COOKING UP SOME LOVE Najika is a great cook and she likes to make meals for the people she loves. But something is missing from her life. When she was a child, she met a boy who touched her heart – and now she’s determined to find him. The only clue Najika has is a silver spoon that leads her to the prestigious Seika Academy.
Attending Seika will be a challenge. Every kid at the school has a special talent, and the girls in Najika’s class think she doesn’t deserve to be there. But Sora and Daichi, two popular brothers who barely speak to each other, recognize Najika’s cooking talent for what it is – magical. Is either boy Najika’s mysterious prince?
This volume contains volumes 1 and 2 of Kitchen Princess.
安藤なつみ, Andō Natsumi is a Japanese manga artist. She is best known for Zodiac P.I. as well as Kitchen Princess, for which she won the Kodansha Manga Award for children's manga in 2006.
Favorites: Donald Duck Favourite manga: Ossu! Ichijin and Kimagure Orange Road Favourites: meats and fruits Hobbies: shopping, reading and watching TV
Have you ever found yourself reading something and thinking that, you know, this is really quite excellent literature, EXCEPT for the fact that it neglects the monumental problem that is the difficulty of cooking the perfect flan and the power of said perfect flan to brighten the day of the most dejected soul?? If so, this is the book (and series) for you. It acknowledges the critical importance of being able to whip up not only the perfect flan, but also the perfect taramasalata, strawberry shortcake, and onion gratin soup.
What is the book actually about? Well, picture something like Super Mario Brothers or The Legend of Zelda, only with the visual look of Strawberry Shortcake meets Hello Kitty *IF* Strawberry Shortcake were revived in live action by the CW television network. And instead of killing goony monsters at the end of each level, you have to concoct the picture-perfect rainbow jelly parfait to win over your schoolmate enemies and the hot, vintage Jonathan Taylor Thomas-haired twin brothers with whom you have developed an intensely confusing love/hate relationship that makes your facial features explode in ALL the emojis.
Now, I know that probably not too many other readers born in the 70s, or in preceding or following decades, will be interested in a comic that recounts the story of a plucky adolescent girl who overcomes obstacles including supermodel boarding school mean girls, orphanhood, and confusing romantic crushes on Bieberesque brothers using only her stick-to-it-iveness and culinary arts skills. So, I'll try to make this review useful to a broader audience. My enjoyment of this book is a testimony to not only "reading harder," but also simply Reading Differently. While this certainly wasn't a taxing read in the traditional sense, I still feel like I gathered information about Japanese culture through this relatively lighthearted series widely enjoyed by tween girls. When I travel to other countries, I often feel like I learn so much about everyday life by shopping at the most workaday groceries, bodegas, markets, and kiosks I can find, and reading this manga was educational in a similar way.
This was also a great intro to manga by way of my love of cooking, one of my longtime and most beloved hobbies. Many, many years ago, I had a cookbook that contained an extensive list of notable food-centered movies. I tracked these down and rented them, and together these served as my introduction to foreign and art film. Manga represent perhaps an even more foreboding and impenetrable world than erudite film, and cooking nonetheless offered an excellent point of entry. (This series would also make a fine, unexpected, unconventional entry to any list of books about food.) If you need to read some manga for a reading challenge or something, and you're feeling freaked out about it, then this series could be a good one. It legitimately conveys some of the visual language and tropes of manga while remaining (very) sweet and nonthreatening. So go snuggle up with some chocolate macaroons and enjoy!
Wow this really surprised me. Thought that it would be just a cute romance manga based on the cover but it tackled some really dark topics like bullying and eating disorders. I loved how quirky the main character was and how charming the male characters were. I would have given it five stars but the bullying did make me slightly uncomfortable.
love this, very nostalgic, reminds me of a different and simple time. especially like im 13 again reading similar stuff. love the cooking aspect and our main character actually isn't insufferable
I should preface this review by saying that I've already read the first four volumes of Kitchen Princess in the past, before these omnibus editions were released, so for me, this is also a refresher read. This is a series that is among my recommendations for readers who are just starting to get into manga, as a story that can be very light-hearted and uplifting but juggle harder-hitting topics and still be very classically "manga" all at once.
Kitchen Princess is about an orphaned girl named Najika, whose parents were famous chefs. Her parents died when she was young, and after their loss, she was shown kindness by a boy who shared a flan with her before having to run off, leaving her with a silver spoon that bore the emblem of a famous academy. Najika grows up and applies to enter Seika Academy in hopes of meeting her "flan prince" and repaying his kindness, and she is accepted on recommendation by the director into a "special" class with students who have varying impressive talents.
When the story kicks off, we get a sense even before it is revealed that Najika has a highly unusual gift for cooking and for taste, and that her humility about her gift (or lack of knowledge of that gift or both,) are genuine. She meets two brothers (the sons of the academy director) who are as different as night and day but both take interest in her, as well as a bully/rival in the form of young model, Akane. The story picks up gradually as Najika starts piecing together clues that one of the two brothers might be her flan prince, and as we see Akane struggling with developing an eating disorder as well, which starts to derail her aggression towards Najika by the end of the volume.
