A wonderful manga by Negishi Kyouko (the original story is by Miyamoto Yuki), published by Shinshokan (serialized in the Wings magazine), about the everyday life of 5 men running a café. The manga is three volumes long for now (last one was out during 2003), and the series has also an artbook entirely dedicated to it. Just like Weiss Kreuz, Café Kichijouji de was at first a drama, many CDs were released (about 9 I think), the art is always done by Negishi-sensei. Now we can only expect an anime...

Café Kichijouji de is my coup de coeur of the moment! The art is truely awesome, the characters are captivating, and the stories are always funny!

The Café Kichijouji de recipe: you put five good looking men with completely different characters in a café, you mix with rocks, curses, detergent and a bull, and you observe the result. And you sometimes wonder: first, how come the café hasn’t closed down yet? Then, how can they manage to survive? If you want to know the answer, ask the black cat................

	Kurihara Tarou is the boss of the group (there’s only the “master”, or owner, above him). Authoritative, sometimes aggressive, he’s a cleaning freak. He seems to be the most thoughtful of the group, though he can be scary at times... Makes me think of Tatsumi from Yami no Matsuei.
	Ookubo Maki works in the café as a waiter. He’s a playboy who’s far too lazy to clean his room (which has become too dangerous to live in it seems). He’s kind of like Kudou Yohji from Weiss Kreuz (but Yohji cleans his room). He’s often the victim of Tarou’s floorcloth or Hifumi’s curses.
	Minagawa Hifumi works in the kitchen of the café. Thankfully, otherwise he would scare customers... His hobbies are cursing people and to tell fortunes when it’s extremely bad. He can talk with crows and his recipe book looks like an old black magic book. I wouldn’t eat his cakes...
	Tokumi Shuuta is the first part-time job of the café. He’s the cheerful type of guy always glad to help, but he’s often taken adventage of because of his kindness. He forgot we live in a world of sharks... the shark being Maki (see the episode of the bull). He can be awkward too.
	Ichinomiya Jun is the youngest and sweetest guy out of the five. Always doing what he’s been asked for, working conscientiously, very nice with people. But don’t dare say he’s cute or looks like a girl, or you’ll experience his wrath: he must be the strongest man on earth and can easily throw a huge rock at you.

Each chapter is a different story in the life of the people working at the Café Kichijouji. The first chapters introduces all characters and show their nature, ruining the hope to see an article written about their café. In the second chapter, Maki, Shuuta and Jun are having a hard time going to the store to buy toilet paper etc... There are short stories of about 4 pages called Chichai between each chapter, in which the characters are deformed (their chibi version), and the text is both in japanese and in English (the English is awful, even worse than mine!).

Café Kichijouji de is a surprising and delightful comedy. Just give it a try!

Café Kichijouji de gallery on:

Café Kichijouji de volume 1
Art: Negishi Kyouko
Story: Miyamoto Yuki
Published by Shinshokan (Wings comics)
ISBN: 4-403-67009-1
Cost: 720 Yen