Futari Solo Camp

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I hate how much potential this manga has squandered.

Synopsis: Story of a 34 year old man Kinokura Gen who loves to camp solo and a 20 year old girl Kusano Shizuku who wants to “solo” camp together with him. He teaches her about the ways of camping and she cooks for him as thanks in return.

Pros: The art to me is appealing. It might be a bit unorthodox at first but the wilderness environments just look good. The art gets better as the series goes on too. Character development*. The caveat will be in the cons but overall character development is gradual and sort of ... done naturally, for the most part. Another positive is the recipes, food manga typically are boring with this but Futari Solo Camp reminds me of Delicious in Dungeon; not with how odd the meals are but stepping out of their comfort zone to try different food.

Cons: I’ll start with the asterisk from the pros, the character development was implemented because of the author’s mistake. You see, Kusano is completely and utterly unbearable for the first 15 chapters. It’s not a debate. Her first meeting with the MC had some misunderstandings and instead of recognizing them she forces the MC on top of her, to then use that as blackmail on him if he doesn’t allow her to “solo” camp with him. False SA allegations, check. Second, and as it is later confirmed, she is a sheltered brat who has never been told no by her parents and thinks barging into peoples personal belongings (wallet, IDs, etc) is an appropriate response to coerce her preferred outcome. There’s more but you get the gist. The author changes her character about half way and she admits many of her mistakes to then change and become a helpful and eager learning pupil of our MC, which was welcome indeed but so obvious in its execution.
Before I get hearted I’ll move on. Another negative is the text itself. This is a cooking and camping book with manga panels. The amount of text in just 29 chapters should be criminal for a Shounen let alone slice of life, but somehow has been achieved. Some long winded explanations that take minutes to read can be summed up in two sentences and it’s annoying. The next is a gripe of my rather than a flaw but after meal they share we get the wasted “YUMMY” or “INCREDIBLE” panel which is a waste of space because anyone with a functioning brain can see the food looks great. It’s a bit nit-picky but when you see it at least twice a chapter with both meals it feels like padding that is just unnecessary.

The tricky part is recommending this manga because it annoyed the absolute shit out of me in the first half but has gotten significantly better in the second half. The art, characters, and vibe in general has improved. Can you withstand complete nonsense for 15 to 16 chapters? If so, give it a try.