NOODLE FIGHTER MIKI: Volume 1

Appealing art notwithstanding, this manga opus is a cipher entry in the tiring genre of martial arts action gene-spliced with food industry comedy. Yes, such a genre exists and its formula showcases a protagonist who fights like the dickens and works at a restaurant (usually family owned). The hero's fighting skills translate either into violent kitchen prep arabesques or butt-kicking displays focused on would-be enemies. The hero who fits the formula's requirements for this series is the eponymous Miki Onimaru, a teenager who has sought to avoid the family noodle shop vocation since childhood, but now works there for unexplained reasons. Miki is a terrible worker, inattentive, clumsy and constantly at odds with her stern mother, situations that are not at all helped by her hair-trigger temper. The individual episodes are no more than thin pretexts from which over-the-top cartoonish violence will surely erupt, accompanied by panel after panel of exaggerated faces seen in histrionic closeup. Especially perplexing is the section padding the end of the book, a series of four-panel gags that make little sense and lead nowhere storywise. Sadogawa shows promise as a storyteller, but the material is so slight, it's almost totally inconsequential. (Mar.)