Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou vol. 1

This is one of those series that I’ve heard about for years, but never actually read until now.  That’s mainly because no one ever thought that it would be licensed for the longest time as its subject matter and tone were decidedly non-mainstream for the American market during its publication from 1994 through 2006.  Slice-of-life “healing” story set after an unexplained environmental disaster focusing on an android who runs a coffee shop does not scream “Guaranteed commercial success – please license now!”  Still, the people who had read it really liked it, and some of them are obviously working at Seven Seas – the publisher of this first English edition.

I’d normally start by asking if this lives up to the hype, but this is definitely an anti-hype kind of series.  “Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou” (or “Yokohama Shopping Log”) is all about conjuring a pleasant mood in the reader as it details the life of Alpha as she goes about running her coffee shop and interacting with various figures in her community.  There’s no overarching plot, or concerns more dire than wondering what her hangover will be like when she has too much to drink one evening.  It’s all about the small human interactions we see and taking in the world as it slowly winds down and it presents these things quite well.

While I appreciated that, I came away from this first volume feeling like I needed a little more from this series.  A little more characterization or mysteries deeper than wondering about what the Osprey’s deal is would’ve been nice, but that is not this title’s deal.  It also managed to rub my sci-fi brain the wrong way by making its main character an android, and not having it matter at all.  Mangaka Hitoshi Ashinano could’ve made her a human and it wouldn’t have changed anything (so far).  I have no doubt that there’s an audience for this kind of laid-back storytelling, but I’m not sure if I can count myself among it just yet.