Sumomomo Momomo by Shinobu Ohtaka

Gong Hey Fat Choy! 2016 is the year of the monkey, but the gif I found was something completely different.

Darth loves dumplings.

Sumomomo Momomo by Shinobu Ohtaka

Art and story (c) Shinobu Ohtaka

Genre: Seinen, Martial Arts
Length: 12 Volumes – 92 Chapters


            Right off the bat, the art is a little shaky, literally the lines look very 'hand drawn' I suppose would be the nicest way to put it. If you read One Piece like me, its a bit like the wiggly lines you get on it, too, just in the mouths and clothes, it doesn't look unprofessional. This manga had other little things like that, in general it reminds me of Beelzebub with a little One Piece big teeth thrown in, and like Beelzebub, at the beginning the proportions were a little strange. Mostly, it was the same small handed syndrome, which disappeared by the end of the manga, and a bit of big guys having too wide of shoulder for their heads. Other than that, I've got nothing to complain about. The movements were very good, and once the clothes stopped looking too big for the bodies, it got even better. Despite being a martial arts manga, the fights are hardly there, but though there is a lack of actually seeing people fight, what is given is done well. The eyes have a unique look, the faces, too, and emotion is played across the faces amazingly. Its kind of surprising seeing the variety of characters in this story, the manly men look like old-style samurai and their children all are typical manga characters including huge eyed chibi types and just plain huge little eyed types. I had a few design choice issues myself, but I'll discuss that later, but its a lot of fun to look at in a very good way.

This basically sums up the whole thing.

          When Momoko, the only daughter of Sendayuu Kuzuryuu, the leader of the Dragon clan of martial artists, is told by her father she, as a woman, cannot gain anymore strength and must instead find a strong man to have a child with so that her offspring can surpass her, Momoko goes to find her father's equal's son to ask for sex and marriage to fulfill this order. Reaching the Inuzuka household, however, things do not go as planned. First off, Koushi refuses her offer of bearing their children, and then he tells her he hates martial arts?!
           I really enjoyed reading Sumomomo Momomo...mo (? I'm never sure if I have the right amount of 'mo's) I found the emotions played really well and I laughed out loud several times through out the story as well. It was very conscious of itself, I think, and of it's martial arts genre and it felt very obvious that some of the tropes were being made fun of and exploited. For example, Koushi's family's special move involves shooting lasers out of their eyes and while that seems perfectly normal in a martial arts story, like this or Dragon Ball say, it really is a ridiculous ability and it is pointed out quite often how weird it is. The cast of characters are also very diverse, despite being mostly female at first, and you get a lot of those side characters, sometimes you get more of them than you do of Koushi and Momoko. To usually hilarious results. Like I said, I lol'd several times, the humor also had me smiling at lots of stupid running gags and the just plain silly things people did, its a really good comedy. A bit of it is lost in translation, though, and some other mumbo-jumbo doesn't

I love sunsets for the hell of it.

really add to the ease of reading, either. The 'clans' of martial artists are the hardest to come to terms with because, frankly, their descriptions are a little vague and while in Japanese you could tell who was who by the 'animal' in their name the translations loose that. Every clan member has a Chinese character for an animal in their names but besides a few words I've picked up over the years (thanks to Fruits Basket, mostly) I had no idea who was from where until they flat out told me. Those two things are easy to move on from, though, as they have nothing to do with actual enjoyment of the story. There is one major thing that bothered me, though, and that was the choices of the characters came off as fetish-y at times. Typically I think it's just supposed to be for comedic effect, but it was, in my opinion, uncomfortable instead. There are two main examples of this and I'll try not to have any major plot spoilers as I explain them. The first is Momoko herself, as well as another, similar character. The age for Momoko isn't given right away, but it turns out she is supposed to be 15 years old, and Koushi is 17. Ages are tricky to convey, true, and Momoko is a naive and immature character, but at times her sex demanding and panty shots had the taste of pandering to lolicon. The feeling fades as less emphasis is placed on the asking for a child plot point, but the fact that Momoko is supposedly fifteen and looks eleven kind of makes the act a little gross if you think too hard about it. What I found worse than that, though, is a character named Horse Mask, who is a vigilante type hero who I'm not really going to explain for plot reasons, but I feel like her 'joke' just went on a little too long. See, the more humiliated Horse Mask gets,

Does that face say pain? Or pleasure?

the stronger she gets, so that means she has a super embarrassing outfit that happens to fall apart or can be taken apart, so that her power increases. In short, the skimpy outfit gets skimpier so that Horse Mask can become even more powerful. The outfit itself is pretty fetishistic in the first place, since she is a 'horse' it is made to look like reigns and the like, but actually seeing a girl with a bit in her mouth just screams S and M and not much else and then seeing her being humiliated about it is just over the top. I suppose some of my aversion has to do with the fact that I am female and don't think that humiliating a girl for laughs is very nice, but its mostly due to the faces she makes while doing it. Now, granted, Horse Mask only has the two plot lines where her power has to be brought forth and, typically, the two things I disliked sort of sunk into the background after a while so I don't really think its much of a deterrent but it does come off in bad taste when you get to those parts. So much so that I thought I'd have to give this a negative review at one point, but the moment passed, and the good eventually outweighed the bad. Other than that, I really enjoyed reading the emotional journeys of the characters and how things worked out in the end. I got past that bad taste in my mouth left by earlier (or sexist) things and decided I really think this is worth reading.



4/5 Martial Arts manga that pokes fun at Martial Arts manga.

And, simply because I had another one...

Good job fixing that banner definitely not in reverse footage, Darth.