About the Mangaka

Born in 1982, after dropping out college, Shiho Torii attended a technical art institute in order to study design. However, she found herself surrounded by much older students learning art as a hobby. After finishing school, she began her career as an illustrator, drawing illustrations for novels. This is her first literary work.

   snipped from One Peace Books

About the Manga

When I was first contacted about reviewing this title I jumped at the chance. I consider it a rare privilege to be able to review a title five months before it’s due for release. However when it arrived on my doorstep I couldn’t help but groan as I noticed everything I hate about manga is woven into this volume.

Lets do the good stuff before I get to the stuff I didn’t like.

Firstly, I think it’s worth saying that while the story may not, on the surface, appeal to people. It does grow on you.

I found the settings and characters very likable, and easy to follow along with. The thing that attracted me I suppose is that it was something new. Sure we’ve had real life stories before (With the Light for example), but this was the first I’ve read that dealt with a topic that I felt most people deal with at one time or another, losing weight.

I especially liked her use of humour and self put downs in the story, and genuinely felt like I was with her in the journey to lose fifteen pounds.

The story is basically split into five main chapter, with each chapter covering a month. At the end of the chapter she posts how much she gained/lost over this month. This was another little bit I liked, as it brought me closer to Shiho in a way. As in I felt her joy at losing weight, and anxiety or anger when things weren’t going quite to plan. Each chapter is further split into the various diets she did for that month.

It’s certainly refreshing to see someone else struggling to lose weight, and seeing her reactions to others around her as she struggles to get the weight off.

However, despite the good points of the book it does have both large and small issues.

Firstly, this volume is flipped *urgh*. For me this alone would have been reason enough not to buy it, as I hate it when publishers flip manga, there’s no call for it. Secondly it has my other pet hate, chibi’s. I don’t like it when chibi characters are overused, however this volume is nothing but chibi’s.

I will admit however that as I went through the volume the chibi characters started to grow on me.

I also felt the colour done at the beginning was a bit off, there was no life from it, just flat and dull.

However the only other main complaint I have (other than it being flipped!!) is it’s to damned short. One volume to cover five months means that some of the diets barely get a page or two. I think it would have been better to do it as one month per volume, allowing the month to unfold better and giving Shiho the chance to delve deeper into the diets.

One Peace Books seem to be a new publisher with only one other title released so far (which I haven’t been able to get yet). However going from their website they seem to be trying to bring japanese self help books to the west.

However I have doubts about their success in publishing manga. Flipping manga is a big no no these days, and I know a lot of readers who won’t touch flipped manga anymore.

I also feel their translations were a bit weird. I kind of got the impression they simply removed the yen and replaced it with the dollar. Which leads to some eye opening costs for some of the diets ($100 for a tube of massage oil lol).

The story also feels a bit overly westernised and a few times it felt a bit strained. I also noticed a few terms that needed some explanation but didn’t have any.

I also find myself concerned over the number of diets done. My doc always told me for any diet to have an effect it would have to be done for an extended time. No quick short cuts. But some of these diets she does in a matter of days or a week. How can that be a real diet if she hasn’t given it a chance?

I’m not going to say it’s a bad volume, because I honestly did find myself enjoying it, however if I was to see it on a shelf I doubt it would be one I picked up. That said, it’s not bad, and if you’re interested in learning about diets and stuff then it’s worth a read.

where to Buy

As this isn’t released until September 2009 there are no known links for it yet. I’ll update as they become available