As a manga trope, yakuza tend to be terrifying thugs or comical characters. Tatsu of The Way of the Husband definitely falls in the funny category. To go with the manga series, Viz is presenting The Gangster’s Guide to Housekeeping, a housekeeping handbook inspired by Tatsu! Read on for my review. (For other reviews of this series, click here.)
Back Cover Blurb
Everyone, from busy office workers and aspiring homemakers to the fiercest members of the yakuza, can gain important life skills from The Way of the Househusband: The Gangster’s Guide to Housekeeping!
Learn the housekeeping secrets of the legendary gangster, Tatsu, with this practical and humorous book inspired by the popular manga series The Way of the Househusband. This detailed guide includes cleaning tricks to leave your home sparkling, secrets for finding cutthroat deals, schemes for mastering your territory, keys to caring for your gang, and much more. Within these pages, you will also find 25 delicious recipes that will satisfy any voracious gangster.
Follow these tips and apply the determination of the Immortal Dragon to cooking, cleaning, shopping, and crafting to discover the path to housekeeping success!
The Review
The Gangster’s Guide to Housekeeping is part domesticated gangster comedy, part practical guide. What it is NOT is a translation of a Japanese work. Oono’s name is on the cover, and nearly every page features illustrations from The Way of the Househusband manga. However, the book’s text was written by New York-based writer Laurie Ulster, and recipes are credited to Victoria Rosenthal.
In short, this is a housekeeping handbook inspired by Oono’s manga and written in the gangster style used for yakuza dialogue in Viz’s translation of The Way of the Househusband, but all the content is geared for an American audience. Which makes sense from a practical standpoint. For instance, the book recommends minimizing water by running full loads on dishwashers, which are fairly common in American households but rare in Japanese ones.
Still, even if you’re not interested at all in recipes or housekeeping tips, hard-core fans may consider the book as a collectors’ item. The hardcover book is beautifully produced, and the inside covers are decorated with illustrations of Tatsu’s dragon tattoo. Each subsection includes the specific manga scenes that inspired them. The pages of The Gangster’s Guide to Housekeeping are larger than the Househusband manga, so it provides larger reproductions of manga artwork, and a few are printed in full color. I should mention though that the manga frames retain their right to left alignment, while the rest of the book is formatted left to right, which tripped me up a couple times. In addition to Oono’s artwork, the book is also decorated with color chibi drawings of The Way of the Househusband characters drawn by Stephanie Kao.
The book is divided into four sections. Each section has its own layout color, which makes it easy to tell which part of the book you’re in.
“The Way of the Housekeeper” (teal layout), as you might guess, contains housekeeping tips and tricks. These include recipes for homemade cleaners (think lemons, vinegar, and baking soda), advice on room organizing, and managing home finances. Most of the content is good, basic advice, but some points had me a little leery. Like the suggestion to scuff up shoe soles with sandpaper to get enough traction to shovel snow. Certainly the jug in the toilet tank trick won’t work with the low flow toilets that abound in California.
“The Way of the Chef” (orange layout) is the longest section (78 pages). It starts off with practical information about knives and adapting recipes to different diets. That’s followed by recipes in the following categories: Appetizers, Soups and Stews, Mains, Desserts, and Drinks. Every item was featured in some way in the manga.
Each recipe begins with an introduction written in gangster lingo, but the actual recipe part is written in normal cookbook language with steps and lists (which makes it easier if you’re actually trying to cook the item). Recipes include difficulty level and note if they’re vegan, vegetarian, or dairy free. Because the manga featured mainly Japanese dishes, recipes also provide notes about Asian ingredients and suggest substitutions for items that might be difficult to find in the United States. I did find it strange that the recipe for “Simple Lemonade” calls for “citric acid” instead of lemon juice. Also, recipes include drawings of the item from the manga but no cooking diagrams. For most recipes, that’s not an issue, but envisioning the directions for “Bear Cookies,” “Tamagoyaki,” and “Birthday Cake” might pose a challenge.
“The Way of the Urban Explorer” (green layout) is the third and shortest section. It’s a bit of a hodgepodge as it starts with how to be a smart shopper, then moves to exercising and befriending neighbors, and ends with self-defense (against zombies). Basically, it feels like they picked the funniest images of Tatsu outside the house and wrote advice articles to go with them.
“The Way of the Gang” (pink layout) is even more of a hodgepodge. This section’s supposed to cover how to look out for your family, friends, and neighbors, and it does provide advice about throwing birthday parties, babysitting, and taking care of pets. However, it also includes a subsection on camping and DIY projects (making an apron, Halloween costumes, upcycling lumber). Like with “The Way of the Urban Explorer,” it feels like Viz selected a bunch of funny scenes from the manga and wrote content to go with it. There is some useful advice in this section, but it feels like they were going more for entertainment than instruction. Also, approach the DIY projects with caution. The suggestions for Halloween costumes are easy and clever, but making Tatsu’s apron is not as simple as the instructions make it sound. Plus there’s no pattern provided. If you’re a rank beginner at sewing, you’re better off buying a premade apron.
In Summary
Want to clean house like the Immortal Dragon? Hankering to re-create the foods featured in The Way of the Househusband? Then check out this housekeeping guide inspired by Oono’s manga! It’s meant more for entertainment than instruction with its illustrations and jokes. However, there is some good advice mixed up with the gangster humor, and the recipe section seems solid.
First published at The Fandom Post.
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