Nicholas, Cage Them

[misura]

Feeling adventurous, I picked up the first volumes of two somewhat similar sounding new-to-me manga titles to try:

- The Way of the Househusband, in which a former yakuza has given up his criminal empire/career in order to support his career-oriented wife. This one was mostly episodic, with chapters like 'Tatsu goes grocery shopping', 'Tatsu baby-sits his neighbor's kid', 'Tatsu uses a roomba for the first time' - it was fun, but in a 'liked it' rather than 'LOVED it' kind of way. I'll probably pass this one on, because I *cough* don't like having unfinished series on my bookshelves, so it's either get rid of it, or buy the next volumes, and I'd kind of rather spend my money on other series.

- Spy x Family, in which a spy needs to acquire a fake family for his next mission. This one was a little less episodic: Twilight (he's a spy, so his real name is classified*) is on a mission, and each chapter shows him progressing by acquiring, first, a fake daughter (secretly the result of shady government experiments which have left her with telepathic abilities) and next, a fake wife (secretly an assassin) and then positioning his fake family to get closer to his target.

I'm definitely keeping Spy x Family and buying the next volume(s). On the one hand, I want Twilight to find out his wife and daughter's secrets (and vice versa); on the other hand, I want all the hijinks and terrible excuses while people try to keep their secret identities secret, so I figure I'm going to have fun whichever way the story goes.


* [insert Penguins of Madagascar joke here]

Comments

[rekishi]

so he randomly picked the wife/daughter? Oo

[lydamorehouse]

I love The Way of the House Husband! So funny!

[misura]

We-ell. He hits up the local orphanage for a fake kid (well, I mean, obviously it's a real kid, just not his) and the orphanage's owner shoves this girl at him who gives him (the owner) the creeps and is all. 'you want a kid? have this one - no paperwork required!'.

So Twilight says to himself 'convenient!' and doesn't think about it any further.

Next, he walks around at random, thinking about how he can possibly find a fake wife, and the assassin, for Reasons, needs a fake boyfriend: they have a meet-cute, and then she asks him to be her fake date.

So Twilight says to himself 'convenient!' and doesn't think about it any further.

It's the kind of crack-y set-up I enjoy, especially since all three of them get very invested very quickly in maintaining their fake family. (The 'daughter' is afraid the government's going to find her and drag her back to the lab, the 'wife' worries about her co-workers turning her in for being 'suspiciously single' [a genuine option in this universe] and the spy is a perfectionist, so obviously he needs to be the best (fake) husband/father ever to these random people he's gotten involved in his mission.)

[misura]

I spotted a review on, I think, Librarything complaining there was only one joke, which is that Tatsu used to be yakuza, and my first thought was 'yes, but it's a very funny joke, so why would that be a bad thing?'.

(I do hope to see more of the cat. And, um, maybe almost every other character who showed up in the first volume.)

[rekishi]

I mean, it actually sort of makes sense?

[misura]

Ha! I suppose it does, sort of, yes. ^_^