The Devil’s in the Lunch Deals Volume 1 Review

Humans are rather simple… and everyone has gaps. So… they try to fill those unfillable gaps with other things. Substituting money for love… or bodies for souls… but an empty stomach can only be filled with food.

Every day Lainey makes box lunches and sets out with her lunch cart for the central plaza of the Northern Kingdom old town to sell them, aided by her giant chicken Chun-chan. Her aim is to “do a good deed each day”. But her true identity is Solange, the Goddess of Harvests and Death. Thirty years ago, she was the cause of a terrible war between the Northern and Southern Kingdoms and, stripped of her goddess powers as punishment, she must work hard to regain them by accumulating good deeds.

However, she’s caught the attention of a minister from the castle: Lilac. He comes over to check her permit and allows himself to be persuaded to try one of her box lunches. Next day he’s back – to tell her how much he enjoyed the lunch, especially the rolled omelette. At that moment, a monster appears, a small beast with black fur and red eyes, and as everyone panics, Lilac leaps to the rescue, knocking it off its feet with one blow. But Lainey’s reaction astonishes him. She approaches the monster and calms it, picking it up and calling it ‘a cutey’. “Monsters are born from the gaps in people’s hearts,” she tells Lilac and, to his surprise, takes it home with her because her roommate has been “wanting a pet”.

When Lilac goes back to the castle, his younger brother Natario – the king! – asks him about the ‘foreign woman’ from the Eastern Kingdom who’s caught his attention. Natario would love to try her cooking but he’s not allowed to eat food from outside the castle – and when Lilac offers Lainey a job in the castle kitchens, she refuses. Instead, she offers to teach him how to make a rolled omelette so he can cook for his brother. And she learns that he and Natario are war orphans whose lives were saved years ago by Solange from a monster…

The Devil’s in the Lunch Deals is the first work of Ishiko to be licensed in the West and it delivers the story in a deceptively simple and idiosyncratic art style that works really well for the fantasy setting as well as the moments of deadpan humour. The story unfolds in a natural (but really skilful) way, gradually expanding on Solange/Lainey’s backstory and introducing new characters who then enhance and influence our view of her. In just these first four chapters, mangaka Ishiko reveals a society slowly recovering from a terrible war between kingdoms, where magic, monsters and gods and goddesses are part of everyday life. Lainey preserves a constant smile at all times; her expression hardly ever changes except when she confronts a street child who’s out of control and a hint of the once terrifying goddess briefly shows through.

The manga was ranked 6th in the ‘Kono Manga ga Sugoi’ awards in 2026 and my advice is not to be put off by the simplicity of the artwork on the cover as this is one of the best new fantasy manga I’ve come across in a long while. What’s puzzling is that it’s already running on the K Manga digital platform (it’s published by Kodansha in Japan) so I’m a little confused as to why Tokyopop is handling the physical and digital volume releases. But here we are…

Translation is by Nate Derr with lettering by Andrew Copeland and Madeleine Jose is the original digital edition editor; from what I can tell, this release is exactly the same as the K Manga digital edition, which reads well. There’s also a two-page bonus story ‘Spring Update’. There are no details yet of when the next physical volume will be released by Tokyopop, but the good news is that you can read ahead on K Manga up to Chapter 15 by subscribing. The manga is currently ongoing at four volumes in Japan.

If you’re weary of the innumerable cookie-cutter fantasy anime/manga out there, I recommend The Devil’s in the Lunch Deals as a palate-cleaner. It’s fresh and different, while using familiar fantasy tropes in a new and intriguing way.