It’s the last Wednesday in October, so it’s yet again time for another monthly giveaway at Experiments in Manga! This time you’ll all have the chance to win both the first and second volumes of Gido Amagakure’s food and family manga Sweetness & Lightning as released in English by Kodansha Comics. Why two volumes? Mostly because I feel like it! And also because I ended up with extra copies of both. But I also wanted to share the cuteness and food. Anyway, as always, this month’s giveaway is open worldwide!
It’s not really a secret that I enjoy food manga and will basically give any series a try if food is somehow prominently featured. That’s what initially drew me to Amagakure’s Sweetness & Lightning, but what I find particularly endearing about the series is the loving father-daughter relationship that it portrays. (Kōhei Inuzuka is great, and his daughter is pretty darn adorable.) Maybe it’s because I’ve become a parent relatively recently myself (okay… it’s been two years now), but I find parent-child relationships in manga to be particularly interesting, especially when they are a core element to the story being told. And that’s certainly the case with Sweetness & Lightning. While it’s still early on in the manga’s English-language release, so far I find the mix of food and family in Sweetness & Lightning to be immensely appealing.
So, you may be wondering, how can you win the first two volumes of Sweetness & Lightning?
1) In the comments below, tell me a little about your favorite dad or father figure from manga. (Don’t have a favorite? Simply mention that instead.)
2) If you’re on Twitter, you can earn a bonus entry by tweeting, or retweeting, about the contest. Make sure to include a link to this post and @PhoenixTerran (that’s me).
Not too difficult, right? Everyone can earn up to two entries each and has one week to submit comments for the giveaway. If the comment form gives you trouble, or if you prefer, responses can also be submitted directly to phoenixterran(at)gmail(dot)com. The comments will then be posted here in your name. The giveaway winner will be randomly selected and announced on November 2, 2016. Best of luck to you all!
VERY IMPORTANT: Include some way that I can contact you. This can be an e-mail address in the comment form, a link to your website, Twitter username, or whatever. If I can’t figure out how to get a hold of you and you win, I’ll just draw another name.
Contest Winner Announced–Manga Giveaway: Sweetness & Lightning Giveaway Winner
I really like Kowai from Yotsuba&! he’s such a fun character to read about!
Shou Tucker! Wait, no, wrong list
Takuya and Harumi Enoki from Baby & Me. In chapter 1, we meet the family right after the mom has died in a car crash (she was a pedestrian) and now we have a father with an 11 year old and a two year old. Unfortunately, the reality is that he still has to work and hold down a full time job, but he does try to be there for his kids as much as possible, even leaving work early (a pretty big no-no in Japan) to be there for his kids. But Takuya, being the older child, suddenly finds himself being the surrogate mother in many ways to his little brother. And he’s not always happy about it, which I think is actually kind of nice (because a lot of characters seem way too ok with these sorts of situations). For some reason, all of his other 11 year old friends also have younger siblings 2-4 years of age (ok, I can get the kid whose has 6 siblings, but a 9 year gap between two kids cannot be that common). Also, it seems like a lot of characters get kids old enough to leave alone in a room for a few hours, but you really can’t with a two year old, they still need pretty constant supervision, so Takuya and Harumi don’t even luck out on the age there.
Hahaha! I was waiting for someone to make that joke! XD
Yoshimura from Tokyo Ghoul is my favorite father figure he was really cool and help the ghouls with a job and a place to live and showed Ken how to live as a ghoul
The first dad to pop into my mind was Kotetsu from Tiger and Bunny. His relationship with his daughter was given a lot of screen time and development, and those episodes were honestly my favorite in an anime I absolutely adored, but honestly I only ever watched the anime and never read the manga, so I guess I’ll go with Haruhi’s dad in Ouran instead. He was fun, loving, and protective, but he also trusted his daughter and her smarts to make the right decisions for herself, which is something a lot of fictional dad’s need to learn.
