Uramichi is a 31-year old children's TV host who leads physical exercises and teaches life lessons colored by one main theme: adulthood sucks. Alongside mascots played by a couple of bushy-tailed millennials, and a singing duo whose music embodies the notion of being kicked while you're down, Uramichi wades through the misery of working life, one sardonic comment at a time...
I really loved this manga. This English Kindle version is really a bind up of volume 1 and 2. At first I thought that I would get bored of the concept, because it is fairly repetitive, but I really enjoyed it and loved the characters. I may also be a simp for our MC, Uramichi San. Not going to lie, I loved that nihilistic attitude, and he is a gymnast.
The dark comedy remains fairly consistent. Revolving around the idea of adulthood fucking sucks. But, the character interactions amplified the hilarity of it and the humor was timed perfectly. I laughed so hard at the songs about things like not having an umbrella when it rains and the interactions with the kids on the show. The juxtaposition of hating adulthood while working as actors on a kid's show was gold for me.
Here is an excerpt of the kind of humor in this manga...
I look forward to reading volume three and this is one of those manga I would love to own and have in my collection.
4.5 I thought it was a light and funny story but well, Uramichi deals with depression and anxiety and it's interesting to see how he manages to live his life despite it. Like, he "hides" and does nothing, just keep on smiling and doing his job for the children. I guess he accepted the fact that he's gonna live with that during his whole life. It's finally the perfect representation of those illness that I was waiting for and well, I'm glad I discovered this manga. Can't wait to read the next volumes.
Uramichi is a 31-year-old host on a kids' show who leads exercise routines and teaches life lessons colored by one main theme: 'Adulthood sucks'.
While Uramichi seems to be a fun happy guy, but in real he wades through the misery of working life, one sardonic comment at a time.
Unfortunately this book was just not for me. While the artwork and illustrations were good, I just couldn't connect with any of the characters. Also, I found the story kind of repetitive and I did not find it funny at all!
Thank You to NetGalley and Kodansha Comics for this ARC!
Това отново е манга, която получих предварително, преди издаването ѝ на английски език.
Урамичи е чаровният "батко" от сутрешното японско шоу за деца... който е напълно душевно мъртъв отвътре. Той е ерген, води живот по-скоро на съвременен самотник и е малко нещо депресиран, но пък има какво да каже на децата (независимо дали му се ходи на работа, или не... по-скоро не му се ходи). Той всъщност не е и сам... всички в това предаване са малко нещо (малко?!) депресирани от реалния живот извън студиото, където се налага да пеят, скачат и да се смеят (макар че дори децата усещат, че нещо не им е в ред xD). Заглавието е много свежо, с меки сарказъм и ирония, с чудесен изчистен арт. Въпреки че говоря за това как тематиката му е депресарска, историята не е тежка или тъжна, само в границите на това как човек разбира темата за самотата... Нашият Урамичи е убеден, че да си сам и да си самотен не е едно и също, така че надеждата определено е жива в него... макар че децата са склонни да го карат да си мисли, че може и да не е така xD Забавлявах се много. Аниме адаптацията, която миналата година отмениха за тази, ще се получи перфектно. Камия Хироши, убедена съм, ще е като прилепнал за тази роля, направо го чувам. Мияно Мамору и Сугита Томоказу определено също са право в десетката. С удоволствие бих следила поредицата.
Omota Uramichi is a 31-year-old kids' show host who used to be a professional gymnast. His filter is almost entirely off. Although he's able to keep a smile plastered on his face while the cameras are rolling, he can't stop himself from making depressing comments about adulthood when the kids on the show remind him that they still have their dreams and whole lives ahead of them, while he just has meaningless workouts, an empty apartment, and a job that's slowly killing him inside.
Uramichi's coworkers include: Daga Iketeru, a handsome 27-year-old singer/actor who can't tell time on an analog clock and has a weakness for juvenile jokes; Tadano Utano, a 32-year-old failed idol singer who's in a dead-end relationship with a failed comedian; Usahara Tobikichi, a 28-year-old who has an unfortunate habit of pissing Uramichi off; and Kumatani Mitsuo, a 28-year-old who seems to somewhat unwillingly be Usahara's friend by virtue of them having been college roommates.
