Banana Bread Pudding
Genre: Shoujo
Ok… Right off I'm going to let you know I enjoy weird things. I enjoy listening to unusual songs, going on odd adventures but, most of all, I enjoy reading weird manga.
And this innocent sounding title of Banana Bread Pudding is by far one of the strangest series I've ever read.
At 5 chapters long, Banana Bread Pudding is a short, bizarre creation by the mangaka Ooshima Yumiko. With chapter titles like "Before I Become Instant Coffee" this series is just so… very, very odd.
Here I feel the need to share part of the disruption from mangafox that got me to read it… "Now that Ira's older sister is getting married, who will take her to the bathroom after ten p.m. and sing 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star' outside the bathroom door in order to protect her from the beautiful, androgynous, child-eating clown?"
Now tell me, How could I resist a description like that?!
Ok more into detail, Ira, the female lead who badly needs mental help, talks to a friend about her fears of being eaten by a clown. Now a good friend would tell her she should maybe see a shrink, but nope! Let's get Ira a boyfriend to distract her from her troubles! Thats all you need to make the crazy go away! And guess what kind of man Ira wants? No lies I am writing this word by word from the first chapter, Ira wants "A gay man who feels too guilty to reveal his secret to society." And does her friend tell her "No, thats silly and he'd never really love you back!" Nope! She goes off to start finding a gay boyfriend for her friend…
*Palm Head*
And yeah… it gets weirder from there, if that's even possible.
(and as it turns out… is)
Trust me when I say the story spirals quickly into crazy land…
I would not say this manga is good… but I wouldn't say its bad either.
It has this strange magic about it. Like those 'so bad its good' movies like Plan 9 From Outer Space, this manga has that crazy charm of watching a train wreck and just enjoying how very weird things can get.
Nobody in this series uses their common sense or gets the help and mental support they need but even as it frustrates me, I can never look away. I really enjoy sharing this with people and have found that it is a fun one to read with friends! (Just bundle yourselves around the computer and read it together! Trust me good times and conversations will start!)
Also the artwork in this manga is really quite lovely! And the fact that its drawn in that soft 70s shoujo style only adds to the bizarre nature of the story, in addition to making it pretty to look at!
If you are a lover of the weird, or just want a day trip from reality, you can never go wrong trying some Banana Bread Pudding!
~Tsu
