Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou: Deluxe Edition 1 Review

1994 was and still is an important year in manga history. Some of the most influential manga were first introduced in 1994 such as Rurouni Kenshin, Rumic Theater, The Vision of Escaflowne, Monster, Mobile Suit Crossbone Gundam, No Need for Tenchi, and lastly Detective Conan, which is still in its main run to this day. Another manga was released in 1994 and it quietly went on to become a critically acclaimed classic and that manga is Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou or YKK for short.

YKK is a slice-of-life/science fiction series that was created by Hitoshi Ashinano and ran from 1994 to 2006. The series takes place after a cataclysmic event that left mankind to the point of extinction and those humans who are left to live in that would have quietly accepted their fate and learned to live out what time they have left in peace. The main character in YKK is an android name Alpha Hatsuseno and she owns and runs an old coffee shop called Cafe Alpha on the coast of Miura Peninsula in Japan. She sees how the rest of the humans she meets and encounters throughout the series live their lives until they move on due to that she is an android and is immortal.

The deluxe edition pack in 24 beautiful chapters and the artwork is like no other still to this day holds up very well and the color parts are like watching a live picture. YKK is a masterclass of how less speaks volumes and the story can carry its weight in gold in terms of how no one ever really takes on this kind of story, even to this day.

If you want to read something completely different, that is one of a kind, slice of life from the end of the world point of view from an android perspective then do yourself a huge favor and read Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou.