Manga Monday: Penguin & House Volume 1

Author/Artist: Akiho Ieda
Publisher: Kosdansha Comics
Released: March 1, 2022
Received: NetGalley

Seriously, who can resist a cover as cute as Penguin & House Volume 1? I love everything about this cover. The title, the colors, the artwork! It’s all SO cute! So yeah, I grabbed it and happily dove on it.

Pen is, as you might have guessed, a Penguin. His owner is Hayakawa and Pen is determined to make him the happiest human ever. Pen does everything; he cooks, cleans, and is very doting. In short, he is the perfect penguin.

Unfortunately, Hayakawa is not as neat as Pen. He is, in fact, quite the slob. He shows up in dirty sports gear, happily eats junk, and misses out on all the sweet effort Pen makes for his favorite owner.

Ow. My heart. I adore Pen the Penguin so very, very much. That’s why it was so hard to read Penguin & House Volume 1. You see, Pen is a perfect penguin, but Hayakawa is not a good owner. Or a good friend.

He overlooks everything Pen does for him, frequently utterly messing up all the work Pen does around the house. It hurts to see him so disrespected, and it made it very difficult to enjoy this story as I expected. You see, I expected something lighthearted and fun. What I got was quite sad.

Thanks to Kodansha and #NetGalley for making this book available for review. All opinions expressed are my own.