Almost in the vain of Heaven’s Design Team, Is Kichijoji the Only Place to Live? is more of a tour guide manga, in content and with the side notes describing everything a location offers. But the main difference is it attempts to do this in a mostly realistic but sometimes surreal way.
It doesn’t fully work.
MAKIHIROCHI’s Is Kichijoji the Only Place to Live? revolves around a real estate agency in Kichijoji, and the twins who run it, Miyako and Tomoko Shigeta. They took over after their parents passed away, and their goals are simple: continue doing their own thing, and introduce whoever comes in to a place that’s best for them. Their own thing consists of rocking out to heavy metal music or randomly sleeping in the office as a customer comes in, among other things to give the impression of an agency that’s a bit odd.
As for introducing whoever comes in to their location, it’s all women. And in this first volume, it’s not necessarily women simply seeking to find a place — they’re all trying to get away from something awful. One woman, for example, was randomly dumped by a man for another woman after being together for 7 years. Another was friends with two women that happened to not only be in workplace relationships (not always bad but usually is fraught with peril), but in a relationship with the same guy (bad bad bad) that was also their boss (aaaaahhhhhhhhhhh) — she was the only one who knew that, but those two didn’t until it was too late!
So in general, this manga is not just about giving a tour of the best location for someone — it delves into these ladies whose lives have been turned upside down, and they could do nothing about it. A nice touch is you do get a short infodump on what happened to them, but from their reactions to certain moments to their expressions, you get a sense of their personality and state of mind, which is very good. All of that said, it doesn’t always work out. The buildups are pretty slow and the story beats are generally always the same — a woman looking for an estate checks out the shady looking agency, the twins steal her from Kichijoji and take her elsewhere, the lady reflects on her past and looks towards the future, and bam, it concludes with the twins chatting about the lady they helped.
At least everyone can meet the Shigeta twins, who are very awesome. Both ultimately realize that Kichijoji, for all its popularity with the girls, isn’t the place to necessary be. There are many locations people can live at, and the twins do a terrific job of showcasing that for everyone they help. In a way this manga reminds me of The Guide — Five Stars in Kyoto (which used to be on Crunchyroll but it seems they’ve sneakily took it down), but in a different way. And as long as we can see them continue to show their knowledge, this manga can be a great read.
But I do wonder if it’ll shake up the formula a bit. Or maybe be a bit more interesting with all of its stories. It could just be a case where you’ll enjoy one story, a few stories, or all of the stories. But I can’t deny Is Kichijoji the Only Place to Live? is definitely a curious one, and for those who are looking for a manga about Tokyo with a kick, this is worth your time.