APADFTMOM Day 2: Misoshiru de Kanpai!, and Strong Educational Messages

I am of the opinion that when it comes to manga, an educational message can do nothing but enhance the series. Whether it’s a series that is thoroughly enjoyable but still peppers in little fun facts, such as Taisho Wotome Otogibanashi’s tidbits about life in early 1920s Japan, or a series that takes a vile turn that makes over half of it irredeemable, such as Gyaru Kuri’s transition from cleaning tips to sexual assault (which we’ll cover in detail at a later date), the sole act of being able to take real world facts away from reading makes the experience feel all the more worth it.






Before discussing Misoshiru de Kanpai by Sai Sasano, it’s essential to discuss miso soup. Miso soup is a traditional Japanese dish that is known for being highly customizable due to being extremely simple. At its core, miso soup consists of two parts: Miso paste and dashi stock. There are many, many variables that can be changed or added to fit anything from personal preference to the changing of the seasons, including the core components of the miso paste and dashi stock. Miso soup can even be replicated in completely unrelated ways such as a hot chocolate variation using sweet ingredients that visually resemble the original dish.




Such incredible leeway in how miso soup can be prepared makes it the ideal food item to use to thread together a narrative. Despite such a heavy influence from variations of one dish, Misoshiru de Kanpai never feels as if the narrative was structured around whichever dish is focused on in each chapter. The story flows together as naturally as a typical light-romance series in a school setting can flow, with the plot never feeling forced to jump to a new setting or cut ahead to the next important day just for the sake of introducing a new type of miso soup. This is very much a story first with a heavy secondary focus added in to accent that story.




The story of Misoshiru de Kanpai has a very simple foundation with a few twists and turns to set it apart from other series that share similar settings. Our main character, Zenichiro (referred to more often as Zen), is a middle school student raised in a single-parent household most of the time. His mother passed on years prior to where we pick up in the beginning of the story so his father has been raising him, although his father is frequently absent due to needing to travel overseas for work. Zen’s neighbor and childhood friend, Yae, eventually steps up to help fill in the gaps of Zen’s lonely existence, although her goal is to be a strong mother figure in Zen’s life to try and replicate the experience of having a mother that Zen has lacked for a good portion of his life. While Zen is appreciative of Yae’s efforts, he is also awakening to seeing Yae as a love interest and is conflicted over how to approach his blooming feelings.




Yae’s motherly tendencies start with and center around preparing breakfast for herself and Zen every morning. Zen views breakfast as a hassle and eats pre-packaged convenience store food for breakfast, while Yae sees breakfast as a very important part of starting the day and wants her best friend to start his day with a home-cooked meal that nourishes both his body and his heart. The opening sees Yae as a miso soup novice who very quickly learns the basics of preparing standard variations of miso soups. The pace at which Yae’s cooking improves may seem a bit unreal at first, but the cooking in this series is rooted in being a showcase of simple dishes as opposed to the constant culinary Olympics of a series such as Shokugeki no Soma so it makes sense to have one of the main characters understand the bare-bones minimum of the primary dish almost right away.




As a male protagonist in a romance-based series, Zen is a surprisingly level-headed character. While he is in love with someone who sees herself as a stand-in mother figure and nothing more, he is very respectful of the distance that Yae has established between the two of them. That isn’t to say that Yae knowingly created this special bond just to cut Zen off before things got weird between the two of them; Yae just doesn’t have any interest in romance and put herself in this position out of a deep caring for Zen’s well-being. There is romantic progression through the series, although the progression is towards acknowledging that there is a romance as opposed to acting on an established romance. The love story between the two main characters takes its time, as it should. Pending a series cancellation, there is plenty of time for the two main characters to fall and be in love with each other.




Zen’s father is a very interesting presence in the story. The trope of a student living alone due to absent parents is fairly common, but Misoshiru de Kanpai barely adheres to that trope because of the occasional presence of Zen’s dad. Zen has a relationship with his sole living parent, although that relationship is strained at times due to that parent’s frequent long absences. There is a large disconnect between parent and child; Zen’s father is frequently out of touch with his son’s interests and life in general, and Zen doesn’t pay his father much mind even when he’s home due to his father sleeping a lot of the time.




The contrast between Yae and Zen’s father gives rise to Misoshiru de Kanpai having a prominent second theme: Family. Specifically, the theme here is the time-tested idea that family is more than just a genetic relationship. Yae’s attempts to serve as Zen’s mother figure are constantly at conflict with Zen’s dad, who is his actual parent and still cares about his son despite not being in a position to do much for him on a personal level. Both positions are balanced carefully against each other so there is no clear “correct” answer, but there is always the opportunity to offset one side to create a conflict to further drive the plot.




Overall, Misoshiru de Kanpai is a feel-good tale that is very easy to invest in due to monthly chapter releases, relaxed plot pacing, and a focus split between a casual budding romance and informative cooking tips. Each chapter stands at around 35 pages, none of which are particularly word-heavy save for the mid-chapter info dumps which are intended to condense a lot of information into a limited space. At the moment there is no official western release, but we stan most fan translators around here so don’t take that as a deterrent.