The Drops of God Vol. 1

神の雫 #1

by Tadashi Agi, Shū Okimoto

Akibat insiden di bar wine, Miyabi Shinohara yang bekerja sebagai somelier berkenalan dengan Shizuku Kanzaki, putra kritikus wine yang baru saja meninggal dunia. Namun, Shizuku terancam kehilangan haknya sebagai ahli waris karena isi surat wasiat ayahnya. Apakah isi surat wasiat itu? Dan, bagaimanakah nasib Miyabi yang hampir dipecat karena memecahkan sebotol wine langka?

Genres: Manga, Comics, Graphic Novels, Contemporary, Seinen, Fiction, Wine

213 pages, Paperback

First published March 23, 2005

About the author

Tadashi Agi, 亜樹直, is the penname of Yuko and Shin Kibayashi, a sister and brother team of Japanese manga storywriters. Shin Kibayashi also uses the pseudonyms Seimaru Amagi and Yuya Aoki.

Reviews

[Michael Finocchiaro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty typical manga plot and drawing but the background story and data about oenology was interesting and certainly made me feel lucky to live in France even if I have never drunk most of the fantastic Bordeaux and Bourgogne wine that is mentioned.

[Dusk · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who could have imagined that a fictional inheritance battle, where wine becomes both subject and prize, would ferment into a tempest within the wine world?


Les Gouttes de Dieu (神の雫 / Kami no Shizuku / The Drops of God) offers an intoxicating elixir that swirls between the pages, leaving an indelible mark on both readers and the global wine market. Within its inked tapestry lies a narrative that tantalizes the mind as much as the wines it celebrates tantalize the palate.

At its core stands Shizuku Kanzaki, a humble employee at Taiyo Beer, thrust into an epic quest by the last will of his father, Yutaka Kanzaki. To inherit the legendary wine cellar and fortune, Shizuku must compete with his father’s adopted son—an acclaimed wine critic, Issei Tomine. Their battleground? The search for the elusive “Twelve Apostles” of wines and the “Drop of God.”

The creators, Yuko and Shin Kibayashi, are such alchemists of imagination. They weave a world where every sip of wine whispers history, and every bottle becomes a library of sensations. Their commitment to authenticity is palpable: each wine featured in the manga is not a footnote but a living character, tasted and meticulously researched by the siblings themselves.

Les Gouttes de Dieu is not a dry textbook but a refreshing departure from typical wine education reading. The authors swirls technical analysis with metaphors in a goblet of imagination and invite us to sip, not just with our tongues but with our souls. Consider Shizuku’s experience with a 2001 Bordeaux from Château Mont Perat. As the wine touches his lips, he is swept into a rock concert. “It’s powerful,” he says of the wine, “but it also has a meltingly sweet taste, with an acidic aftertaste that catches you by surprise. It’s like the voice of Queen’s lead vocalist, sweet and husky, enveloped in thick guitar riffs and heavy drums.” Or the intense red wine Rosso Miani domaine Enzo Pontoni with its spicy flavour and cutthroat precision viticulture evokes the opera Salome, specifically the mad seductive dance when Salome demanded the head of John the Baptist.

But this manga isn’t just a delightful sip; it’s a tempest in the international wine market, propelling obscure winemakers into celebrity status. Bottles that once sold for a modest $20 now command thousands, all thanks to their spotlight within the manga. Thibault Despagne, a winemaker featured in the book, aptly remarked, “This manga is an extraordinary sales lever, much more effective than the Parker points.”

For those who shy away from manga, fear not. Apple TV+ offers an adaptation that captures the essence of the original tale. Despite the adaptation's focus more on emotional drama, which at times overshadows the wine education, the essence remains untouched.

The Drops of God stands as a monumental work, not just for its captivating storyline but for its profound impact on wine appreciation. It blends storytelling artistry with oenological nuances, turning each page into a sensory journey. As the story unfolds, readers uncork the depths of wine culture, savoring the bouquet of tradition, terroir, and taste, making this manga a timeless tribute to viticulture.


So, if you’re interested in wine, raise your glass and immerse yourself in the world of The Drops of God. 🍷✨📖

[Bookishrealm · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a completely random volume of manga that I checked out through comixology. For unknown reason, I'm really into food based manga. So when this popped up on the list of available manga for me to check out, I was extremely excited to give it a try. I was pleasantly surprised. I thought that I would be overwhelmed by the wine terminology; however, I found it educational and rewarding as a drinker of wine. I walked away from this manga excited to tell my mom about the different ways that wine is both made and consumed. Beyond the educational aspect of this manga, Drops of God focuses on Shizuku who is the son of a well-known and highly respected food critic. When his father unexpectedly passes away, Shizuku must compete to win his estate (a collection of rare wines & his home) against his "adopted" son, Issei, who as rare talents and gifts for identifying wines. While the first volume doesn't necessarily cover a great portion of their battle, it does delve into a little bit of the insecurities that Shizuku has about wine tasting which seem to stem from a toxic relationship with his father. With the help of Miyabi, a young woman training to be a wine sommelier, Shizuku works to overcome his issues in order to face this challenge head on. From the set up of this manga it appears that there will be "mini-challenges" that the two will face in addition to the main competition with Issei. I'm genuinely excited to see where the rest of this series is going to go. I've never been so excited to learn about wine.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Passionnant même pour quelqu'un comme moi qui ne connais rien en vins !

