Yakumo-san wa Ezuke ga Shitai.
Beauty and the Feast

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Yakumo-san wa Ezuke ga Shitai is about food, sport and love it's as simple as that.
Nowadys we have a lots of shows that try to be too many things and as result they fail miserably, reading this manga make me realize semplicity works the best if done well.

Story: (7/10)
Yamato Shuuhei is a teenage boy who's living by himself to pursue his dream of playing baseball at high levels so he enrolled in a high school known to be really good at it.
Yakumo Shuuko (28 y.o.) is a widow that loves cooking, since the dead of his husband she lost in part that passion, but knowing ... Yamato helped her regain it. It's a slow paced romance, they know each others day by day, start to realying in each others,... It's kinda realistic, which is a good thing in my opinion.

Art: (9.25/10)
The drawings are always well done and clean. It's a bit static because there isnt a lot of "movement" in this manga, the baseball is not the main focus so that's reasonable.

Characters: (7/10)
As the story also the characters are a bit plain, I mean there is nothing particularly interessant about them, that's not a bad thing but in my opinion the author could have made them a bit more different that the usual characters that we see in most of the mangas.

Yamato: he's the main character, he's a highschool student, as far as I remember he has a little sister, which we see in one of the chapters, he's a hardworking guy, also talented in baseball, eats a lot of junk food, that's why Yakumo offers him to eat dinner with her.

Yakumo: she's 28, she has lost the loved one that she met at the university, he was similar to our main protagonist (loved to eat a lot), she's not the flashy type, and never was, she love to cook because she enjoy seeing the satisfied faces of the people after eating her meals.

Enjoyment: (8/10)
A lighthearted romcom, no ecchi, absolutly recommended if you want to read something funny and cute, as previously said the romance develop slowly so dont expect too much too soon, just enjoy for what it's!

Overall: (7.80)
Thanks for reading!

A very comforting, wholesome, feel-good story, perfect for readers who enjoy slice-of-life and food manga.

The main focus of the story is definitely food, so I wouldn't recommend diving into the story specifically looking for romance, ecchi or any dramatic plot. It's simply 89 chapters of Yakumo making food for Yamato.

I binged the whole series in one night and I still go back to it and choose a random chapter to reread purely because every chapter is so comforting. The way that Yakumo is portrayed is so endearing, it just makes me want to sit down and listen to her talk for hours. There is ... never a moment where she is written in a way that is disrespectful to her character or backstory. The food that she makes for Yamato always looks so good and the way that Yamoto enjoys eating everything is so satisfying - it's almost like watching a mukbang video. I really love the way the author draws the characters' expressions and gestures so genuinely. The interactions between the two characters are just so funny, adorable and cringeworthy, which just makes the story even more loveable.

While the story eludes to an age gap relationship in the story, it's very innocent and written in a way that is tasteful and not sexualised. That being said, the author does sometimes draw pin-ups of Yakumo for the chapter titles lol.

As for any cons I will agree with MagicMaterwelon that the story could have explored Yakumo's backstory and emotions more relating to her becoming a widow, or even expanding on Yamato's childhood further to flesh out how and why he developed his independent character trait.

All in all, would highly recommend for an easy, no commitment, light read.

I dropped this manga at chapter 69. It was pleasant in the start but the manga is just slow paced and repetitive, it's just boring with the time... The romance is almost inexistant too.

Regarding the characters, I doubt about it. I didnt feel any character development, you can skip from chapter 5 to 50 it will be the same. That's why I say it's repetitive, it's basically the same things over and over without any differences.

The plot is simple : in almost every chapter the MC is coming to the girl's house, he eats, you can see cute girl's faces and nothing else. The author ... tried to develop a story about the girl to make her interesting for the romance plot but damn it's SLOW oh my gosh. Basically you know there is something with her but the author does nothing with it in 69 chapters..

