Gokushufudou: The Way of the House Husband, written and illustrated by Kosuke Oono, is a slice of life comedy manga. The story follows the main character Tatsu as he tries to live a normal life as a house husband. A house husband is similar to a housewife; they stay at home to do the cooking and cleaning while their significant other works.
Tatsu, formerly known as The Immortal Tatsu, was a cutthroat member of the yakuza, notorious for going to a rival clan’s headquarters alone and taking out ten men with nothing but a lead pipe. However, he gave up that life in order to become a family man and live with his wife Miku. For Tatsu, being the hardened individual he is, even the most mundane activities like cleaning the house become a trial.
I thoroughly enjoyed Gokushufudou.
From the art to the stories I was completely hooked. Following along with Tatsu is always fun and interesting because when you treat everyday activities as you would a mission from the yakuza, everything becomes a daunting challenge which you must be ready to conquer. We also learn of a softer side to Tatsu and how he decided to give up his life as a yakuza to live with his wife and protect her. The comedic timing, combined with quick changes in art style when Tatsu gets serious, lends itself very well to this manga. Kosuke Oono had originally planned to only put out five chapters of the manga. It became such a hit that Kousuke decided to write more chapters.
The manga is a quick read, most of the panels are not very text heavy and there is very little exposition. This isn’t much of a problem since a large part of the comedy is visual and dialogue is an accent. Long, drawn-out discussions wouldn’t fit with Tatsu’s very straight forward and blunt personality. I could see this easily becoming a miniseries: quick five minute shorts each one covering a chapter from the manga. All in all, I enjoyed Gokushufudou: Way of the House Husband. It’s exactly what you could want from a comedy slice of life manga. Each story is concise, funny, and entertaining from beginning to end.