[marcia · Rating 2 out of 5]

Perfectly fine. The story has a compelling premise and I enjoy learning more about wine. It also makes great use out of double page spreads. However, I'm put off by how many volumes there are and that's not even counting the sequel yet.

[Dominic Bellavance · Rating 4 out of 5]

Je vais me coucher moins niaiseux à soir par rapport aux vins, ça c'est sûr.

[Dustyloup · Rating 4 out of 5]

je trouve les seinen un peu lourd des fois avec trop d'informations si on n'a pas vraiment l'intention de devenir expert mais c'est à nous les lecteurs de décider comment on va lire l'histoire. donc cette fois je me suis dit c'est l'histoire qui prime et pour les infos je ne vais pas prendre la tête. mais quand même j'ai appris des choses- heureusement parce que l'histoire est un peu 'lite'. mon fils l'a lu aussi et ça lui a plu même a 12 ans. il y a juste une scène 'adulte' mais je pense que c'est plus bizarre que sexy.

[Riski Oktavian · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I'm enjoying my wine right now. Wine is a living thing. If I don't drink it now, it will lose its scent and flavor." -hlm. 184

Setelah 10 hari di bulan September ini tanpa membaca apa-apa karena hectic dan juga didominasi oleh rasa males, akhirnya aku kembali membuka bacaan bulan ini dengan komik.

Aku menghabiskan waktu cukup lama untuk menyelesaikan komik ini. Bukan karena ceritanya nggak seru atau alurnya membosankan, melainkan informasi yang kudapatkan dari komik ini cukup banyak sehingga aku kayak bener-bener menikmati cerita yang ada di dalam sini.

Bercerita tentang Shizuku Kanzaki, putra dari Yutaka Kanzaki, seorang yang ahli di bidang Wine yang sudah mendunia. Yutaka Kanzaki meninggal dunia dan mewariskan seluruh hartanya untuk keturunannya. Namun Yutaka Kanzaki tanpa sepengetahuian Shizuku mempunyai anak angkat yang ternyata juga seorang ahli di bidang Wine.

Untuk mendapatkan harta kekayaan itulah mereka berdua harus bersaing dengan sedikit permainan yang melibatkan wine.

Di satu sisi Yutaka Kanzaki menghadapi satu masalah bersama salah satu pelayan di restoran Perancis tempat dia biasa makan.

Membaca komik ini aku tuh sedikit mendapatkan banyak informasi seputar wine. Meskipun aku nggak minum (& kayaknya nggak akan minum) wine, kemampuan tokoh utama di sini yaitu Shizuku dalam mengidentifikasi wewangian dari wine tanpa harus meminumnya itulah yang menjadi daya tarik dari komik ini.

Meskipun aku awalnya sedikit bingung ini tuh ceritanya tentang apa ya? Dan covernya juga cukup menggelitik karena kupikir akan bercerita tentang spy atau semacamnya. Tapi cerita ini jauh dari itu semua.

Pembawaannya juga menurutku asyik, nggak kayak dijejeli banyak informasi yang bikin kita mengerutkan kening. Dan untuk judul yang ini aku bacanya di Google Play Books, ya!

[Deidra (ShadeTreeReads) · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 of 5 stars
I super enjoyed the story but the art was not my favorite. It fit but there were a few too many "white room" panels for me. And several other panels with a random grey gradient background that made it feel really simple. At the same time, there was just so much information about wine, grapes, wine tasting and the like that you really didn't need too much getting in the way of absorbing all of that.

This is one that Ashley from @bookishrealm (YouTube) has been telling me to read forever and I'm glad I finally did! It's on Comixology/Kindle Unlimited and I'm having a great time with this and a few other manga I've picked up recently.

[Soo · Rating 4 out of 5]

2024/11/19 Notes:

Whole series is on KU! Woo! I'll try to read at least 10 before the end of 2024. ;)

I love the way Asian comix can take a niche topic and make it fascinating. Fictionalized intro to varied topics are a cool way to get hooked into a new interest.