The MC is plain and empty, I have never seen a MC as uninteresting in my entire life. You know he plays baseball, you see him playing sometimes and you know he has a little sister. Basically you do not care about anything else. He does never talk about his feelings neither think about it, he never seems sad or happy. He just eats. I even think that Rui (cliche of the childhood friend that has a cruch on MC for stupid reasons) is more developed than him and more interesting EVEN if you see her once every 15 chapters. This manga is a waifu material. It's only good point is the cute girl but do not wait anything else about this manga..

This manga is one word. Satisfying.

There is nothing more satisfying than watching a beautiful woman who cooks large meals for a young hard-working boy who eats every single bite and more.

I drool every time I read this manga. It gives me tons of ideas for what to cook or what to eat at a restaurant one day.

In our day to day lives, we rather eat something we're familiar with and taste good. We forget that we are living and either work or escape to another reality through some medium. This manga really gives the incentive to try new things. To live a better life.

Don't ... let the ratings fool you. You can only truly understand what something is by looking through it yourself.

How simple of an idea, having a warm meal back home. An entire manga made around the idea that you can suffer any level of mundane pain, if there's that meal when you're back.

Dipping my fingers into the slice of life genre, this story does the non-fresh aspect of the story, with slivers of a better story lying behind. The simple dynamic right on the synopsis, unchanging, unmoving, and all about looking at the slowest progression of the bonds we make from the smallest of coincidences. Everything that happens around the story centers around the food that's presented by Yakumo, a widow that's reminded ... of her husband by the very person eating her meals, a neighbor.

The story's as simple as that, days starts, both have problems around that day that stresses them out, they meet, eat a warm meal while bonding, rinse and repeat. The repetitiveness did start to grind at me. This is a series that works as a weekly watch, but not as a read from beginning to end. A pallet cleanser, but not a full course. Maybe the mistake was watching it constantly instead of alternating, but if it fails as a straight watch, it speaks volumes about how it doesn't work on some levels. I was bored constantly at the beginning of the midpoint. I couldn't bare again the same thing again and again without change or interesting moment. Sadly, there were parts that explored the grief, and the concept of toxic replacement, including that age gap the characters share, but it didn't lead anywhere. The great didn't try, and the normal stayed for far too long.

The characters had to be great for this to work, and even with them, the story needs compelling aspects. Only our protagonist shows the layers necessary to carry the story. A widow that longs for connection, and finds it in the people around her neighbor. She's the star, but we required something to foil her dynamic, and it didn't work for me. The minor characters had way better moments than the ones we spend most time in. I wish we had something more to cling to, since the great moments are far in between.

However, the art felt very cozy. Not a perfect feel, not an extremely polished nature, but diverse enough to keep my eyes on the pages. It manages to capture angles, expressions, focusing on the eyes and how they communicate feelings. I enjoyed it, as well as how the expressions on characters spoke more about them than the text itself. Again, there was care put into the ideas, but not enough interest and focus for the rest.

This manga had it all to be an extremely memorable Slice of life. It wasted its potential by focusing on the extremely mundane aspects of the story, and the last conflict wasn't even that interesting, except for the very end. I liked the ending it got, but it wasn't entirely worth it.

6/10, I wish it wasn't that long.

I picked up Yakumo-san because I was itching for an age-gap romance manga and then reading the synopsis got me somewhat interested in it.

I read it in a span of a couple days. It really is quite a wholesome manga about a widow (Yakumo) trying to move on from her past with this young baseball player (Yamato) who has quite an appetite. It made me happy while reading it of course but honestly it's not really a romance manga when I think about it (or at least not explicitly so)

I was hoping to see even more about Yakumo's past, how she battled with her loneliness, ... or even Yamato's feelings. To my perspective at least there's not any explicit showings of Yamato's and Yakumo's relationship being more intimate, it may seem like it's leading to something more but it's just the same thing all over again. Even after the ending, I still wished for "more", I'm not one to HC a lot so getting an ending like that is something that I struggle with.

