Keyaki Shopping District’s Sakura Bathhouse Volume 1 Review

Third-year Tatsumi ‘Tattsun’ Azuma is chatting with his friends Maru and Nori at lunchbreak when they hear angry shouting: “Shunpei Eguchi!!!” Suddenly, another student vaults over the rail, scattering flyers, and crashes into Tatsumi. It all happens too fast – but as Tatsumi falls, the boy tries to protect him – and an ominous crack is heard. As Tatsumi gets up, unharmed, he picks up one of the flyers the boy dropped. It’s advertising the ‘Sakura Bath House’. The shouts get louder and the boy makes good his escape as Maru and Nori tell Tatsumi he’s just encountered ‘the second-year loner’, a student with a very bad reputation. Tatsumi laughs this off – until next day, red-haired Shunpei appears in his classroom, demanding to speak with him. Tatsumi is so alarmed that he manages to squirt strawberry milk from his drink carton all over him. It turns out that in the fall, Shunpei broke his wrist and it will take eight weeks to heal. Tatsumi, rattled, promises to do anything to help – and ends up working at the Sakura Bathhouse which is run by Shunpei’s grandma. And his first job is to help Shunpei bathe so he doesn’t get his plastered wrist wet!

Seeing Shunpei out of school, Tatsumi realizes that he and his friends have utterly misjudged him; he’s not a delinquent, he just has a scary expression when talking to people. Tatsumi hasn’t met anyone so direct as Shunpei before, so when the younger boy says, “I like you, Tatsumi-senpai. Will you go out with me?” he can’t quite believe his ears. But when Shunpei persists, adding, “I want you to be my first boyfriend” he goes into panic-mode, coming up with many reasons why this isn’t a good idea before admitting that he’s never been asked out by a boy before. “So that means I’m your first too,” Shunpei says and for a moment, Tatsumi’s heart skips a beat. Then he retreats, asking to have a night to think it over and speeds away, knowing Shunpei will ask him to help him bathe again next day.

Next day, Tatsumi persuades Maru and Noni to try out the bathhouse (they’ve never been to one before) and they’re soon converts, enjoying everything from the after-bath milk drinks to the massage chairs. Tatsumi, however, resists all their calls to join them. Is there a reason he doesn’t want to strip down in front of everyone? And what answer is he going to give Shunpei?

If you’ve read the manga Minato’s Laundromat, you’ll recognize the name of the author, Yuzu Tsubaki, who has teamed up here with a different mangaka, Waka Kakitsubata, to create Keyaki Shopping District’s Sakura Bathhouse, set in the same town (the laundromat is even referenced here – and the high school is probably the same one that Shin attends). One of the problems that put off some readers of the earlier work is the thirteen-year age gap between Minato who runs the laundromat and his No.1 fan, Shin, who’s still at high school but persistently pursues the older man. No worries here, then, as loner Shunpei (who isn’t really a delinquent, even if he has red hair) is the one who falls for easy-going, sociable Tatsumi and they’re only a year apart in age.

With a Teen rating, this falls into the same category of Boys’ Love manga from Yen Press such as Sasaki and Miyano and If It’s You, I Might Try Falling in Love: the protagonists are at high school and they’re questioning themselves about their sexual orientation. Where I felt occasionally uncomfortable reading the earlier title because of the wide age-gap, Sakura Bathhouse works better. I also feel that the mangaka for Minato’s Laundromat made the age-gap seem less of a problem because both Minato (31) and Shin (18) are drawn to look like high-schoolers so it was easy to forget. This isn’t a problem at all here as Waka Kakitsubata’s art and character designs are attractive and expressive – and Shunpei and Tatsumi are high schoolers anyway!

Translation for Yen Press is in the dependable hands of Jan Cash, with a great range of lettering from Carolina Hdz and a page of helpful translation notes. There are four attractive colour pages at the front of the volume and a bonus story at the end which teases a visit to ‘a laundromat’ as well as afterwords from both author and mangaka. A second volume came out in October in Japan so it might be a while before we catch up.

Yuzu Tsubaki has set up several intriguing plot threads which will hopefully bear fruit in the next volume (and maybe beyond?), including Tatsumi bringing in the school art club to work on repairing the mural in the bathhouse. And as for the ‘over before it’s started’ relationship between Tatsumi and Shunpei, there are some amusing exchanges between the two in which sparks fly. Is Shunpei just rather immature or charmingly honest in that he blurts everything out without thinking of the consequences? And Tatsumi might come across as the smooth, worldly-wise one who seems much more than a year older than his would-be boyfriend – but is he really as sophisticated when it comes to matters of the heart as he believes himself to be? Add into this his refusal to strip off to try out the bath that his friends and schoolmates are enjoying which probably means he has some physical issue he wants to conceal… and there’s plenty to explore for writer and mangaka. Another plus is that Waka Kakitsubasa’s art is good at conveying both what the characters are feeling but also the many little comical moments and confusions that bring a refreshing sense of energy to this title.

Read a free preview on the Yen Press website here.

Our review copy was supplied by the publisher Yen Press.