For the current generation of almost-adults sweeping through the 21st Century's dilemmas of house care, food prep, and grocery shopping on a budget, the daily adventures of Tatsu probably feel like long-awaited messages from some housekeeping deity. Alas, THE WAY OF THE HOUSEHUSBAND v9 begins with Tatsu schooling Masa, his understudy (and idiot buddy) on the tricks associated with keeping an apartment smelling like a field of lavender. Indeed, who wouldn't want a wreath of natural deodorizing herbs hanging above their toilet?
Additional highlights in this volume include a vicious carnist five-year-old girl, an overly ambitious competition between Tatsu and Torajiro, and the author's clever use of personification to amplify otherwise criminally mundane activities.
When a neighbor recruits Tatsu to encourage her five-year-old daughter, Suzu, to eat her veggies, the former yakuza eases into what may be his biggest challenge yet. Carrots? Onions? Mustard spinach? The girl's pupils dilate. "Don't ever speak that name in front of me again."
Tatsu's solution, as always, involves a curious merger of fantastic cooking and a not-so-veiled threat of violence. And when the protagonist's latest encounter with Torajiro, the crepes seller, envelopes a pair of random kids, it's a similar story of Tatsu forgetting to mind his own business. The difference, here, is not that Tatsu steps into someone else's world, it's that he unwavering pulls someone else into his. When the guy aims to help a neighborhood kid with his bug collection, Tatsu learns the hard way that Torajiro favors a different king-of-all-insects. The blood of competition rises and outlandish training montages ensue, and the two kids at the heart of this initial feud struggle to pull away from the madness they've unwittingly unleashed.
THE WAY OF THE HOUSEHUSBAND v9 also adds a clever visual shift in the manga's overall storytelling approach. In two instances, the author illustrates various foes or enemies of good housekeeping by way of yakuza baddies. For example, bad odor is represented by thugs with "odor" emblazoned on their shirts, and unkempt gardens are populated by gangsters, with "weeds" written on their shirts, as they don nails-studded baseball bats. As such, when Tatsu and Masa get down to business, they're both physically fighting their opponents and conducting a simple spritz of weed-killer. The cues are a little inconsistent and sport a few continuity errors, but are nevertheless an intensely clever addition to the manga's visual lore.