SwEetness and lightning vol 1 by gido amagakure

Widower Inuzuka is very busy teaching and raising his young daughter, and he relies often on food from the Konbini (convenience store). While at a park celebrating the bloom of the Sakura trees, Inuzuka runs into a young woman who has a delicious picnic lunch from her professional chef mother. She invites the two of them to the restaurant to try the food for themselves. One night, Tsumugi, Inuzuka’s daughter, asks for something delicious, and he rushes to the restaurant only to find it closed. Kotori, the girl from the park, is there and laments that her mother is often too busy now to keep the restaurant open. The two come to find out that neither one knows how to cook very well, and after some goading from Inuzuka, they decide to get together once a week to practice cooking. Inuzuka is also embarrassed to find out Kotori is in his homeroom class, and he didn't recognize her!

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As the title implies, there's quite a lot of sweetness in this volume. Tsugumi is adorable with her unruly fluffy hair and giant eyes often filled with tears of joy at eating delicious food. Inuzuka is doing his best while still trying to maintain balance in everything. While some readers might find it strange that a teacher and a student are cooking together outside of school, teachers often have larger roles in the home life of students in Japan, so this wouldn't be seen as unusual. Kotori does question at the end of whether or not their relationship would be different if they weren't teacher and student, but hopefully this doesn't lead to something overly complicated in further volumes.

Kodansha rates this for 13+, but this first volume is mostly focused on food and familial relationships. This would be fine for upper elementary school, but further volumes might be more suited to teens if the storyline focuses more on the relationship between Kotori and Inuzuka.

Sara's Rating: 8/10
Suitability Level: Grades 6-12

Publisher: Kodansha
Publication Date: July 26, 2016
ISBN: 9781632363695 (Paperback)

​Tags: Rating: 8/10, Suitability: Elementary School, Suitability: Middle School, Suitability: High School, Manga, Culinary, Family, ​Kodansha