The Yakuza’s Guide to Babysitting – Manga First Impression

As I write this, I have decided to buy a new tablet in an effort to convince myself to read more digital manga. Obviously, I bought the paper copy of the first volume of The Yakuza’s Guide to Babysitting. Baby steps folks! But I’m telling you I will make an effort to read more digitally.

Please remind me of this when I partly intentionally forget and buy another ridiculous amount of manga. Oh…I just bought the Princess Jellyfish box set. But that’s the last one…

Why I Picked up The Yakuza’s Guide to Babysitting

It looked really cute. Also, I figured this would be a sort of derivative of The Way of the Househusband and I could always use more of that!

Official Summary

Who’s your nanny? Kirishima Tooru is the right-hand man of the Sakuragi crime family. For him, the job is a perfect excuse to let his violent instincts run wild, earning him the nickname “the Demon of Sakuragi”. It seems like nothing will stand in the way of his vicious nature. But then one day, he receives an assignment like never before from the boss–babysitting his daughter! This is the heartwarming (or is it bloodcurdling?) story of a little girl and her yakuza caretaker!

My First Impression

It’s very cute but not that funny

What I liked

The Yakuza’s Guide to Babysitting is in fact quite different from The Way of the Househusband, for those of you who had the same thought as me. And I appreciate that it did its own thing. Now, I won’t go as far as to say that it’s original. It’s an odd couple parental relationship and we’ve seen a lot of those in manga and anime, but it’s not such a direct ripoff as I was expecting it to be.

The story is heartwarming at times. In a single volume, you don’t have that much time to get to know everyone but the characters do seem well developed and when those personalities come together, it can be rather sweet.

You’ve heard me say that I’m not a huge fan of little kid characters but I don’t mind Yaeka. And that is a compliment. I’m not saying you absolutely need to buy the book to experience this character but I can also confidently say that she is unlikely to annoy most of you.

I don’t mind the art style. In that, I don’t dislike it but at the same time, I don’t find it that striking but I really appreciate people’s facial features in this manga. There really is a huge range of eye, nose, mouth and even face shapes and it really makes everyone look very different from everyone else. And characters that are supposed to be related do have a family air about them without looking identical. That’s unusual enough that I really noticed it when I saw it in this manga!

Any drawbacks?

It’s cutesy but not really all that funny. There are some fun moments, for sure but I wasn’t laughing out loud or anything. It’s more of a feel-good sort of manga than a comedy. And in that regard, there is better out there.

The chapters seem just a bit too short which makes the emotional connection to the story not quite as deep. And that’s a problem with this particular story. It’s about the feels and unless you happen to be sensitive or just the type to quickly get attached to children characters, you might find it a bit too surface level, at least at first.

Conclusion

For me, I would say the first volume of The Yakuza’s Guide to Babysitting is a better-than-average manga but not exceptional. I wouldn’t be opposed to getting a few more volumes (especially in digital format) but I’m not running out to get the rest.

However, I did see that an anime is in the works and I’m actually really looking forward to that. I’m in fact excited about it and I hope I get to watch it soon!