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therainbowshelf's review
funny
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
I really wanted to love this comic but it wound up being highly problematic.
It seems to be an empowering comic about a young woman with low self-esteem fighting internal and external battles to start her own restaurant in a monster city. The main character and her new friends are delightful, and the world is great. There are excellent nods to pop culture throughout, starting with a Kiki's Delivery Service nod right on the cover (that little carton of milk with Jiji written in hiragana and a little black cat!).
The problematic part is that the takeaway message seems to be a dismissal of the history of racism. In their world, monsters have been historically discriminated against, oppressed, and killed by humans. There seems to still be discriminatory stories about monsters that circulate in the human world regularly. Monsters now live in the only sanctuary left to them, a monster city. That's where the human chef decides to go to get started. That's cool and all, but then she has trouble when a monster chef tries to push her out. The monster chef is portrayed as having experienced racial discrimination in the past, having participated in pro-monster protests, and faced down riot police. She doesn't want the human here because it's a monster city and she feels that humans are dominant everywhere else, they shouldn't try to move in on monster territory. In the end, this is never properly addressed and we're left with a sense of "why are you being so mean to this poor well-off human with low self-esteem? That's not fair. You should just let go of the history of racism and opression already. All the other monsters have."
It seems to be an empowering comic about a young woman with low self-esteem fighting internal and external battles to start her own restaurant in a monster city. The main character and her new friends are delightful, and the world is great. There are excellent nods to pop culture throughout, starting with a Kiki's Delivery Service nod right on the cover (that little carton of milk with Jiji written in hiragana and a little black cat!).
The problematic part is that the takeaway message seems to be a dismissal of the history of racism. In their world, monsters have been historically discriminated against, oppressed, and killed by humans. There seems to still be discriminatory stories about monsters that circulate in the human world regularly. Monsters now live in the only sanctuary left to them, a monster city. That's where the human chef decides to go to get started. That's cool and all, but then she has trouble when a monster chef tries to push her out. The monster chef is portrayed as having experienced racial discrimination in the past, having participated in pro-monster protests, and faced down riot police. She doesn't want the human here because it's a monster city and she feels that humans are dominant everywhere else, they shouldn't try to move in on monster territory. In the end, this is never properly addressed and we're left with a sense of "why are you being so mean to this poor well-off human with low self-esteem? That's not fair. You should just let go of the history of racism and opression already. All the other monsters have."
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism
Moderate: Police brutality
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