This series did not pull its punches. Right from the start, Uramichi was on camera with the kids, smiling as he explained that his voice was raspy because he'd drunk too much the night before. To be honest, this portion of the volume was a little too direct for me. I expected Uramichi to have a little more of a filter than he did - in the real world, someone would have frantically turned off the cameras and pulled him off-stage before he'd gotten more than a few sentences out. In the world of this manga, however, apparently just about anything was fine as long as Uramichi and his coworkers could manage to keep smiles on their faces, follow at least the overall skeleton of the script, and wear whatever they were asked to wear.
For the most part, the kids on the show weren't kids, but rather kid-shaped constructs designed to rub the cast's faces in the fact that their lives weren't going the way they'd hoped. They were also possibly intended to be concerned reader stand-ins. I doubt real little kids would have responded to Uramichi overdoing his usual introductory routine by asking each other "Is it just me, or is he really on today?" I tended to prefer the moments when the kids did feel a bit more real and were clearly concerned and worried about Uramichi, who constantly seemed moments away from snapping.
I wasn't a fan of the first half of the volume, but the humor started to grow on me in the second half. I preferred the parts of the volume that were more focused on the characters as dysfunctional coworkers to the parts starring the adult cast plus their strange child-shaped audience members. For example, the beach shoot was both horrible and absolutely hilarious.
The character dynamics were occasionally a bit weird and almost certainly unhealthy, which I think was the point. Uramichi was functionally depressed and had literally no one but his coworkers. He hated Usahara but still put up with Usahara showing up at his apartment and annoying him, because what else could he do? A little interaction with adults you dislike is better than no interaction with anyone except at work, I guess.
This series is dark and won't work for everyone. I'm not even sure yet if it works for me - although I liked the second half better, I have no clue what my reaction to Volume 2 will be. And I'll be continuing on, by the way - I ordered both volumes together. On the plus side, the artwork is excellent, and there are definitely some good "adulthood sucks" pages and panels throughout. The page where Uramichi basically explained spoon theory to the kids made me wince in sympathy. This is definitely a series that will stick with me, whether it entirely works for me or not.
Extras:
This is actually an omnibus edition containing the first two volumes of the series, so there's color artwork at the beginning of both volumes (3 pages total). There are also character profiles (you won't learn their likes and dislikes, but you will learn how much they smoke and drink), the full lyrics of the songs they sing on the show ("The Cat's Staring at Nothing Again" made me tear up a little), a few bonus comics, a one-page afterword comic, and 6 pages of translator's notes. As expected, some of the humor is the kind of stuff that'll go over the heads of readers who don't speak Japanese - I knew the character names seemed a bit odd (and recognized the "rabbit" and "bear" parts of Usahara and Kumatani's names), but hadn't realized that all or most of them were intended to be jokes or puns.
Rating Note:
Part of me feels like I should rate this higher, because I actually did get to the point of really wanting to read the next volume by the end. I settled on 3 stars because of how hard it was to get into this. Uramichi was an open and unrelenting cry for help, and wow was it a lot.
I've been waiting to read this since I first heard about it in 2018. It finally became available for kindle, so I bought it.
It's hilarious. An instant favorite. Uramichi is an exhausted, burnt-out children's show host.
As someone who has worked in Japan for 6 years with little kids, this is profoundly relatable. The whole how are you in the first pages was just *chefs kiss* and the part where they talk about the "relentlessly cheerful tone" and how adults have to allocate energy to make it through the day... I reread several pages just because I found them so funny.
Plenty of reviews commented on the "pessimistic" tone, and I'm going to say it's pretty obvious they've never participated in Japanese work culture. I showed a screenshot to another friend who lived here for several years working the same job and she was like asfsdfasdf, and I showed it to a current ALT who immediately went LMAOOOOOO. Y'all just don't get it until you work here.
So goofy and I loved it. Slightly depressed adults running a kids show and singing songs about how adulthood sucks. I had a little trouble telling the difference between Uramichi and Kumatani at times as they looked very similar when one wasn't a bear, lol. Looking forward to reading more :)
I give this first volume 3.5 stars. I liked the humor. There were a couple times I chuckled out loud. I really enjoyed the characters group dynamic. I love the fact that one of the character daydreams about rice balls a bit too much! 🍙😂 I am going to pick up the next volume (maybe digitally) to see where this series is going to go. The mangaka promises to dive deeper into the characters, so we’ll see!
