far in between. However, the art felt very cozy. Not a perfect feel, not an extremely polished nature, but diverse enough to keep my eyes on the pages. It manages to capture angles, expressions, focusing on the eyes and how they communicate feelings. I enjoyed it, as well as how the expressions on characters spoke more about them than the text itself. Again, there was care put into the ideas, but not enough interest and focus for the rest. This manga had it all to be an extremely memorable Slice of life. It wasted its potential by focusing on the extremely mundane aspects of the story, and the last conflict wasn't even that interesting, except for the very end. I liked the ending it got, but it wasn't entirely worth it. 6/10, I wish it wasn't that long.

I picked up Yakumo-san because I was itching for an age-gap romance manga and then reading the synopsis got me somewhat interested in it. I read it in a span of a couple days. It is a wholesome manga about a widow (Yakumo) trying to move on from her past with this young baseball player (Yamato) who has quite an appetite. It made me happy while reading it of course but honestly it's not really a romance manga when I think about it (or at least not explicitly so) I was hoping to see even more about Yakumo's past, how she battled with her loneliness, or evenYamato's feelings. To my perspective at least there's not any explicit showings of Yamato's and Yakumo's relationship being more intimate, it may seem like it's leading to something more but it's just the same thing all over again. Even after the ending, I still wished for "more", I'm not one to head canon a lot so getting an ending like that is something that I struggle to accept with. For the characters themselves, while not bad in writing, Yamato in particular, the protagonist, feels like he's a nothing–burger (pun intended?), he could probably be fleshed out more but seeing his appetite for food is entertaining. Perhaps I'm biased because I like Yakumo-san's character, but I do think she's one of the better characters here (no duh) probably due to us learning of her past and constantly learning about her feelings and emotions. Despite me feeling that the romance or emotional moments sometimes is a bit lacking, it shouldn't deter people from reading this sweet-savory Slice of Life Manga. P.S, so I think this is probably not a romance manga (?) it's just that one of the artworks and a couple chapters just really lead you to believe that it is, but if it is a romance manga then it's very lacking in that regard. Still very cute though

Don't be fooled by the romance tag. This is the most boring cooking manga ever made with ZERO romance. I'm sorry but this manga is absolute trash. It starts out as some kind of ultimate woman fantasy about cooking for men. Her greatest joy in life is feeding a man who eats a lot... Now you might be thinking that's a boring and ridiculous plot for a long running series, and you would be correct! But there has to be romance, right? No romance. So it's a comedy? No comedy. What we have here is the most boring "cooking" manga ever made disguised as some kindof forbidden romance. If you are expecting things to pick up or get better later in the series then you are going to be 100% disappointed. Please don't waste your time on this dumpster fire trash.

Plot our female MC Yukumo is a widow. She lives alone and is still mourning the death of her husband. When a high school boy (our lead male MC) moves next door alone, she gives him some leftover food. From that day, he comes over daily for food after his baseball practice. The rest of the plot is both of them eating / cooking food. Good stuff 1. Lots of food. we have everything from live barbecue to leftover curry. 2. nice thicc milf. has plenty of bra shots and them boobies are great. 3. decent art. 4. no stereotypes. Almost all characters are nice people,but it is a Slice of Life manga, so that is to be expected. 5. has a fluffy and chill vibe. Our female MC still talking to her dead husband is really sweet. Bad stuff 1. It is a slow manga. Out of 78 chapters, the plot just remains stagnant until chapter 67. There is no romance until the final chapter. Honestly, there are like 5 proper chapters which have plot progression. 2. repetitive.Seeing the same formula of cooking/eating in the same apartment with the same characters gets boring after a while. But that is the content of most chapters. 3. Age gap is absolutely unnecessary. FMC was 28 years, while male MC was 16. But we never actually use it for drama or anything except for a couple jokes about sugar mommy. male MC could have been an adult and it would have worked better as a mature adult romance. Generally speaking, the manga is so slow, that it is boring. The characters don't have enough charm to actually keep the viewers interested during the cooking/eating chapters. and the dialogues are just plain. There is no ecchi despite having such a gorgeous female lead. felt like wasted potential. Anyway, only read this if you have free time and just need something drama-free to skim over without using your brain. The very definition of "Nothing ever happens".