Sweetness and Lightning Manga Review
Amaama to Inazuma
I first learned of Sweetness and Lightning via Twitter/X. Folks were generally hyped for the anime, so I checked it out and liked what I saw. Naturally, that meant I had to read the source manga material in order to get the complete story. Thankfully, Kodansha Comics did a decent job with the English adaptation.
–> Buy Sweetness and Lightning Volume 01 from Amazon.com!
***SPOILERS***
The Story, in Brief
Recently widowed teaching assistant INUZUKA Kouhei worries he’s not making proper meals for his young daughter, Tsumugi. During a hanabi, he encounters a depressed-looking teenage girl named IIDA Kotori. While they talk, she ends up inviting him to her mother’s restaurant to practice cooking with Kotori. Kouhei agrees, then discovers that Kotori is in fact one of his students. However, with permission from Kotori’s mother, Kouhei and Tsumugi begin spending time with Kotori at the closed restaurant, learning to make meals.
As they become friends, their friendship becomes known to Kotori’s best friend Shinobu and Kouhei’s longtime friend, Yagi. As such, there are times when a cooking session involves everyone, including Kotori’s divorced mother. Tsumugi comes to rely on Kotori as an “oneechan”, sometimes seeking her advice for things she doesn’t feel comfortable talking to her dad about.
Tsumugi eventually goes from kindergarten to grade school. Eventually, Kotori graduates from high school, deciding to become a chef and inherit her mother’s restaurant. Even after Kotori leaves home, she remains in touch with Kouhei and Tsumugi. After Tsumugi leaves home for college, Kotori and Kouhei go for a coffee together.
Cooking Slice-of-Life
Since Sweetness and Lightning is obviously a cooking manga, the stories almost always work in some sort of cooking angle. The stories themselves are more slice-of-life tales. Some deal with Kotori dealing with her growing feelings for Kouhei, though he’s oblivious to it for most of the manga. Other stories deal with Kouhei raising Tsumugi and the difficulties of being a single parent. As such, the stories are rather wholesome and heartwarming at times.
Except for the last extra chapters, all other chapters include the recipe for whatever food that Kotori, Kouhei, and Tsumugi may have made. That’s pretty cool, though I’ve never tried to make any of the dishes. I may do someday.
Since everything in the story gets shifted to cooking, certain story elements get suppressed. Specifically, I’m talking about romance. Amagakure-sensei must have felt pressure from fans to deal with this because late in the manga’s run, Sensei attempts to squash it somewhat. Then he tops that later with another teacher telling the oblivious Kouhei that he’s not permitted to date students. Not sure how that can be enforced once said student is an adult and not in school, but whatever.
Yet at the same time, Sensei does imply at the very end that after years of being together, Kotori and Kouhei may actually be a couple. However, Sensei leaves that for the audience to decide. Ditto the implied romantic hints between Shinobu and Yagi. I wish things would have been more implicit for a seinen title, but oh well.
Final Thoughts and Conclusion
At twelve volumes, Sweetness and Lightning is a wholesome, fun read. (And the anime adaptation is good too.) So if you like slice-of-life stories with a side of Japanese cooking, then I highly recommend this manga.
