Chikyuu Renai

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Mari Yamazaki is a mangaka well known for her love of history, travels and foreign countries in general with Italy in particular taking a big place in the stories that she would come to write about.

Chikyuu Renai is an occasion for her to write a few short stories set all around the world, and as far as depicting the different sceneries and the way of life of the people, it seems like Mari Yamazaki was very thorough in giving each of them a different feel and acknowledging the subtle differences they can have. It's self-evident with the sceneries themselves which stands at stark opposites, ... from the hot nights of Rio de Janeiro and its carnival, the vast and seemingly unending areas of sand and rocks of the Arabian Desert, the paradisiac beach of Tuvalu filled with coconut trees or a snowy village in the middle of Denmark, all presented in a fairly detailed and realistic way that's pleasant enough to look at, same can be said for the rustic homes which always changes from story to story. Another thing I like is showing the typical occupations of the people we see, there's one character who's a traditional shoemaker, others are handcrafting toys and furniture from wood because they live next to a forest, a musician playing folk songs in a bar… they're details but make everything a bit more lively.
Now one of the shortcomings of this book is that Mari Yamazaki is much more skilled in transmitting her passion for culture and traditions than for love stories, it already showed with the second half of Thermae Romae and it also shows here, they're a bit too contrived and rushed to be enjoyable. They're not that ambitious though and it handles well themes like family or relationships between elder people if you're interested in that. I can't help but feel they're more like a pretext for showing off different countries and make a travel diary of sort.

Fans of the author will probably enjoy this, it's definitely not terrible but can hardly stand above average.