A lone man moves amidst the remains of civilization, propelled by his desire to sell BLTs. A chance encounter with a mysterious girl of unknown power sets him in the sights of the military. And she might have some things to get off her chest too, typically her clothes.
Without question, this is one of the most shonen titles to have ever shonened and it feels like a total throwback story in a way that I mostly mean as a compliment, minus some of its more questionable treatment of its female characters.
The narrative proper turns out to be a bizarre combination of Mad Max mixed with, of all things, Food Wars!, and starts off with some gorgeous looking food porn before it starts to go a bit odd. Our lead, Gordon, isn’t out looking for trouble, but naturally finds it anyway.
This trouble turns out to be a sleeping bag full of Arisa, a young girl on the run who is a lot more than she appears and also shows off a lot more than you’d suspect at any given moment. And when she’s not showing off, the perspective is definitely, uh, tilted in her favour.
Gordon and Arisa’s relationship is the heart of the book and the way the two play off one another is really charming. She’s a super powerful weapon that wants to eat roughly every other minute and he loves to cook and they develop a strong father-daughter style bond as she leans hard into her gluttony.
Needless to say, when the going gets tough, the tough start shooting and the action in this is pretty solid and the mangaka’s got a real eye for it. There is an excellent car chase that has an appreciable focus on detail at the start and there’s a nice little showdown towards the end over a bowl of ramen.
The first place this gets a bit wobbly is with the post-apocalyptic setting. Necessary for the action? Sure. For the food, however, we start getting absolutely ludicrous nonsense like squid that live in sand and pufferfish-style cows. It’s not without its charms, but fantasy food is never very exciting to me, no matter how gorgeously it’s drawn.
As much fun as Arisa is as your standard super-strong manga heroine, the way she’s constantly whipping off her clothing (what there is of it) and keen to be naked seems a lot less like a character trait than a desire on the part of the mangaka to get some bare breasts in here. It’s a little excessive, but does remind me a lot of other series in a bygone era, which is regrettable more than laudable.
Sidebar - it drives me crazy that having a 17-year-old flashing her chest all over doesn’t get this an explicit content warning, while the superlative Sex Ed 120% (a series that is about 20x more wholesome and educational) does.
Ahem. And yes, Arisa kicks butt all over the place, she’s definitely of a tried and true stereotype, but that whole nudity thing is a thing. The only other women who show up exist to be sex slaves in the tackiest chapter, just so we can know how evil and gross the villain in that piece is, which might reflect the apocalypse and all, but is still pretty crass.
3.5 stars - it’s tough to call this a slam dunk, as it doesn’t handle its women perfectly, he said generously, but Gordon and Arisa make a really amiable duo that are worth spending time with and there’s strong action too. If you don’t mind the fan service this one’s a fun ride and I’ll probably give it another volume.