The first time I was going through these volumes, I remember getting the sense that not only does Najika feel very genuinely like a country girl having to adapt to a new and stressful environment, being forced to overcome odds due to the dislike she receives from some classmates, but her kindness to Akane is something to be admired. Additionally, Akane's struggles really hit home for me back in the day (and still do) with her eating disorder, but I think that's to the credit of the creators of the series; her eating disorder is handled in a very believable and respectful way, and I really love that.
Now that this review has dissolved into mindless rambling, I'm here to give you the final word that I love Kitchen Princess, I absolutely am planning to continue collecting the omnibus editions so I can finish reading the series as a whole, and I highly recommend it to everyone!
4.5 stars. Beautiful art! Seriously, I really loved it! Cute story and characters. I love all of the focus on cooking. I only wish the food was in color... although that would probably make me hungrier. The characters are all pretty interesting and endearing. I hope Najika and Akane become friends. I feel bad for Akane. The boys are intriguing. I want to know more about everyone! Overall, a solid story. I would recommend this manga!
This manga was phenomenal and a lot more serious than I expected. I thought it was just going to be about a cute girl who was going to go to pastry school but it was so much more. Granted she was cute and she did go to cooking school but I was surprised about how she didn’t fit in and how the other girls were so mean to her. This manga also deals with eating disorders so if that is a trigger be mindful. I was surprised that it delved into some darker topics, but I appreciated the balance that it created with the rest of the manga. I already own the second omnibus so I’ll be reading that soon.
Cute set up with lots and lots of drawings and descriptions of food. I love books that involve food and this one even had recipes! But I was super surprised to stumble into a section depicting a character struggling with a serious eating disorder. Wow. That part was intense.
Surprisingly, I've never heard of this series in my younger years, and reading this I'm instantly transported to that time! The tropes, the bullying, the school girls I would have smacked tf out of lmaooo
We have the set up so I suspect Daichi or his brother Sora is the Flan Prince. HOWEVER, for them to sit idle and let Najika get bullied,slapped,and disrespected by these witches is bs! I feel violent reading this series in between the sweet cooking moments, so hopefully, my blood pressure will survive.
A breezy, fun manga with a sunny and engaging protagonist. Najika is a new transfer student to the prestigious Seika Academy, there on a special recommendation from the director. This first omnibus is all about her acclimation to school life. She butts heads almost immediately with some of the students, but she makes new friends as well. An amazing cook, her dream is to follow in her deceased pastry chef parents’ footsteps…and to discover the identity of a mysterious “prince”-type boy who soothed her many years ago with delicious flan.
Every chapter features a new food that Najika makes and all the recipes are included at the end of the book!
Contains the first two volumes of Kitchen Princess and it is already so cute! I love the romantic conflict between the heroine and the two boys (Brothers? Can’t get more delicious than that). It is so fun and refreshing to see a female character who is actually a good cook, I feel like I’ve been seeing a big trope recently where female protagonists are just clumsy, ditzy, girls who are also horrible cooks. Najika is well-rounded, and I really enjoy watching her self-confidence grow!
*minor spoilers below* HATE HATE HATE AKANE. (I legitimately cannot take any more of her.) Why is it that no one ever calls someone out for being a complete monster bully in manga? Is it like a cultural difference to just *gasp* and say someone’s name in a disapproving way when they slap someone across the face? Uhm, I’m sorry no. They should get a clapback real fast. Mad respect lost for everyone with how they handled that situation and all her other BS antics. I need less of her or she needs a big character shift, otherwise, I won’t be able to keep reading this series. It’s incorporating her too much.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
(This is the first book review for the year and I haven't written one in a long time so it may be a little rusty and short I will work to improve the quality :) Tip and suggestions are always welcome so feel free to leave them in the comments or message me (on Goodreads preferably))
I love cooking manga or anime. They always intrigued me since childhood and I've enjoyed a lot of them. Kitchen Princess was something I came across as a kid, but by then I was simultaneously reading Cooking Master Boy and thought this manga just couldn't compare in the cooking department, so I dropped it early. As an adult, I'm allowing myself to enjoy it for what it is.
The cooking in Kitchen Princess isn't anything intense that'll make you keep turning the pages to find out what food will be made and how. This isn't like Food Wars, Yakitate!! Japan, Cooking Master Boy, or even Yumeiro Patissiere which, as cutesy as it is, is actually competitive with high stakes. Kitchen Princess is slower, more drama/slice-of-life, and romantic, and its cooking is less intriguing.
Najika was a cinnamon roll. She was sweet, wholesome, bubbly, and kindhearted. She is the type of character who, should she be a guy instead, I would fall for. The other girl characters in this omnibus so far was so hateful that it's hard to care for them. Now the boys: Daichi and Sora. I had mixed feelings. Daichi was your typical cool tsundere, which is never my type, and Sora was supposed to be a gentle prince type but he came across creepy at times. He was a bit too touchy with girls (or only Najika?) and even kissed her on the cheek on the same day they were first introduced to each other. Maybe that kind of thing works in other culture but this is Japan. The gesture was culturally too much.