Love the art and the way the story introduces information about wine. The descriptions are interesting! If you've seen the cooking focused anime and the way characters will suddenly be thrown into vivid dreamscape, that's sort of happens here too. Highly entertaining when it's done right.

This series was a happy find to dive into f0r 2024.

[Marie-Hélène · Rating 3 out of 5]

Je ne suis pas lectrice de mangas, c'était mon 1er!! Je me suis laissée convaincre d'essayer celui-ci. Je n'ai pas été déçue. Le graphisme est très beau, le sujet est très intéressant et très bien documenté. De plus, les pages d'explications en fin de livre sont une vraie mine d'informations pour des non initiés au monde du vin. Il ne me manquait que les verres pour tester moi aussi ! Et c'était frustrant car les vins cités sont hors de la portée de mon porte monnaie, dommage !
Par contre, le récit est un peu trop bref et ça manque un peu de fluidité selon moi!

[christene_littlelibrary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Drops of God is a manga about wine like everything! It was a very informative read for me. I do drink wine but don't bother with how and whys. This manga tells reader about different kind of wines how each differs from taste, aroma, color, and etc. It follows the story of Shizuku Kanzaki, the son of a well known wine critic but doesn't drink wine not until when his father died and was forced to know more about wine in order to compete to his legal brother which is the prince of wine critics. Will he be able to know more in a short span of time or will he fail to get his father's treasures?

[Hannah Kentridge · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting!! i like wine but the wines they're talking about are on another level. this is quite funny though and i'm learning!! i love how they represent the flavours of the wines with them suddenly appearing in a field or at a concert

[Nyssa · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the concept and plot of this series are intriguing, I don't think I am the intended audience. I have no interest in alcohol of any kind. However, for wine connoisseurs, this may be an enjoyable and educational read.

[Barbara The MarSienne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ce manga sur le vin m'a appris beaucoup de choses et me donne envie de m'intéresser davantage aux différences entre les vins. J'ai aimé aussi la petite touche d'humour qui est distillée quelques fois et qui est bien spécifique aux mangas japonnais.

[Danni · Rating 3 out of 5]

Actually some solid information about wine. I worked at a winery a while back and this book brought back some fun memories.

[Geoff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like a less wholesome Hikaru No Go.

[Stephanie (aka WW) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting start to this manga series for adults. I’m learning lots about wine. The series is free to Prime members on Amazon.

[Kimiyo Kimiye · Rating 4 out of 5]

Note : ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5

Lecture facile, mais enrichissante. Intrigué intéressante, bien hâte de savoir la suite.

Que tu t’y connaisse ou non en vin, c’est une bonne lecture!

[Shelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it, especially as a wine connoisseur and ever student of the drink. I think that the information in this first manga is very informative, even for someone that doesn't know wine too well, but it's also complex enough that those that do know a lot about wine will be engaged enough to continue wanting to know more about the story.

[Salomé · Rating 3 out of 5]

Je suis très contente de me replonger dans cette série, que j'avais commencé il y a une dizaine d'années. A l'époque, il n'était paru qu'une trentaine de tomes (il me semble).

[Lara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don’t even know why I’m surprised anymore by manga about super specific topics, but…this was pretty enjoyable even though I have almost zero interest in wine. I’m definitely interested enough in the story to keep going and see what happens!

[Valérie Harvey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Je viens de terminer les 44 tomes de cette première partie de l'histoire de Shizuku et Issei. Ce fut avec grand plaisir que j'ai découvert toutes sortes de vins, de mots liés au vocabulaire d'oenologie, de descriptions poétiques brodées autour de la première impression que donnent la première gorgée. En bref, ce manga m'a donné le goût de redécouvrir le vin et surtout de le partager avec des amis! Parce que les auteurs n'ont pas négligé tout l'aspect émotif de l'humain qui influence ses découvertes et ses choix. C'est donc un manga à la fois émouvant, poétique et formateur. J'ai hâte de lire la suite!

[Vicki Dalton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Drops of God was a solidly enjoyable series which has inspired me to get a more into wine, but also taught me that being a wine aficionado is a rich person’s game, so I don’t think I’m ever going to go there. But it’s nice to have fun tasting wines, even everyday ones. I think I’ll buy 2 related/contrasting bottles at a time more often, to taste.

I enjoyed the wine/melodrama combo, featuring lots of high society events, jet-setting, unbelievable coincidences and showy outfits. It felt kind of like a 90s soap opera with rich people XD

I really appreciated the fun the authors had with their wine descriptions and recommendations. You really could just float away on some of the descriptions and imagine yourself in a flower field or what have you. Also, as the 12 apostles were collected, you could see the pattern of a life emerging, and as they got to the final apostle, there was some pretty thoughtful/poetic commentary on ageing and what Yutaka Kanzaki was thinking as he approached his death.

