Cafe Kichijouji De Volume 1 (v. 1) by Yuki Miyamoto

Cafe Kichijouji De is a cute ensemble comedy about a group of hot men with extremely quirky personalities working together at a cafe. Taro is the harried glasses-wearing supervisor who has a secret collection of cleaning products. Jun is the cute and slightly feminine looking waiter with a secret talent of super-strength. Maki is a womanizer, and Shuta is the “normal” one who lives in a horrible apartment. The waitstaff are often intimidated by chef Minagawa’s habit of playing with voodoo dolls.

The waiters deal with typical cafe events in their unique way. Preparing for a visit from a reporter results in wholesale destruction of the cafe with a boulder. A innocuous shopping trip ends up triggering bad luck and concludes with cow wrestling and catfish battling. A cursed scone batter emits an unearthly wail. There’s plenty of slapstick action as the waiters attempt to do their jobs. The main focus is on the relationships between the staff instead of on yummy recipes or serving customers. While I didn’t laugh out loud while reading Cafe Kichijouji De, I did smile often. There are mini-chibi episodes interspersed with the longer chapters.

I haven’t read anything from DMP in awhile, and I’d forgotten how nicely their volumes are produced. Cafe Kichijouji De is oversized, with high quality paper stock, and a funny color board game mini-poster featuring the staff of the cafe is included in the front of the volume. While this manga isn’t very substantial, it was a nice light read. I recommend this manga if you’d like to turn your brain off for a little while.