For the characters themselves, while not bad in writing, Yamato in particular, the protagonist, just feels like he's there, he could probably be fleshed out more but seeing him devour food is still entertaining. Perhaps I'm biased because I like Yakumo-san's character, but I do think she's one of the better characters here (no duh) probably due to us learning of her past and constantly learning about her feelings and emotions.

Despite me feeling that the romance or emotional moments sometimes is a bit lacking, it shouldn't deter people from reading this sweet-savory Slice of Life Manga.

P.S, so I think this is probably not a romance manga (?) it's just that one of the artworks and a couple chapters just really lead you to believe that it is, but if it is a romance manga then it's very lacking in that regard. Still very cute though

It's a very cute 'romance' and slice of life manga. The titular heroine, Yakumo-san is adorable and likeable and the male protagonist, Yamato, while not very interesting, is at least somewhat quirky enough to be entertaining.

Well... regarding the story and the romance, it moves at an absurdly slow pace with almost no narrative or thematic intent justifying the pace. In fact, throughout my 60+ chapters read, I found this manga to be severely lacking strong character or story developments (there is some subtle character development, but it feels inconsequential because the main mechanics of the story has not at all changed or developed toward ... logical story beats). After being teased about Yakumo-san's melancholic backstory for about 60 chapters with little concrete story pushes toward a revelation, (as well as just what is Yakumo-san's job? Can insurance money last someone for this long?) I am of the opinion that the characters, the premise and the narrative itself are just superficial platforms for the author to draw and write about cooking food and wholesome interactions.

Not that there is anything wrong with such an approach. I certainly do enjoy a good mundane slice of life story about hobbies (e.g. Yuru Camp) and I am sure many others would as well. I just think that expectations in a story are incredibly important and sometimes allowing readers to have their expectations met or perhaps even subverted (with set-up of course) is something incredibly essential. I just wish that this manga was more blatant about what it wants to be.

Plot
our female MC Yukumo is a widow. She lives alone and is still mourning the death of her husband. When a high school boy (our lead male MC) moves next door alone, she gives him some leftover food. From that day, he comes over daily for food after his baseball practice. The rest of the plot is both of them eating / cooking food.

Good stuff
1. Lots of food. we have everything from live barbecue to leftover curry.
2. nice thicc milf. has plenty of bra shots and them boobies are great.
3. decent art.
4. no stereotypes. Almost all characters are nice people, ... but it is a Slice of Life manga, so that is to be expected.
5. has a fluffy and chill vibe. Our female MC still talking to her dead husband is really sweet.

Bad stuff
1. It is a slow manga. Out of 78 chapters, the plot just remains stagnant until chapter 67. There is no romance until the final chapter. Honestly, there are like 5 proper chapters which have plot progression.
2. repetitive.Seeing the same formula of cooking/eating in the same apartment with the same characters gets boring after a while. But that is the content of most chapters.
3. Age gap is absolutely unnecessary. FMC was 28 years, while male MC was 16. But we never actually use it for drama or anything except for a couple jokes about sugar mommy. male MC could have been an adult and it would have worked better as a mature adult romance.

Generally speaking, the manga is so slow, that it is boring. The characters don't have enough charm to actually keep the viewers interested during the cooking/eating chapters. and the dialogues are just plain. There is no ecchi despite having such a gorgeous female lead. felt like wasted potential.

Anyway, only read this if you have free time and just need something drama-free to skim over without using your brain. The very definition of "Nothing ever happens".

Don't be fooled by the romance tag. This is the most boring cooking manga ever made with ZERO romance.

I'm sorry but this manga is absolute trash. It starts out as some kind of ultimate woman fantasy about cooking for men. Her greatest joy in life is feeding a man who eats a lot... Now you might be thinking that's a boring and ridiculous plot for a long running series, and you would be correct! But there has to be romance, right? No romance. So it's a comedy? No comedy. What we have here is the most boring "cooking" manga ever made disguised as some kind ... of forbidden romance. If you are expecting things to pick up or get better later in the series then you are going to be 100% disappointed. Please don't waste your time on this dumpster fire trash.