From the nicely designed front cover to the back cover, you’ll note that this is a very quirky release from:
- How it looks
- The name
- The fact that there is a long paragraph on the cover itself.
Also note that the long paragraph is something you might want to read because it kicks off the very first story in the manga.
Also there is a summary of crabs (and why their shells turn red when boiled) when you open the book.
…panpanya’s An Invitation from a Crab is one quirky manga.
This manga combines some doujin stories of panpanya’s and stories published on the web and in print, likely Hakusensha’s Rakuen magazine. All of them revolve around an unnamed protagonist living in the 2-chome area of Japan, and getting herself into the strangest (and mundane) situations. With 18 stories of various lengths, you’ll read a story about the protagonist following a crab (just not a King crab). You’ll read a story about her falling asleep on the train, and what really happens to your body when you realize you got off the wrong stop after waking up.
Then you’ll also get a story where your grandma gives you toys…and they grow more and more difficult to understand as you grow up…?
An Invitation from a Crab’s stories will provide both a ton of jokes and/or sneak (or not sneak) a bit of social commentary around a couple of these stories. There’s one story involving a part-time job at a factory where she has to break coconuts, which fuels the area’s electricity. There’s another story involving what happens when you save a bird from tanukis.
The one I’ll only mostly spoil is THE PERFECT SUNDAY. You know how sometimes preparation and planning is very much a thing we have to do? Well for our protagonist, it’s not something she’s done before. But after a suggestion from her dog to just do her homework so she can enjoy herself later, she finishes her homework. It turns out to be an exhilarating experience to be finished so fast.
But rather than enjoy the spoils of free time, she plans ahead to try and have the perfect Sunday to relax. This manages to lead her to plan too far ahead somehow. That makes sense — you’re definitely going to waste a lot of time when you’re building a machine to create a pleasant mood as you wake up.
Needless to say, your enjoyment of those stories will totally depend on what you value personally. For me, I pretty much laughed at most of them, as the comedic timing, the dialogue, and who she was interacting with — from normal humans to oddly shaped creatures to her dog — is hilarious.
But what will impact your enjoyment — and the commentary within the stories — is this art style. panpanya’s art ranges from simplistic to detailed to super experimental. Like you know most panel boxes are done elegantly in manga? Expect to see those hand drawn and definitely not accurate in this one. There are a lot of really cool uses of watercolor, and characters are drawn with really good detail. You’ll also find some oddly designed characters and some that are drawn fairly simplistically, which might clash with the backgrounds.
That, however, is what makes this stand out. Some of those designs enhance a lot of what the stories are about, which is either laughing at a talking fish supposedly spouting words or our protagonist teaming up with her dog to start a takuan shop. This may not be for everyone, but this manga likely wouldn’t work any other way in any other style. And that’s what makes it a very good unique manga, and not just unique just because it looks different.
An Invitation from a Crab I would say is a refreshing work to read. There’s likely manga of a quirky quality published already, so I won’t say this totally is different from anything else. But it feels like something I haven’t read much of right now. So if you’re in the market for something that can say it’s something new and creative, this work is one you’ll want to have on your shelf.