REVIEW: Superman Vs Meshi #1

I never thought I’d see the day when Superman would be turned into a manga. I guess everything happens for a reason because, for a non-superhero fan, this was pretty fun to read. I personally haven’t read too many mangas in my time, maybe a couple of Naruto’s here and there and the occasional One Piece and Bleach manga but other than that I don’t think I’ve read that many manga. If anything I think the last time I read a manga was the old-school manga Metropolis by Osamu Tezuka and no doubt things have changed a lot for manga since then. It was refreshing to read this though. This issue is all about Superman being hungry for that good-good Japanese cuisine. He flies to Japan, visits a restaurant, orders food, and then eats it… Weird right? There’s nothing crazy happening, nothing too action-packed, and no one is being threatened by a supervillain or anything like that, so why would you read this at all?

Well, the art is fantastic. It truly is a manga book, complete with right-to-left panel layouts, black-and-white screen tones shading, and all the weird symbols of manga. The art is fun to look at, and the action panels are very good. The lettering is fun to read and it contains a lot of Japanese typography that is not used in American comics so it makes for a fun experience to see all American Superman in this adaptation. Personally, the writing is a little too cheesy for me to love, but I did find myself laughing at a couple of the jokes. In other jokes, I cringed a little but it does feel like the type of humor kids would enjoy. There are some references to cosplay culture, giant robots, and tasty bowls of ramen. It’s a wild ride because who would have ever thought of Superman thirsting over a bowl of ramen, but here we are. It’s not half bad, honestly.

It’s a fun little story, a quick read and it’s something pretty simple to digest while you’re waiting for your own bowl of ramen to arrive. It’s not the greatest comic in the world, but it’s a nice read nonetheless. It’s a little hard to talk about because it’s so weird, but I did enjoy the background drawings of Japan and all the little symbols and signs that they put in to make it feel like Superman was actually visiting Japan. There’s even a tiny easter egg of a Maneki-Neko or a good luck cat and that’s pretty cool to see. It’s great because it was written by Satoshi Miyagawa and drawn by Kai Kitago both of which at least by name are actual Japanese artists, and from what little I was able to find on them are actually tied to the manga scene. So it feels cool to see a realistic portrayal of Superman through the lens of Japanese creatives.

The art itself is very good, and whilst it’s not crazy out of this world good. It still works wonderfully and the manga aesthetic lends itself well to the simple nature of this particular story. I’ll admit, after reading so many comics and being accustomed to reading them on an almost daily basis, it took me a little while to remember that mangas are read right-to-left instead of left-to-right, so sometimes I had to go back a couple of word balloons to figure out what came first, but reading that this was actually translated from Japanese to English, I’m sure this will do wonderfully in the Japanese market. It’s fun, and it’s a great palette cleanser after so many dramatic stories and action-packed comics, having a simple story where Superman is just eating tasty food is sweet. The character designs are pretty good too, of course, I’m not talking about Superman since after so many years of redesign Superman is probably a lost battle, but there’s a scene with a giant villain from another world and I think he was designed very well and it looks almost organic but with some samurai motifs as well as what you would probably see in the Power Rangers series, which is always fun in my books.

One cool thing I noticed was that most of the text in this story is actually the internal monologue that Superman is having as he eats the food and I think it’s very relatable. A lot of us have ordered food a little too close to when our lunch break is about to be over, and that moment of dread and hunger will drive us all mad. It will even make Superman hangry enough to boil rice with his heat vision instead of waiting for the steamer to cook it. I think this is the third or fourth time I say it, but it’s nice. Read it, I think you’ll like having it as a palette cleanser in between your action comic main courses.

Writing: 3.5 Stars
Art: 5 Stars
Colors: 5 Stars

Overall: 4 Stars

Written by; Satoshi Miyagawa
Art by; Kai Kitago
Lettering by; Wes Abbott
Cover art by; Kai Kitago

Published by DC Comics

Reviewed by Antonio “Mabs”