The Spring 2023 Manga Guide

Candy Flurry

What's It About? 

Tsumugi Minase loves lollipops and becomes a lollipop wielder when Tokyo is suddenly overrun with superhuman sweets users. Tsugumi does whatever it takes to hide her identity, but when Misaki Midori, a sour and serious Recette officer, transfers into her class, will Tsugumi be able to continue living a sugary and peaceful life?

Candy Flurry has story by Ippon Takegushi and art by Santa Mitarashi. Viz Media's Shonen Jump imprint released the first physical volume on March 278.

Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

No, it's not a book-length ad for healthy eating, it's a shounen battle manga. Candy Flurry's gimmick is that five years ago, candies called “Toy Toy” gave those who ate them unique powers to manifest gigantic sweets – and then someone using lollipops promptly decimated Tokyo. Tsumugi also uses lollipops, but she's not the one who destroyed the city…she knows no one will believe her because general wisdom says that each Toy Toy gave its consumers unique powers, meaning that no two people have the same giant candies, pastries, or confections. It's not a great position to be in, and it's one that causes Tsumugi a lot of trouble, because if she ever reveals what kind of sweet she uses, the arrest warrant for the lollipop user is likely to work against her.

It's not a terrible premise for an off-the-wall story, and the deadly serious way everyone talks about confections as weapons is definitely entertaining, particularly when paired with the Recette agents' giant cutlery weaponry. But it doesn't really do much beyond the basic premise to distinguish itself from other shounen battle manga. For example, the way that Tsumugi wants to be part of the police force Recette is very similar to Kaiju No. 8's Kafka, and the exam she has to pass is something seen in many titles. Gags are pushed to the breaking point, with Toka's outwardly within, inwardly messy personality being the biggest offender. There's some decent chemistry between Tsumugi and Misaki, a Recette agent who transfers into her class and is willing to actually listen to her, but Toka takes over once she comes in.

All three volumes of the story came out at once, as digital-only releases, so the good news is that you can read the entire story without having to wait. It's not a bad series, but it doesn't quite have the balance right, and the short length doesn't make me think that it has the time to work that out. But it is an interesting premise and Viz's digital releases are on the cheaper side, so you don't have much to lose if you want to check this out.

MrAJCosplay

Rating:

So it's a shounen series with candy…yea that's it. Have you ever read something that feels like it's checking off a list of ideas or tropes for the sake of meeting a quota? That's how I felt reading Candy Flurry. In a world where candy and sweets are the main power or catalyst for strife in this world, I'm surprised the book doesn't have a sense of humor about everything. Maybe the fact that everything is played so straight is part of the joke but it never feels like the characters or the author are turning to the camera and winking. I genuinely feel like we are supposed to take a lot of the events in the story seriously, from the destruction of Japan to the tragic backstories at the hands of lollipops and ice cream. By default this is a premise that's very hard to take seriously and outside of the inventive ways that the candy powers are utilized, there's not a lot here that really stands out to me

We have a main character who is framed and wants to prove that they're innocent, we have a quirky upperclassman to act as a ladder for our main character to climb, we have a spunky sidekick who believes in truth and justice, etc. The action scenes are great and the art is incredibly detailed, particularly in its high-impact shots and finisher moves. There's definitely a lot of creative material here in terms of action and execution. It just sucks that the skeleton that makes up the story doesn't leave a lot for me to hang onto and I ultimately walk away with more of a bland feeling than a sweet one.