Kumota Haruko

An excellent ending to a wonderful series. The art is beautiful, the story is wonderful, and the characters are endearing. If you love this, please try to watch the anime. It's free to stream, legally, on Crunchyroll, and a brilliantly made adaptation that's incredibly faithful. I can only think of two things that were cut from the manga (at least the last two volumes, since I took a break between 8 and 9), and they're quite minor, though worth reading the manga for if you're coming from the anime.

Wonderful series. Absolutely wonderful.… (mer)

A very good series start! It might help that I've seen the anime first, so I can fill in the gaps of the rakugo stories we don't see, but overall I enjoy the characters and their relationships and the universe Kumota has created. Kikuhiko's sexism is quite naked, which was also demonstrated in the anime, but it's nice at least that Konatsu is relentless, even if she smokes all the time.

The art is also quite beautiful. I love the way the characters are drawn, and Yotaru is quite cute when his hair grows out. My one issue is the tongue-out face, but it's meant to be stupid, so I guess it's successful.

A good first volume.… (mer)

Kikuhiko and Sukeroku's careers continue, and Kikuhiko's relationship with Miyokichi comes to an end, at the same time Sukeroku is rejected by Yakumo for being too progressive. The sexism is still pretty uncomfortable, but overall the focus is on the relationships between Kikuhiko and Sukeroku and the world of rakugo as an art form. Still a beautifully drawn and intricately written series. It's also really impressive to see how - if things had been different - Kikuhiko and Sukeroku and Miyokichi could have lived in a polycule quite happily.… (mer)