I've received an e-arc from publisher via Netgalley in exchange for a honest review.
I decided to broaden my genre knowledge and try even series I wouldn't usually pick up. That's why I ended up reading Life Lessons with Uramichi Oniisan. I haven't read synopsis and that might be one of the reasons why I've been surprised. And not in a good way because this series didn't click with me.
Manga focuses on Uramichi, a young comedian and performer in a kids tv show whose personal life is not that great. He brings his pessimisic view into the daily life as a performer. It has a very specific kind of humour and you could say it's a slice of life series. Uramichi's dark humour was probably the only thing that made me keep reading because I loved it. My biggest issue? Kids. I don't like them and setting whole story around kid's show... I wasn't interested. Though if you like settings like this, you will love it.
I didn't have any problem with art. It was pleasant and nice to look at. There's an anime adaptation coming this year, so you might check manga first if you're interested. I am not sure if I'm gonna continune with this series or not, but it wasn't waste of time. It's not for me but I am sure there's someone who's gonna enjoy!
Was kommt dabei heraus, wenn ein depressiver, nach dem Lebenswillen suchender Typ in einer TV Show auf Kinder losgelassen wird? Life Lessons with Uramichi. Und ich gestehe, ich habe unfassbar viel gelacht.
Uramichis genervte Kommentare, in Bezug auf das Erwachsen sein und das Leben, sind staubtrocken und in Kombination mit seinem gefakten Lächeln ein absoluter Killer. Und nicht selten stecken wahre Worte dahinter. Manchmal hab ich’s ein bisschen gefühlt.
Insgesamt sind Uramichi und seine Kollegen für mich überspitzte Sinnbilder von überarbeiteten Erwachsenen, denen es an Leidenschaft und auch Freizeit mangelt. Vor allem in Bezug auf letzteres, kann ich mir gut vorstellen, dass es die japanische Arbeitswelt teilweise gut repräsentiert. Nicht umsonst hat dieses Land ein eigenes Wort für Tod durch Überarbeitung. Karoshi.
All diese Ernsthaftigkeit ist in einen Mantel düsteren Humors gewickelt. Ich kann verstehen, wenn man damit nichts anfangen kann, aber mich hat’s furchtbar gut unterhalten. Freue mich schon darauf weiterzulesen.
This was so funny but someone get this man to therapy please.
In all seriousness, I felt that although a lot of the manga's humor comes from Uramichi's depression and existential dread, it was laughing with him just as much as it was laughing at him. The side characters were also pretty interesting, and I found the fourth wall breaks hilarious. The guide in the back is also incredibly helpful as I think a lot of the humor tends to be regional. Still, even before reading it I think the manga translation managed to convey the spirit of the joke. Excited to read the next volumes.
This wasn't as funny as I had hoped. I did chuckle a few times, but idk. Maybe this type of story just isn't for me. I'm hoping watching the show will be better for me. I like the art a lot and I do like the cast of characters. I want to continue, but I'm not invested in any sort of story. I mean there's no real plot it really just feels like episodes of a show. And if it made me laugh more I would've been okay with that, but so far it's not really doing much for me.
This manga is quite charming and had me laughing a few times. I love the premise of actors on a kids show miserably making a living at the rock bottom of showbiz and fully showcasing this misery on air in front of the kids (often in song no less!). I’m definitely curious as to where this one will go and look forward to continuing the series.
Uramichi Oniisan perfectly portraits all my fears of working in a job I despise after graduating from university just in order to make ends meet and I feel like I have been scammed by society's expectations. Would recommend reading if you feel hopeless,tired or stressed out. It will motivate you to work harder haha. (*cries in corner*)
Probably more a 3.5, but the dark humor of a children's show staffed entirely by very cynical adults is really pretty funny. It also made me think about some show I watched as a very little girl called "Zoobilee Zoo," which YouTube assures me was not a fever dream.
I love the art but yeah not for me. Maybe if I was more secure in stuff in my life around work and also didn’t dread mondays so much… all this manga did was reenforce how much I’m not hopeful for stuff right now.
So, the humor in this particular title didn't really hit well with me. It was a little too pessimistic for my personal taste. I did enjoy the art and the general concept for the series though.