This series follows Jiro (Ramen Wolf) and his friend Kagetora (Curry Tiger) as they try new restaurants and enjoy eating together. Jiro is outgoing, friendly, and kind, while Kagetora is more reticent and removed, but also is a nice person. Jiro serves as a sort of motivating factor to get Kagetora out and interacting with other people after Kagetora’s semi-estrangement from his brother. He sees himself as not successful and is insecure about what he’s doing with his life. Food serves as a friendship bond and draws other people into their orbit.
Over the course of these two volumes, we get to see how their friendship grew and developed, as well as some of the troubles of the side characters (for example, Jiro’s childhood friend Igarashi and how he struggled with being bigger than everyone else). Jiro’s cheerful and welcoming spirit helps everyone around him. The tone of the volumes is sweet and the message of acceptance and friendship is one I agree with, but something just wasn’t clicking for me here. I couldn’t really connect with the characters and I didn’t find myself very engaged by the plot. Their concerns felt very far off for me, which was perplexing given that I do tend to connect with most manga series I pick up. I do like the art although I kept thinking it was going to be a bara type comic based off the semi-naked muscle drawings of the male characters throughout. I think I would have liked this as a romance between the two leads way more, because the random cheesecake pinups were surprising after the sole focus being on friendship. I think I would skim read the third volume in the store when it comes out, but I won’t buy it. This just wasn’t for me.