Overall this was a fun romance/drama/slice-of-life manga with heavy emphasis on cooking. Unfortunately, it falls a bit short in terms of explaining the technical aspects in the cooking. For example, Najika could recreate food made by a pro even with lower quality ingredients, but the 'how' wasn't explained. It was only 'oh, that's her talent'.
Although the cooking isn't explained technically in the main story, there's a real, genuine recipe for all of the food featured in the manga, which is a really sweet feature.
I was shocked at how fast I devoured this one. It doesn’t seem like anything new, but this volume has good writing and a fun theme. I’m inclined to like any manga that involves food prep or cooking and this one delivers - the addition of recipes at the end of each volume is a cute touch.
Najika comes to a prestigious academy to find her prince who helped her out when she was young. She’s plucky and strong and can bake like a champion. Also she has two potential love interests, though I think that outcome is pretty obvious (which is fine, it’s a solid pairing if I’m right).
In between all the baking she deals with some harsh bullying and then it gets really serious at the end as the book tackles eating disorders. That was quite the pivot and I don’t know that it was expertly handled, but I appreciated the attempt to add some gravitas to the usual story beats.
The art has a very Arina Tanemura style that is perfect for the tone and I quite liked it. Overall a very fun book and a new series on my list to catch up with.
You know when you need something light and fluffy? Yup, this was good for the soul today and it was exactly why I brought it home to read during break. Najika has magical cooking abilities that aren't so far off just being really great and enthusiastic in the kitchen, but she's hoping by attending a prestigious academy that everyone gets in to based on a super-talent of theirs that she might find the boy of her dreams that she met long ago.
And along the way, she cooks up a storm. Recipes are included. Fun is a must. It's everything I wanted in a read that is enjoyable and pierces the heart with the arrow of a love of food and cooking/baking especially for the feelings it gives the cook/baker when someone falls in love with it and says it's "so good". I live for that feeling.
It upholds my favorite quote that I have no idea who said it: "Baking is love made edible." Amen.
4.5 stars! I loved this bit of sweetness. I have wanted to read this ever since I was in a bookstore (the local Bay Area one) and a young teen woman freaked out about it, screeching the title, falling to the ground to grab it from the bottom shelf, to pull it out, repeatedly saying the title like "it's Kitchen Princess! It's Kitchen Princess!", to hugging it and revearing it with petting, to holding it up to me with the title out saying, "they have it! Kitchen Pirncess!" She got up and flounced away only to return in a trance, when she sat down and began reading it.
Well, I enjoyed it a bunch. I cried on a plane reading that last bit of volume 2 in the omnibus 1. So, thank you, random stranger, for loving this manga in such a memorable way I felt I had to eventually check this out.
(And, I want to try making the yogurt drink and rice cake).
I always get apprehensive going into mangas/graphic novels that I won’t develop an attachment to the characters like in a typical novel. However, this one demolished my preconceived notions and I have developed a bond with all of the main characters. I would like a little bit more on some of the side characters, but this was good for now. The theme of cooking was slightly repetitive, but it was offset by the more serious topics that came into play during the second part of the omnibus. The issues that were touched upon made the story more serious and whole and I felt what each character was feeling throughout the whole second half: a mixture of happiness, confusion, defeat, desire, and the urge to help.
Najika is sent to a special school where she has high hopes of making new friends. Plus when she was small a boy made her feel special and gave her a spoon with the school emblem on it....she's hoping to find that boy again.....she's dreamed of finding him forever. But things aren't great at school and she's struggling to find happiness. The kids don't like her. The only one's who even talk to her are two strange brothers. But those brothers seem to have sway at the school which helps Najika. They let her cook which she does very well and it brings her joy. She cooks for the pleasure on peoples faces when they eat her food. She isn't feeling very welcome and wants to go home to her safe, happy home but with the brothers' encouragement she ay make it through.
TW: School bullying, Parental Death (off-page), Anorexia
Cute artwork, but the story suffers from its predictability.Kitchen Princess features an orphaned underdog who begins life at a new school, instantly attracting the attention of the two most eligible brothers on campus, one a golden child of perfection and one a surly hottie. She instantly gains bullies and is forced to fight for her chance to stay at the prestigious school, all while attempting to uncover the identity of a mysterious childhood friend from her past.
The artwork is well done, and the additional baking recipes were really sweet additions, but overall, there are better choices out there.
Najika Kazami has lived as an orphan ever since her parents, who were talented chefs, died in a car accident. Najika grows up to be a talented cook herself with a keen sense of finding multiple flavors in one food. As she gets accepted into an academy on a scholarship, Najika sets out on her journey to find her Flan Prince - the young boy who gave her flan while she was crying and missing her parents. She meets two brothers - Sora and Daichi - upon setting foot in the academy, as Najika has a long journey ahead of her, which will involve a lot of delicious cooking and baking.
I remember reading this back in middle school when I found it in the library, as this series was the very first manga I ever read in my life. The story holds a special place in my heart. After finding the first three omnibuses on Kindle Unlimited, I immediately dived right back in to relive my memories of this manga series. Kitchen Princess is a cute manga that has wonderful and decorative art, and a sweet story. I recommend this to all manga readers out there.