Another week in the books. Let’s chat about manga in the general discussion thread! Feel free to use this thread for questions, comments, recommendations, etc.
Like normal, please be careful with spoilers. I wrote a guide about spoilers in case you need a refresher on how to handle them (also linked in the sidebar).
Alright, birthday week over, back to a normal week of manga…
Here are a couple series I wanted to mention from what I read this past week:
This series is kind of like Mary-san in that it is single-page chapters and they are released quite frequently. I saw that this series is coming to an end later this month. So, I just thought I would plug it here. I don’t think I have posted about this series before, but I have enjoyed my time with it. Mitsuki, the female lead, is incredibly cute, and really embodies the hot and cold nature of cats in that they will crave your attention until they absolutely don’t want it…no middle ground.
Alright, I am sure some of you just rolled your eyes at me from the title. “Not another one of wjs018’s bakery-themed series…” I hear you, but…well, that is exactly what this is. I am only a handful of chapters in so far and it is kind of like Bocchi the Baker. The MC is a shut-in that has helped her family’s bakery over the years through things like graphic design for the menus and mascots. However, she suddenly has the manager role thrust upon her and she has to figure out how to interact both with the customers, but also the employees. It has been a lot of fun so far.
This is a single-page oneshot that I came across in the recent updates page. The premise is basically what it says on the tin, but I was just impressed at how much story this one was able to tell in a single page.
Only two chapters out for this one so far, but I am not sure I am going to continue it. Basic premise is that a couple of neighbors/childhood friends see each other alot and hang out. The girl gets a cat that begins to try to set the two friends up and take the step into a romantic relationship. The main thing I had a hard time looking past in this one is that the guy that the cat is talking with kept saying things like how he doesn’t want to be more than friends with his neighbor. However, the cat basically just ignores this and still tries to orchestrate romcom moments between the two. It’s just, if the characters both only want to be friends, then why try to force them together?
Fun fact: in addition to the meaning we usually see (underestimate), nameru/舐める can also mean “to lick or taste”. So the title can translate to either “Don’t underestimate bread” or “Don’t taste bread”.
It can also mean “to burn”, but I don’t think it works in the sense of burning food. I think it’s probably more like “to scorch”. I can’t seem to find any examples of it being used this way, so I’ll hold off on whether “Don’t burn bread” is also a valid translation.
Japanese puns are next level sometimes. So, if I understand jisho correctly, when it is written in kana (ナメる) it usually means underestimate, but with the kanji (舐める) it usually means to lick. I would have never picked up on the pun due to the writing difference. In the actual native title it is written as ナメる, so that is why the English title probably went with the underestimate translation, but the lick pun is fun.