Friday at the Atelier Volume 1 Review
Sakura Hamada’s debut manga introduces us to Emiko Tamaki, a 29-year-old depressed and downtrodden office worker who is fed up with her ordinary life. While heading home from work one evening, musing about getting some saury for dinner, she suddenly comes across a man collapsed on the street with a bag full of the very same fish. As much as fated meetings go it’s certainly a weird one, yet without a care for her own safety, Emiko follows him to his apartment, where he gets her to pose nude with the fish laid out on top of her.
As weird as you might think this is, this isn’t some bizarre fetish! Introducing himself as Shunsui Ishihara, the man reveals himself to be an artist whose work predominantly features beautiful women surrounded by sea creatures. After the session and a spot of dinner (he always cooks up the fish he uses in his pieces afterwards), Shunsui offers her his number, subtly offering Emiko a way to model with him again.
Yet she doesn’t contact him back at all, and they only meet again a year later at one of his exhibitions. After seeing how good his artwork is and attracted by the promise of his excellent home cooking, Emiko finally agrees to be his regular model. As the pair work together and slowly form a closer bond, will this lead to romance blossoming for the pair of them, or is their arrangement going to stay strictly professional?
Friday at the Atelier has a unique premise, and its initial odd introduction made me pick it up out of sheer curiosity. Yet for all its weirdness, this is actually one of those series that builds up its core romance around one character making meals for the other, as that seems to be the main focus here as it simply uses the nude modelling as a plot device to bring these characters together.
These meals feel like they are the strongest part of the manga to me, as there’s a nice, homely feel to just having a conversation over dinner, where Emiko really draws you in with all her cutesy, airheaded mannerisms. While she starts out as a bit of a mystery at first, it slowly peels back her layers as she opens up more to Shunsui, and he quickly works her out to be a clumsy and defenceless woman without any real boundaries. We see her messing up at work then trying to over-correct by overworking herself, not realising that she needs the help of her team, while later on, she nearly falls prey to a guy at a mixer who only really wants to get in her pants.
Shunsui himself doesn’t have as much appeal as the story struggles to bring out his character evenly due to the ropey and stiff dialogue that pervades this volume. It’s not quite sure whether it wants you to take him seriously or if he is meant to be a more comedic character whose awkwardness you are supposed to laugh at. He’s prone to tsundere-style outbursts where he is probably supposed to seem affectionate and caring, but due to the way he is written. he comes off more as an entitled jerk. Does he really care about Emiko, or does he only see her for what she’s worth to him in the art world? It’s hard to say from this first volume, but as the story progresses there does seem to be some chemistry between them developing, as he treats her to a cake for her birthday.
As well as the stiff dialogue, the opening time skip makes their initial relationship hard to gauge as it treats the time gap more like a few weeks rather than months. It’s really jarring the way things suddenly jump around, and there’s no clear expression from Emiko that says, “oh hey, I’d like to model for you now.” It feels like we’re missing some things to ease us into the plot as readers, and instead we are thrown around and expected to know what the deal is.
Things do improve as the volume goes on however, and there are some sweet and some funny moments in later chapters. Seeing the pair huddle under an umbrella together feels like the first intimation that this odd relationship might just work, while I did get a laugh out of Shunsui being so clueless he ends up buying a table worth of socks.
Hamada’s art is also quite nice and reflects both the characters’ ages as well as the target demographic for the series by keenly straddling the line between being cute and being mature. Expressions are playful, but they also expose the worries of adult life and I like how it feels realistic even if its plot doesn’t feel like it at times. The nude scenes are quite sensual and are in places drawn with a glamorous angle, but it never feels like it’s trying to be pervy or pornographic. As much as the scenario and some of the dialogue may insinuate something a bit seedier, this is nudity as art.
Friday at the Atelier is being published by Yen Press both physically and digitally. This first volume has been translated by Matthew Alberts with lettering by Alexis Eckerman and has no issues to note. Some translation notes have been provided at the back of the book explaining Japanese honorifics as well as other terms that may not be familiar to English readers, such as the Japanese grading system for school subjects. Volume 2 is due out in August.
While my initial impression of this first volume of Friday at the Atelier was awkward and stiff with a weird premise, it warms up as you get further into it, to the point where you can see it has some potential if Hamada can loosen up the dialogue and pour more heart and soul into the manga’s main characters. This is definitely a niche pick and won’t be for everyone, but might be worth a look if you want a josei-like spin on both unusual relationships and those driven by the love of home cooking.
Our review copy from Yen Press was supplied by Diamond Book Distributors UK.
