Kotonoba Drive

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Kotonoba Drive is the latest series from Hitoshi Ashinano, writer of the highly acclaimed Slice of life manga Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou. Despite that, it surprisingly doesn’t have any reviews yet. Time to put that right!

In Kotonoba, we follow the laid-back everyday life of Suu, a young woman with a part time job at a spaghetti restaurant and an ability to see mysterious sights such as landscapes of the past and humanoid forms of birds and insects, but only 5 minutes at a time. Each chapter tends to focus on one of her supernatural encounters, ranging from heart-warming to melancholic to mildly creepy, but always mysterious ... and relaxing.

Suu herself is a likeable character, who fits the tone of the series well, with the innocent charm and happy go lucky attitude of your average slice of life lead, but occasionally giving off the indecisive and melancholic air of someone stuck between adolescence and adulthood, still unsure of their place in the world. There are also several recurring side characters, such as the owner of the spaghetti restaurant and Suu’s childhood friend, who don’t feel out of place but at the same time don’t get enough development to be more than one-dimensional.

The strongest part of Kotonoba is probably the art and panelling. Ashinano has really honed his sketchy, screen tone-less art style over the years, and his drawings manage to feel minimalistic while still managing to bring to life more complex things such as strong winds and the interior of a forest just with his beautiful linework and some nice use of silhouettes. The panels flow easily from one to the next, and that combined with the mostly visual storytelling and dreamy and atmospheric art makes Kotonoba an immersive and effortless read.

The only thing holding the series back is the fact that the whole manga doesn’t manage to add up to more than the sum of its individual chapters. The supernatural occurrence of the week format is immediately gratifying, but fails to flesh out any of the characters besides Suu as mentioned before, and the chapters don’t really build on themes or show any progression for Suu, leaving Kotonoba with less depth than its more famous predecessor.

Overall Kotonoba Drive is a beautifully drawn slice of life manga with a charming main character and cathartic supernatural elements, perfect for a late evening or lazy Sunday afternoon read, that I would recommend to any fan of the genre.

I’ve long admired Ashinano Hitoshi for his slice-of-life masterpiece Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou and his landscape eye candy Kabu no Isaki. His minimalistic art style won me over with his expressive strokes which gives a lighthearted aesthetic whenever I read his works. The relaxed pacing, the simple yet insightful characters, the calm world-building, this is evident in all his manga. While this includes Kotonoba Drive, it pales in comparison to his previous works.

I can’t help but feel disappointed that this manga was short-lived. Maybe if it was extended to another 50 chapters or so, it could have fleshed out things better. The characterization is fairly weak, ... leaving an unmemorable cast of characters that I could’ve been emotionally invested with. The world-building is there, but it still feels very mysterious and limited. It’s like getting a vacation in the countryside that ended prematurely. There were more places to visit, more people to get acquainted with, more mysteries to explore, more culture to experience, and so on. It didn’t really feel fulfilling at all.

Still, the manga still has its good parts. I like that it’s more surrealistic than the mangaka’s previous works. The 5-minute phenomenon the main character is experiencing daily is never given much justice, but it’s a unique thing to drive the story. I just wished I get to see more interesting variations of it that may end up playing an important role if the story was developed even further.

If you haven’t read any of the author’s previous works, then I wholeheartedly suggest giving this a read. It’s atmospheric, light-hearted, easy to read, simple: everything that makes reading a slice-of-life manga a refreshing experience. But if you feel unsatisfied like me, then I encourage you to read the author’s other works which I feel is greatly superior than this.

Kotonaba Drive for me was a mixed bag, some chapters felt atmospheric and nostalgic, whilst others to me felt aimless with not that much point to them.

Kotonaba is about Suu chan just travelling and seeing new places, every chapter she will have a day dream, about something she see's in her everyday life, like for example driving through the night on her scooter you will have a lot of shots of the night sky her feelings and it gets re imagined to travelling through a sea of mist as one example.
It sort of takes real feelings and re imagines it to show how Suu feels, ... this is quite cool I really like the feeling I got from reading some of the chapters. The art has a lot of panels without text or words, just showing you a lot of shots of the scenery and surroundings really drawing you in.
If this was all to it then I would have scored it a higher rating but it isn't.

Whilst some were atmospheric and visceral others just felt to me as a pointless endeavour and the more I read this manga the more it tested by patience there are some great experiences but also a lot which I didn't find much value in.
I found the supernatural elements weird like having a god tell you off for picking acorns, or seeing the spirit of a kid, I preferred the sort of re imagining of nature which a lot of the chapters went for.

As for the characters they were all nice people, but there is no development or character arcs, they're all perfectly likeable and not that stereotypical.

So overall was this worth it? hrmm no not quite for me, but if you want a relaxing atmospheric read, which is certainly easy to take in then yes by all means read this but for me there were too many chapters I didn't like compared to the one's that I did that overall it dragged it down to a 5. If this was a 13 chapter compilation of just the best ones I would have scored it a lot higher but the majority of this I didn't really like.

I don't read that many things like this but for an alternative read, I would point to the Mushishi manga, it doesn't have the same sense of nostalgia but if you want an episodic work which has a really nice atmosphere to it like Kotonoba drive then Mushishi certainly does this, though it focuses more on a doctor resolving issues than just a sense of adventure which this series portrays.

"Relaxing your speed can open up mysterious gaps, even in familiar places"

tldr: really easy/relaxed manga to read; no complex storyline, just everyday slice of life. its short, sadly. you need to slow down and take in every page/drawing to enjoy this manga.

As I await Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou Omnibus 4 physical book next year (2024), with a new e-reader for night reading (Kobo Libra 2), I decided to choose this manga, since its the same author. I really wanted more from the author. I loved this person's take on seeing beauty in everyday life.

Suu-chan, the main character, does everyday life in the story, from vistiting ... friends, working etc. For moments in her day (each chapter), something happens extraordinary that no one sees except her.

Each chapter really does take 5 mins. Each page really forced me to imagine/feel what was going on in the story. It definitely taught me to slow down and actually take in whats going on, with very sparse visuals it has. If you are able to do that, youll enjoy this manga.

Really nice read overall. Its a little short, and somewhat thought provoking about slowing down/seeing extraordinary things in ordinary places