"Yakumo-san Wants to Feed You" is a work serialized in Young Gangan. It may be hard to tell what the story is about just by looking at the title, but the simplest explanation is that it's about a beautiful, bespectacled, big-breasted widowed woman who cooks dinner for a group of hungry high school baseball players with a big appetite. I'd like to give you a brief synopsis of this work, which is both a gourmet manga and a heartwarming, heartfelt comedy.
Synopsis① Widow Yakumo starts serving dinner to hungry high school baseball players
A widow named Yakumo Shuuko, who lost her husband several years ago and no longer has any enthusiasm for cooking, decides to share some of her dinner with Yamato Shohei, a high school baseball player from a strong school who has moved into the room next door. After learning that Yamato has an incredible appetite, who devours the shared meal within seconds, and that he lives on convenience store bento, Yakumo starts making dinner for Yamato every night.
Yakumo's hobby is feeding
Yakumo-san was originally good at cooking and loved to serve food to people and watch them eat it, in other words, "feeding". Yakumo-san cooked food to satisfy Yamato's endless appetite, and watching him eat the food as if he was devouring it was the most healing thing for her. Every day, Yakumo-san prepared a large amount of dinner to feed Yamato.
Synopsis 2: A promising player who is attracting attention from professionals, sweating in rigorous training
Yamato Shohei, a high school baseball player, is a player who came from outside the prefecture to a strong school, and his skills were good enough to be selected for the U-15 team. Yamato is treated harshly because of the high expectations. The training is tough, but Yamato still stands out and wins a regular spot despite being a first-year student.
Some things don't go as planned
Yamato is bullied by the coach, but he is being strict with him because he has high expectations of Yamato. However, there are also people who are not happy with Yamato, who became a regular player as a first-year student, overtaking his seniors. He is a second-year third-string player, and is picked on just because he is a senior. The third-year students say that this is a path that cannot be avoided, but it seems that not everything is smooth sailing in the world of high school baseball.
Synopsis 3: Runaway high school girl Nishihara Rui appears
Yamato's childhood friend, Nishihara Rui, a self-proclaimed perfect beauty, has had feelings for Yamato since she was a child and has confessed her feelings to him many times, but he always turns her down, saying, "I can't do it because I'm busy with baseball." Then, Rui hears a rumor that "Yamato goes to the house of the girl next door every night," and can't help but rush into Yakumo-san's room.
Nishihara Rui feels a sense of crisis
When Rui first met Yakumo, he only saw her as a cleaning-loving older woman who wore a mask and glasses, but he felt a sense of crisis when he realized that she was actually beautiful, had big breasts, was a good cook, and was sexy, and had everything he lacked.
Louis has a nightmare
Then, Louis has a nightmare that is nothing but a bad dream. Louis, realizing that this is bad, begins to run wild in a slightly wrong direction. Will Louis' bad dream become reality? Or will he be able to defy the odds and hit the longshot?
Baseball Crazy Louis
Louis is also such a baseball fanatic that he led Yamato, who has a natural athletic talent, to baseball, and kneeled down to get Yamato, who was planning to go to a school in his hometown, into a strong school in Tokyo. Louis is extremely proactive when it comes to things he is interested in, and he also gathers information on other schools. In professional baseball, he is an enthusiastic Yakult fan. In 2019, Yakult's losing streak has been steadily increasing, and when he thought they had lost 10 games in a row for the first time in two years, they lost 11 games in a row. This is nothing but a bad dream.
Synopsis 4: Yamato deepens his bond with Yakumo
Every night, Yakumo and Yamato eat dinner at her house, and their bond deepens. When Yakumo sees a cockroach appear in the kitchen, she frantically asks Yamato for help, and when she ends up eating too much at dinner, she trains with Yamato, deepening their bond.
The two of them enjoying a cherry blossom viewing
The two of them enjoy a cherry blossom viewing on the way home from Yamato's practice. Yakumo used to enjoy cherry blossom viewing a lot, but since her husband passed away, she hasn't done so much of that. She had lost interest in cooking, which she loved, when she met Yamato. When presented with a setting like that, it's hard not to fall in love with the widow attribute.
The two go to the pool
Swimming in a pool is an effective way to train your inner muscles. Yakumo uses a ticket to a pool that is open at night that she received from her friend Yuri. However, pools that are open at night tend to have a somewhat shady feel to them, and this pool is exactly that kind of place for young people to hang out. Yakumo's face is red with excitement, which is cute. It's also cute that she is forced to wear a sexy swimsuit by Rui's sister's conspiracy.
Synopsis 5: The actions of the characters surrounding her are also worth watching!
Not only Yakumo-san, Yamato, and Rui, but also the activities of the other characters surrounding them are one of the highlights. The supporting characters also have a good flavor. Yamato's sister, a reliable elementary school student, "Yamato Sakura", comes to play, and there is an episode where she becomes friends with Yakumo-san, and "Nagai Ritsuko", who is a straight man who stops the out-of-control Rui but is almost guaranteed to win, often appears at the end of the volume.
The late Professor Yakumo
Yakumo is a widow, and her husband, Professor Yakumo, a university professor, often appears in flashbacks, exuding a sense of melancholy. There are also scenes where his appearance overlaps with Yamato, which can be a little sad. However, the scenes where Yakumo is healed are heartwarming.
A simple summary of the story
To summarize this work in the simplest terms, it is a gourmet manga in which a beautiful, busty, widowed older sister makes dinner for you. However, the heartwarming story woven by the beautiful and charming characters makes this a work that can be enjoyed in more ways than just a gourmet manga. For those who want to read a gourmet manga centered on home cooking. Not only that, but for those who like the illustrations, I'm sure you'll enjoy this work, so I definitely recommend it. I'm looking forward to it being made into an anime!
