Manga Review: Mixed Vegetables' Recipe for Cooking Manga

One of the many delightful things about manga is that it offers many flavors of stories for most anyone's taste in reading. There's manga about sports, fashion, music, dance, and even cooking.

After being served a few appetizers like Iron Wok Jan, Antique Bakery and Kitchen Princess, cooking manga is coming into its own in the American comics scene with the upcoming release of Oishinbo in 2009 and the recent release of Mixed Vegetables by Ayumi Komura from Shojo Beat Manga and VIZ Media.

In a different twist on the high school romance formula, Mixed Vegetables is set at a culinary trade school. Hanayu's family owns a bakery, but she really wants to be a sushi chef. Hayato's family runs a sushi restaurant, but he has a talent for baking pastries. When these aspiring chefs meet, it's supposed to be a surefire recipe for romance. But does this story serve up satisfaction or does it taste just a little off? Read my review of Mixed Vegetables Volume 1 and see if this sushi meets sweets story is worth a taste or should be sent back to the kitchen.

Image credit: © Ayumi Komura