This manga, written and illustrated by Mitsuru Hattori, has a relaxed, somewhat distanced feel, even as we run around town with Wakana. The narrative is trying to do several things at once, and some of those things it does well, while others feel like a dissonant note to the whole.

To begin with, this story is one of those manga that is straight-up a travel guide. “Welcome to Atami! Come visit our volcanic hot springs, enjoy our views of Mt. Fuji, visit our sandy beaches,” kind of thing. In this, the manga is very successful, and it does it naturally. It never feels like the story has to twist itself to find a reason why Wakana should go to this thing or see that place. As she meets people and opportunities present themselves, Wakana takes them and does things…very much like people do. She visits the resort island off the coast and does summer festival stuff. She involves herself in the lives of the people around her. These pieces of the story have a Yokohama Shopping Log feel about them, as do the day-to-day lives of Wakana and the townspeople. The travel and slice of pieces work well.

Then there is the mystery of Wakana's lost memories. No one in town has any information, and they don't know her from their pasts, so it is a legitimate mystery how she came here, why she is so good at cleaning clothes, and what happened to her memories. Every once in a while, something happens, and we get a brief glimpse of something that has to do with her memory loss. But the moment passes, and she is left without any specific clue. The memory portion of the story is good, compelling without being intrusive.

Wakana's relationships with the people around her are likewise quite good. The townsfolk are nice, her landlord is weird, and people come in and out of her shop. Appealingly, as the story develops, Wakana meets and makes friends with other adult women of around her own age! Wow, there's something you just never see in manga. They do things together and go out to eat and drink, like humans actually do. Love that for her. By the end of volume five, she's made a group of friends playing volleyball with them, become friendly with a tourism association worker, who actually invites her over for dinner, where they talk about normal stuff. The people stuff also gets a thumbs up from me, for the most part.

What does not work is the fraught, uncomfortable, and service-y friendship with a local young man who clearly has a crush on Wakana. The first few "OMG things happened!" moments are okay, but by the time a random gust of wind pushes her skirt all the way up in front of him, it was just obnoxious. I don't even mind that there's an age gap. He's a senior in high school, and they are not in or near a relationship. The issue is that both of them are so awkward and exhausting about it. It's just so whatever.

Also, did you know women get naked in the bath? Oh My God! Who knew?! It's a volcanic hot springs town—there's a lot of nudity, women artfully standing up suddenly from the bath, so we see butts and implied breasts. Although the art itself isn't bad, and everything is mostly from behind views, it's a visual grind that loses its appeal quickly.

And finally, we get to the point of the story. It may surprise you to learn that in a manga about a woman who runs a cleaning service, there are very detailed discussions of stain removal and item and material cleaning. I'm not being facetious; this is the point of the manga. In almost every chapter, we get very specific about the cleaning of bags and clothes, removing tough stains like calligraphy ink, and even renewing stuffing on a stuffed animal. And you know what? I don't think it's very interesting. The art is very good and very detailed, but I am just not that interested in stain removal, sorry.

I do want to shout out a good visual bit of translation. In the original, Wakana says “leave it to me” in Japanese, of course, which is here adapted into “Leave it to Kinme.” Audially, this doesn't work, since “Kin-meh” is the correct pronunciation, but visually, for a manga, it's quite good. Overall, I found the translation and lettering to be seamless, making this a pleasant reading experience.

Ultimately, I liked and disliked this manga in equal parts. For every scene that made me roll my eyes, there was one that interested me enough to want to keep reading. I can't fault this manga for being what it is, but it would be vastly more interesting if we had more of a quest for her memories and less of a quest for the correct stain removal process, while exploring Atami and its local tourist haunts.