Kitchen Princess - Cora Lewis-Patterson
Kitchen Princess Volume 1 is a cooking/romance manga written by Miyuki Kobayashi and illustrated by Natsumi Ando. Set in Japan, Najika Kazami is an orphan who lives in an orphanage called the Lavender House. Before her parents died, they were both chefs, and Najika carried on to have a wonderful sense of taste. She is set on a mission to find the boy who once gave her flan after he saved her from drowning who she calls her "Flan Prince." Najika recently found out that the spoon she ate the flan with is from an academy in Tokyo called Seika Academy. With this new information, she studies her hardest to get into Seika, and succeeds. She is looking forward to creating new friendships and exploring a new place, but things don't always go exactly the way she wants. Using her love of cooking is always helpful though, and she always makes sure to help the best she can.
Personally, I would rate this manga an 8.5/10. I first read Kitchen Princess in sixth grade, and I have loved it ever since. I have never been bored while reading it even though I always know exactly what is going to happen. The artwork is also incredible. Natsumi is a very talented artist and you can really tell how much work she puts into her drawings. She also includes an "about the piece" section to some of them so you can really get a feel for what it was like to create it. Along with "about the piece" sections, there is also a recipe section at the end of the book where Miyuki lists all of the recipes seen in the volume of the manga. There are fun drawings of the food as well as some reviews by Miyuki herself. Whenever I want to bake something, I just have to open up one of the Kitchen Princess volumes and I will be greeted with an astounding amount of recipes to choose from. It is always rewarding to be able to bake the same delicious recipes that can be seen in the manga. My only critique about this manga is that it follows a very cliché route. A girl gets into a love triangle, the popular girl despises her, everyone thinks that she is weird because she's a new student. Everything is just very predictable and you can tell what will happen next from a mile away.
If you love clichés, cooking, and drama, this is definitely the manga for you.
This sounds like a great story since you re-read it. The recipe section is such an interesting bonus. As someone who likes food and clichés I will check this out! Great review Cora! Your writing is always fun to read!
ReplyDeleteI do enjoy cliche, cooking, and drama quite a lot so It looks like this will be in my Amazon cart soon. Great job in explaining the plot and general basis of the book. I love the way you describe this book, and it makes me excited to read it!
ReplyDeleteI really liked this series when I read it! I do agree that it's quite predictable and a way cheesy, but I feel like that really adds to it's charm. Nice review!
ReplyDeleteOoh! Even though this manga seems pretty cliche-y, the artwork looks fun and I bet it would be a very fun comfort read when you want to read something light and happy. I'll try and check it out!
ReplyDeleteI really liked your book review Cora! This sounds like a fun and easy series to read and the artwork, like some people mentioned, also seems very appealing. I'll try to check it out when I can!
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