Satoko is a Japanese student studying at an American university, so, while she knew her dorm roommate wouldn’t be Japanese like her, she was still surprised when Nada opens the door while wearing a niqab. Nada is a student from Saudi Arabia who had become a little lonely and wanted a roommate, but she wanted to broaden her horizons by not having a fellow Muslim as her roommate. Now Satoko and Nada are taking on the US together and thoroughly enjoying themselves in the process.
Satoko and Nada has a very cute premise, although I was a little surprised that this comic (which I believe was originally a webcomic) does not appear to be a strictly autobiographical account by Yupechika. That’s what I would normally expect from a story with a rougher art style and a super-niche premise like this, and also since a number of Satoko and Nada’s discoveries about America seemed both very spot-on and things that you would need to be in America to experience. Perhaps more Japanese people than I would expect to know how different American “sushi” often is from Japanese sushi, but I still doubt many of them would know that you need to specifically signal at a bus to flag it down (or at least that has been the case in all of the places I’ve lived), two things that surprised Satoko. Satoko and Nada’s realization over these details (although usually it’s Satoko who’s confused, Nada has been in the US longer and seems to be an old hand at many of these things) feels like something that a USian reader can also laugh at easily because it’s no secret that our country is a bit strange in many ways!
With the sheer number of details that Yupechika gets “right”, I would not be surprised if they were an exchange student or if they had a number of friends who were in college. However, there were some parts of the story that didn’t seem quite right to me as someone who has gone to two different American universities, but thankfully those were just details, not major plot points. The biggest detail which felt off to me was Satoko’s conversation partner Kevin, a third-generation Japanese-American who is an absolutely enormous weaboo and really feels like a gag character. His interactions with Satoko do lead to some insightful punchlines (like why you don’t attach headshots or birthdays to your resume), but overall he felt more like an anagram of cringey traits from an entire anime club’s worth of nerds.
I wouldn’t consider any of those details to be a potential turn-off for prospective readers, but I could see where the art might push some people away. As mentioned earlier the art is very basic; the lines can be a bit rough and unvaried (as if the art was drawn on a tablet without any pressure sensitivity), nearly every page is in the exact same four-panel format, and the backgrounds are mostly nonexistent. However, the characters remain easily distinguishable from each other (the fact that Satoko and Nada has a fairly small cast likely helps) and the art isn’t actively bad, it simply feels inexperienced. It works in so much that the art allows for the story to move forward, but the art never elevates or contributes to the story in the same way that a masterfully done comic does.
Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to the next installment in this short series and I think that Seven Seas has found another title which could be widely adored by both manga fans and newcomers alike.