Happy Café Volume 1

Uru's mom has remarried, so rather than live with her mom and her new step-dad, this spunky high school gal decides to strike out on her own and find a job. Uru gets a job as a waitress, despite her bull-in-a-china-shop klutziness and the initial resistance of the stern but studly pastry chef Shindo.

Like the cakes served at Café Bonheur, Happy Café is a sweet, light-hearted confection of a shojo manga that just wants to make you smile. It's not terribly deep, dramatic or original, but that was never its intention in the first place. A likeable, but mostly forgettable romantic comedy.

When her mom remarries, spunky high school gal Uru decides to find a job and live on her own. She applies to work as a waitress at Café Bonheur, and gets hired in spite of being kind of klutzy. After breaking more than a few dishes, Uru manages to endear herself to her two handsome but eccentric co-workers enough to keep her job.

Dark-haired Shindo is a stern and aloof pastry chef. Ichiro the waiter is friendlier to Uru, but he's also prone to dozing off when his blood-sugar level dips too low. Eventually, the two guys come to appreciate Uru's enthusiasm and good-natured optimism, with Shindo experiencing the first hints of something more than friendship for his new co-worker.

If you came to the Happy Café looking for drama and angst, sorry, that's not on the menu here. This light-hearted, slice-of-life romantic comedy just wants to make you smile. To do that, it serves up episode after episode of Uru being spunky, Shindo being a hard-case who occasionally blushes when Uru acts extra adorable, and Ichiro almost constantly falling asleep.

The stories are largely episodic, slice-of-life affairs that serve to reveal bits about each character's personality. For example, we see why tough guy Shindo has a soft spot for Uru, and learn more about Uru's relationship with her mom and new step-dad. Once in a while, a few laughs are thrown in as Uru bumbles her way through her waitressing duties and reveals that she's stronger than Mr. T, despite her tiny frame.

Matsuzaki's art is also light-hearted and simple, with minimal background art, a few bits of cartoony exaggeration for comic effect and two male characters who might as well be twins except for their different hair colors. While the artwork matches the tone set by the story, it also makes for lots of talking heads and not a lot of clear storytelling, especially when there are some action sequences.

Happy Café is a pleasant shojo manga confection that largely accomplishes what it sets out to do: just be a cute, fun and simple story about a girl who works with two good-looking guys. Uru is your typical spunky heroine who gets paired up with a stoic hunk, with a spare hottie on the side. There's nothing wrong with that, but Happy Café brings nothing new or compelling to this tried and true shojo manga formula.

Uru is a cute heroine and Shindo is a good-lookin' guy, but they're largely one-dimensional characters who don't stray too far from their designated personality archetypes. They're pleasant enough to hang out with for a single volume, but this mismatched pair also hasn't given readers much reason to stick around to see if their relationship will develop into anything interesting in the upcoming chapters. Overall, Happy Café is likeable, but forgettable.

Disclosure: A review copy was provided by the publisher. For more information, please see our Ethics Policy.