Yumi TsukirinoCritiques

A young puppy born of the clouds lands on Earth in a Japanese café where the owners think his fluffy tail looks like a cinnamon roll and thus dub him Cinnamoroll. Here Cinnamoroll meets other puppies and has little adventures with them.

This book is super cute looking and is definitely a good fit for folks who like hyper-adorable manga like Chi's Sweet Home. The puppies, especially Cinnamoroll, look more like bunnies than anything else, but the design is charming overall.

The book starts with an overview of all the characters and defining characteristics of them, but that comes across in the stories anyway. Each chapter is more like a mini-story than anything else, though there is a small amount of over-arching story with a literal dark cloud named Cavity who is out to get Cinnamoroll for unknown reasons.

Which brings me to my 'complaint' with this book. I know it's really meant for younger readers and as a light, fluffy read, but I wanted there to be some logic to the magic of this world and there really wasn't. It's never explained why the clouds gave birth to a flying dog, why Cavity is the antagonist, how there are talking trees, etc.

Clearly some of these plotlines seem to be left open for later volumes, but I didn't enjoy this title enough to keep going with the series. Still, I could see young readers getting a kick out of the silly antics of some precious-looking animals and diving completely into the series.

Cute and fluffy but I won't be going out of my way to pick up future volumes. The highlight of it for me was Yumi Tsukirino's art; I would very much recommend her previous series Magical Pokemon Adventure, which Viz also published in English a few years back. This series reminds me a lot of the anime Ochaken (Tea Dogs) except that Ochaken had more whimsy and less sugar.

Stitch is one of my favorite Disney characters. I was thrilled to see him in a manga.
The first half Stitch was so one dimensional, he ate, acted naughty, and got kicked, beaten and things thrown at him. The fun family connection made int he original series was lost to me in this. He is not with Lilo for the first half, but with a girl called luna who told him he must do 43 good deeds to get a wish granted by a rock. Luna is an angry girl, quick tempered and not very likable to this reader.
Luckily the second half of the books brought back Lilo, and they had adventure after adventure of fun. The humor was there they had fun. Stitch was still naughty, that's who he is, but it was taken with humor and love, Ohana.
The illustrations were fair not great,. the action was okay, the intersection on the second half what I expect from Lilo and Stitch. I might continue the series if it sticks with Lilo and Stitch I wouldn't miss never seeing Luna again.

SUMMARY: A strange puppy that lives in a cafe must rescue one of his friends with the help of some cute companions.

REVIEW: This is an adorable book, but it may be confusing for children to read. The main thing that children will have trouble with is the fact that this is an authentic Japanese comic book, which means it is read from right to left, back to front. However, once children get the hang of reading books "backwards," they are in for an enjoyable story that boasts the message that friendship conquers all. The text itself is easy to read, and anything that is originally written in Japanese (like sounds effects such as "VROOM! SPLOOSH!" when a car goes over a puddle) has been translated into English. The story itself might be a little strange for someone not accustomed to Japanese comics, but the easy to read, translated text combined with the adorable pictures makes this book an enjoyable read for older children.