Couple of things I didn’t love though. One was the extremely minimal development in the main cast of characters. This series really is all about the wines, descriptions and dramas, not plot or character development. The other one was that they didn’t find the Drops of God in this series! There’s a whole other (26 vol) series for that, which isn’t translated. The name of the series doesn’t fit quite as well knowing that.

I read the vast majority of this with a free Kindle Unlimited trial. If I had the money just laying around (and it was printed in English) I think it would be a cool resource to have on the shelf and flip through for wine ideas every now and then. But 44 volumes is a big investment and I doubt I would have got the through the whole series if I hadn’t been reading it for free.

[Bryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read an abridged print version of this years ago and really enjoyed its over-the-top goofy love of wine and the way the mangaka is willing to do full-page spreads of Grateful Dead concerts in order to convey just how a particular wine tastes, but it was so frustrating that it was abridged! You can imagine my delight, then, when I saw that the entire original manga is available on Kindle Unlimited!

This first volume sets up everything for the series -- there was a famous wine critic named Yutaku Kanzaki with an estranged son (Shizuku) and a famous adopted son (Issei Tomine) and the two of them have to compete to inherit his vast wealth and wine collection. Shizuku hates wine because his father trained his palate so intensely in childhood, while Issei is polished and incredibly arrogant and thinks he'll win easily. It is, of course, not that simple!

All of that, though, is just the framework that the authors use to tell the stories they want to tell, and those stories are about wine as experience, wine as pleasure, wine as history, wine as connection and memory and a source of meaning in a series of otherwise ordinary lives. Of course it is overselling wine to claim that it is inherently any of those things, but the authors do know that, and that's what makes the series actually work -- they are just so over-the-top joyful and goofy in their claims that Wine Is Everything, and many of the side characters are so ridiculously intense and breathless about it that rather than feeling preached to, I felt invited to go play in their world. With 44 volumes in total I'm sure this will take me a while to finish, but I'm definitely enjoying the journey.

[Phillip · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty fun read!

Shinzuku Kanzaki is the son of a recently-deceased renowned wine critic, who forcefully trained Shinzuku as a boy to develop his senses of taste and smell in order to be a perfect wine critic himself. Shinzuku rejected the path and has never tasted wine before (working instead as a salesman selling beer for an alcohol company) and was estranged from his father, but his father's will requires that he win a wine-tasting competition with his father's apprentice, Issei Tomine, a young respected wine critic in his own right. Shinzuku initially rejects the idea, but is pulled into the contest nonetheless.

This is painstakingly researched - all the wines, winemakers, labels, etc. are real - and surprisingly interesting, even for someone who doesn't care much for wine.

I am being mercilessly reductive in comparing the two, but I would describe this like a restrained, staid, Food Wars, where instead of food orgasms and people's clothes exploding, the wine gives Shinzuku lovely visions that reflect the wine's taste.

I read this on Comixology Unlimited.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

Readers of my manga reviews should be aware of my bias against the art form. For some reason I find the artwork makes me jumpy/restless and some of the emotions depicted so over the top that it takes me right out of an otherwise engrossing story. That said, Drops of God is one of those educational manga that focuses on the study and enjoyment of wine. As a beer drinker (and occasional wine drinker), the premise is in my wheelhouse. In fact, I had some chuckles of recognition at some of the panels because i've experienced the same in my travels. It manages to show how esoteric the enjoyment of wine can be as a field of study, but also how interwoven that enjoyment can be in life, especially among likeminded folks. A very promising start to a series I hope to delve into.

[Bernard Dy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Totally unexpected

I like Manga but I'm not a connoisseur. Thanks to Amazon, I got to try some titles I'd never heard of before. Most of the titles I've seen before are science fiction and action, but this was a totally unexpected treat, a story about wines. If you completely dislike wine you might be put off but I had fun reading this stealthy educational book hiding inside a soap opera. It goes for several volumes and might run out of steam at some point but for now I'm intrigued.

[Jose · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not the traditional manga I usually read, but it left me intrigued by the concept.
A son of famous wine critic and his rival, both trying to win and achieve their ends.

They look very dissimilar at the start.
Who knows at the end, maybe we'll find them more similar than expected?

I might try a few more volumes and see where it goes.
There's a tv show based on it starting in April that might launch it into the popular arena.

[Ada]

***woensdag 21 februari 2024, vol. 1-44***
I got this through a Humble Bumble deal and I'm adding it to my TBR so I won't forget I actually have this. Reading digital manga is not really a problem for me but I do forget I actually have them unless I put them directly on my tablet.

SIDENOTE I know nothing about this series. Have not even read the blurb. Sometimes this turns out very well so here is to hoping it will do the same.

We shall see!