I apologize if this is a weird choice, but I have a small collection of manga and as you know, characters in anime/manga are usually without fathers. My favorite is Gildarts from Fairy Tail. He always looked after Natsu like a father when he was around. Also, as soon as he found out he had a daughter, he vowed to be the best father that he could be (in his weird and funny way). Not to mention, he’s awesome and very funny.
My Girl (SAHARA Mizu)
That’s the name of the unforgettable manga I read and featured a father figure I’ll never forget…
Kazama Masamune is a single father who suddenly found himself taking care of his daughter who was raised in secrecy by his now dead ex-girlfriend…
Retweeted by @BloodyGaikotsu
This might be strange, but I see One-Punch Man as a father figure to Genos and a great one at that!
Gendo Ikari (jk)
I guess it would be Maes Hughes from FMA? I adore a loving father despite how he lasted in the series.
Oh man. I’m actually REALLY fond of dad figures in anime and manga. I could probably make a list but if I had to choose just one- I’d have to say my top fave dad figure would be Tatsuo Kusukabe from My Neighbor Totoro. You could tell he really loves his daughters and looks out for them. :)
Random butting-in here, but I’d be so interested to see/hear your list! I wanted to enter this contest but all I could think of were absent fathers, not ones with great moral aptitude or love for their children. The father from Totoro is a good example of a great dad, though!
I’d like to mention Emiya Kiritsugu from the Fate series. Avoiding spoilers, he wasn’t what you call a “perfect daddy” in Fate/Zero, he wasn’t even able to BE a parent. But when he figured out his mistakes and a second chance popped out, he has eventually become a better father, worth of praise.
Retwitted @MauroPellencin
In my opinion, Kokkuri-san from Gugure! Kokkuri-san is such a great fatherly figure! After seeing the loneliness of a young girl called Kohina, he takes her in as his daughter and looks after her. It’s just so touching to see him worry for Kohina and be so protective of her throughout the whole anime! It’s obvious that he wants to be there for her and be the father Kohina deserves to have.
Thors from Vinland Saga! I’ve always been a sucker for the repentant martyr archetype, and the glimpses we get of his transformation from warrior to attentive father are quite sweet.
hmm… my immediate first thought was Koiwai in Yotsuba&!
but that’s already been listed, so how about Haruhi’s crossdressing bi dad from Ouran High School Host Club! he tries, he tries…
tweet tweet: https://twitter.com/persoconchii/status/792120996614418433
I saw/read sundry anime/manga with nice moms, but not a lot of dads out there. If i have to indicate an iconic father, that is Ikari Gendo from NGE. I like the character, but not as a dad XD
Gonna throw in my hat for this one as well, been hearing a lot of good things about Sweetness & Lightning! Let’s see… well, I love the dad from Yotsubato&! but people have already mentioned him and I’d like to provide some variety… I think I am going to go with (forgetting his name at the moment) the father from Bokurano: Ours (father of Kana and Jun Ishiro). I thought his story was (obviously) very sad, but as a character he felt very human, in coping with their private tragedy, and his past mistakes. There are some other examples too (there’s a powerful scene I think I remember near the end of Wandering Son between Nitori and her father though unfortunately that development comes kind of late in the manga as the story is coming to an ending) which are unconventional and powerful – family in manga is a compelling topic, for sure! There certain arcs/conflicts between father characters that are really interesting (in Wandering Son, the father that Nitori meets who crossdresses as his daughter’s mother, the father from Tomochika’s “Rika”, and Chihiro from Asami Sekiya’s Sen to Man are examples of compelling & atypical father figures that stand out in contrast to some of the common tropes of the distant father/child relationship – though, the close/caring father figure is thankfully not as unusual a motif as it perhaps once was)
My top pick would have to be Akio Furukawa from Clannad. Sure, he’s quite overprotective, strict and harsh, but he’s very open towards his daughter Nagisa and is an extremely caring guy! You’ve got to give it to him: he’s such a nice father to have!