Shueisha released a brand new manga series on December 1, 2024 titled Drama Queen. Kuraku Ichikawa writes and illustrates the new manga. Upon quick research Drama Queen seems to be his first serialized manga, his other work all seem to be one-shots.
Synopsis
Hate brings pain to the world. After saving the earth, aliens have taken up residence with the humans in Japan. Nomamoto, a factory worker with an abusive alien boss, one day meets Kitami, who tells her his own family was killed by aliens. The two quickly forge a friendship, but one day Kitami does the unthinkable…
Synopsis from Official Shueisha Website
Drama Queen Review After Reading Chapter One
Art
The art is reminiscent of Tatsuki Fujimoto, who is famous for Chainsaw Man and Look Back. The art style is similar, I like it a lot. Well the humans are similar in style, the aliens on the other hand have a simplistic drawing style.
The Main Duo
The first chapter introduces Kitami and Nomamoto, the two main characters. As mentioned above, they share a hatred for aliens and form a friendship because of it. What makes this interesting is that these two are the only ones that seem to hate the aliens.
It makes this story interesting since we see it from their perspective, they could be totally wrong and these two could be evil protagonists. Again, the Drama Queen manga is only one chapter in, anything can happen.
The Story
The story follows two factory workers, who share a hatred for aliens. Kitami and Nomamoto quickly become friends because of it. Nomamoto loses her job after an accident at the factory. It led to the death of their alien boss.
There is only one chapter so I have no concrete opinion about it yet. However, online there has been some drama about the story as a whole. People have been speaking up about the story, and are rating the manga badly because of it.
The Drama
People online have been claiming that the story conveys racism. The aliens in the story are foreigners or immigrants. The aliens don’t speak the language, they take all the jobs, they behave badly etc.
If you stretch it, one could say there are parallels to what some influencers have done in Japan. Two that come to mind are Logan Paul and Johnny Somali. Two foreigners who draw similarities to what was portrayed in the Drama Queen manga.
However, these two are such outliers. If they did what they did in Japan in another country, they would still be hated by people online.
Additionally it is only one chapter, if Shueisha green lit this without checking the rest of the story then it’s on them. If the Drama Queen manga gets cancelled off one chapter, a lot of other manga should have been as well.
Finally, the people hating on the manga online don’t even know the author’s intentions with the aliens yet. The aliens could just be aliens, and not convey anything else. In most literary and creative stories aliens are usually seen as antagonists, and in this story it isn’t different.
Would I Recommend to Read This Weekly?
I would at the least suggest reading the first chapter. You can come up with your own opinion on the ‘drama’ that a lot of people online are discussing. Drama Queen is a new manga, so if you don’t like it, you can come back to it a year from now or whatever. The story might be completely different then.
Personally, I will be adding this to my bi-weekly or monthly to-read list. Chapters release every Sunday on the Manga Plus website.
It seems interesting, I would not have guessed the ending of chapter one. I can say that the story is pretty unique, if this is the entire story for the rest of the manga, it could turn into a Dungeon Meshi-esque anime, if you know what I mean.
If you’d like to read other on-going manga I’d suggest KINDERGARTEN WARS or DANDADAN
