Alpha. As beautiful on the inside as she is on the outside.

Every good story needs conflict. This is what I've always been told. Then why is this story so good? There's no conflict whatsoever. It's a story about a young woman who runs a quiet little coffee shop out in the countryside. We get to know her, her friends and customers, and that's about it. And yet that's about as much as it needs to be.

There are some unusual twists to the story. Alpha is a robot, for example, and she's not the only one. The Earth has suffered an unexplained natural catastrophe. The oceans are rising, and the birthrate has dropped so low humanity is dying out. Strange oversized plants with unique functions grow in the wild. There are extraordinary mysteries everywhere, and Alpha's explorations of them allow us to discover and marvel at her world along with her.

The title translates as "Yokohama Shopping Diary" or "Record of a Shopping Trip to Yokohama." Alpha is a cheerful, beautiful android who runs a small coffee shop near the submerged former city of Yokohama. She runs it for "Owner" who has gone, though it's never explained where. Whether he's her owner or simpy the owner of the coffee shop is never really answered. Alpha's closest neighbor is Oji-san. We never learn his real name. He's an old guy who runs a small gas station down the road. Takahiro is a young boy who may be related to Oji-san. Makki is a girl who is friends with Takahiro. Sensei is an old woman who is the local doctor, but is also very proficient at maintaining androids. Kokone is another female robot who works at a delveriy company. She meets and falls in love with Alpha. Maruko is yet another female robot who is friends with Kokone. She loves Kokone and is jealous of Kokone's feelings for Alpha. There are several more characters, but the most fascinating to me is the Misago. She looks like a young woman, although she appears to be feral. She roams the swamps naked, feasting on fish, insects and birds. She appears to be unaging and has become something of a local myth. She only shows herself to children, and doesn't recognize them once they grow up. Again, like most of the mysteries of YKK, who she is or what she is is left unanswered.

I discovered YKK through a wallpaper I found on Kodansha's sadly defunct English language webpage. It was a picture of a young woman against a relief map. I loved the look of it, and decided to check it out. I bought the first volume from my local Kinokuniya and fell in love with it. I bought every volume that was released, the artbook (twice), and the second anime OVA series (I still need to get the first one.) It's never been released in English, but I found translations online that allowed me to read it. I also found others online who loved this mysterious and gentle world, so I could have others to talk to about it.

Hitoshi Ashinano's style changes dramatically from the first chapters published in 1994 to the final chapters published in 2007. Tall, thin and busy gave way to simple, elegant and spare. Amazingly, he published every chapter without any assistants. That's unheard of in the world of manga. I've never heard of a successful mangaka who never used an assistant, and some of the most successful use an entire army of assistants to allow them to meet their deadlines. Not only did Ashinano not use them, he never missed a deadline in 14 years. And he drew several chapters of a second story for one of Kodansha's quarterly anthologies at the same time. Unbelievable.

The pacing of the stories is relaxed and unhurried. Decaying buildings and broken roads serve as reminders of the fleetingness of life. Seemingly meaningless events turn out to have great significance much later. The human characters grow up, grow older, and even pass away, but Alpha and the other androids are unchanging, keeping watch over humanity as it slowly fades away. Despite this, the story is uplifting and postive, believing in the goodness of people, even when some of those people are mechanical.

I've included a chapter below. Normally each chapter is black and white and 16 pages long. But about every 9 to 10 chapters he would release a full-color 8 page chapter. This is chapter 61, "Crimson Mountain." Alpha waits out a thunderstorm in an old bus stop. That's it. That's the entire story. Yet it's beautiful and engrossing. I also like it because there isn't any dialogue, meaning we can enjoy it without filtering Ashinano's story through a translator. Just remember when looking at them that the panels are supposed to be read from right to left. Enjoy.

Lincoln Stax