While looking around for a different book recently, I discovered that I had a copy of Kamisama Kazoku vol. 1, which I hadn’t read since buying it from Go! Comi’s booth at Anime Expo 2008. I’d seen the first episode of the anime adaptation, which I faintly recall didn’t make me laugh much for something pegged as a comedy, but I figured that the manga might be better. (The franchise began as a light novel series written by Yoshikazu Kuwashima, who also authored the manga’s story, and illustrated by Suzuhito Yasuda, who has later created Yozakura Quartet as his first manga.)
High school student Samataro Kamiyama is the son of godly parents with a pair of goddess-in-waiting sisters but wants to try living an ordinary life without his father’s assistance. He gets his chance when the beautiful Kumiko Komori transfers into his class. Samataro is encouraged by his guardian angel Tenko, who is initially flustered when she sees him look at Kumiko. Unfortunately, his father interferes and causes an embarrassing moment that puts him in the dumps. Older sister Misa gives him four tickets to a water park, where his family’s good-intentioned meddling continues to his dismay.
The humor improved as the story progressed and Samataro takes an action that makes me to read volume 2 to see what will happen next. Tapari’s crisp art style helped ease me into liking it and allowed me to focus on the main characters, who were starting to grow into feeling like real characters. Through her emotions, I could tell Tenko really cares for Samataro and doesn’t want him to be harmed while Kumiko likes him as a friend but isn’t completely enamored, particularly after a couple of uncomfortable incidents.
Tenko and Samataro’s friend Shinichi
I had some minor issues regarding the production, ranging from a single innocent typo (“ever little thing”) to a lack of page numbers when there is clearly space for them and when translator’s notes refer to particular pages. (07-Ghost vol. 1 also didn’t have page numbers but that had many more pages that bled into the edges. Why bother having a table of contents when there’s no simple way to utilize that information?)
I also thought “Shi-n-chan!” looked strange the way it appeared (above) – I acknowledge that it follows the right-to-left mode of manga reading but when looking at the entire page, it’s odd to a native English speaker.
As far as I know, Go! Comi has halted publication of this manga series – volume 2 was released in August 2008 but none since then.
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