Reviews for Tawawa on Monday
Back to MangaGetsuyoubi no Tawawa is a story about three heterosexual couples with a significant age gap where the guy is older than the girl and is in a superior position. The characters don't date each other, it's important to lay down. The women are primarily depicted flirting and teasing the men. This is a repeating theme in this manga, but all three girls have extremely large boobs. As in H-I-J cup. I wouldn't have mentioned it had it not been such a significant plot point. Oppai humor and focus on them happens in every chapter. We don't know the guys' real names nor are their faces evendrawn with eyes.
The three stories happen in parallel, but there are points where they intersect. Needless to say, the main area of intersection is the high school where Ai-chan and Maegami-chan study and to which Kouhai-chan is affiliated.
There are two main couples, and a third one introduced later into the story. I'll present them by the order of their appearance:
First couple are Ai-chan (Ai as in I-cup bust size) who is a high school student, and "Onii-san" who is a young adult corporate drone. They met at the train station. Ai-chan accidentally caused Onii-san to get hospitalized, and that's how the two became acquainted. They meet each other every Monday while she's en route to school and he to his job.
Second couple are "Kouhai-chan" and "Senpai". This one is pretty straightforward by their "names" - they both work together in the same company. Senpai is Kouhai-chan's mentor at work, not her direct manager. I think this is kind of important to emphasize, because that's probably how the author wanted to avoid the problems of a relationship between direct-manager and employee. Senpai is clearly in the dominant position over here, but he's only her mentor, so it's less severe.
Third pair are Maegami-chan and "Sensei". Straightforward too - Maegami-chan is a top student at her school and a great athlete but she comes from an impoverished background and a single-mother household. Sensei is a teacher at her school and he's also a workaholic.
Judging by my experience, this story isn't going to be liked by western audiences much. But I want it to be clear - you shouldn't judge a story just because it's not inline with your value system. You can always just avoid it. Also, while it is a bit sketchy, the characters aren't depicted violating laws regarding age of consent or illegal work/school relationships.
Personally, I enjoy this story quite a lot and I think that it's great! Very decent art and writing. Might I suggest, you should read the Blue version - that's how this manga originally started.
This is a super simple manga. The cover details a lot of what the manga centers around, if you can take any wild guess. This style of storytelling is reminiscent of Tsurezure Children except half about a quarter of the characters and, like all good stories, it can have layers. On the top layer, the original reason you most likely will try it out, is for the fanservice. The main lure is large-breasted women in varying situations with male audience-inserts. Many fantastical but realistic-feeling situations one wishes they could find themselves in, scattered across a variety of different parings all still centered mostly around the factthey have large breasts. The fanservice I definitely won't complain about, but if it isn't your thing this is 100% not for you.
The other layer of this story is what happens when you get used to, and surpass the fanservice, admiration. Every chapter in this is pairing-specific, focusing on one guy and girl, and while chronological, jumps between the different characters and progressing them at different rates in an episodic manner. Like I said previously, very similar to Tsurezure Children. As I jumped from pairing to pairing, I was delighted to sometimes see and interact with the other pairings as side characters in other's stories. It gives the characters and their stories a lot more validity and creates a feeling of wanting to know more about all of them.
Although the stories are fairly short, aside from some moments, it does a very efficient job at capturing a unique essence that straddles the line of platonic and romantic, that which a lot of people both desire and despise to have.
A good food metaphor for this manga would be an American Mid-western Biscuits and Gravy Bowl. You get it for how much gravy it has, and you might love the gravy, but you might also be surprised and relieved at how delicious the biscuits under all that gravy actually are as well.
Read Alex796 and Ritinal’s reviews first, then come back to me. I have now read 115 chapters of Tawawa on monday so I will try to entice you to give the series a go. Pros: - The humor is centered around the challenges of being a slim waisted girl with a huge front butt. Or being the “poor” man who has to survive in their gravitational pull. This might sound like a premise who will lose its charm fast, but let me tell you; [Redacted]keeps building its roster of girls. This ain’t no harem. Each girl has a separate guy they exclusively like. As a reader I am just pleasantly getting introduced to the most densely packed fictional town in Japan of most densely packed slim waisted girls. Over time, the girls have small interactions with each other, so the fictional city of Tawawa begins to take shape and be defined.
- Later in the stories, some of the guys do get some personalities to advance the plot, but they are still kept pretty light. This does help the layers to the stories told and ever so slowly the relationships are built up.
- There are actually stories, layers, plots and developments in this manga. It even has some low-key drama. But it always manages to keep the light and fuzzy vibe going.
Cons:
- Amongst all the lovely girls and their lovely, loosely defined love interests, one relationship is not as well developed as the rest. I suspect the author intends to close the manga with that relationship to come full circle some day, but for now, poor Ai-chan is just donating her buttons to a canvas.
Conclusion:
- With full confidence and no shame I would like to recommend this to everyone. Tawawa might not challenge your world views, hype you with battles or rile you up with drama, but what it does, it does really well. I was entertained, engaged and felt good reading this. I think most people will enjoy their time in Tawawa city.
- I am giving this a tentative 7/10, as I need to see the finalized manga to make my final decision. 7/10 is a score I don't give out lightly, as I try to buy at least 1 physical tankobon of manga I have rated this high.
The story is easy to understand (rather quick to understand) because the conflict are not too complex. There are few character and each chapter have their plot that connect another character, for example Maegami with Ai-chan which both have story connection in few chapter so reader will realize the setting of this story are same timeline, and that makes this manga are recommended to read. But there are few contra, because each chapter is easy and rather too quick, reader may experience about "is this really done yet?". Keep in mind, author can connect each character stories so reader who have curiousity about one character (forexample: Maegami-chan), the story is continued in another chapter (after few chapter which also tells story about another character).
This manga is considerable to read because
1. easy story
2. quick understandable dialogues each character (not too complicated)
3. author's drawing style is kinda exiciting to read