Kitchen no Ohimesama
Kitchen Princess

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8.5/10
+Colorful, if not cookie cutter cast of characters; spunky, relatable heroine
+Pretty character designs and feel-good setting
-Abundance of filler distracts from tighter character writing
-Some themes outdated and may leave poor taste

One’s enjoyment of Kitchen Princess will vary what kind of story they’re looking for. Miyuki Kobayashi creates a plucky, likeable heroine in Najika, whose positivity and strong will help her overcome the various obstacles on her path to being a chef. The pretty character designs add to the sugary atmosphere, plus basic food notes for those interested. There are highs, lows, and some unexpected twists for what otherwise appears to be a fluffy read. ...

As a romance, it’s great. For a fool triumphant/coming of age, the characters are disappointedly shallow. The pacing leaves a lot to be desired and the abundance of filler beyond the midpoint is distracting. Certain aspects also don’t age well, such as the old girls trope of a boy for being the catalyst for a girl’s dream. Thankfully this isn’t emphasized enough to leave a sour taste.

Kitchen Princess may not offer the tightest writing, but it’s perfect for when you’re craving something sweet.

This manga is cute, and that's about it. That doesn't mean it's not worth the read.

Trigger warnings for this manga include depiction of eating disorders and death.

Kitchen Princess does not break the mold, nor is it genre-defining, but it has a lot of heart. It's quick pacing is one of the series strongest elements, as it allows itself to indulge in shoujo tropes like miscommunication, arguing, etc., but problems are wrapped up quickly, before they have time to wear on the reader. The cast is cute, the art is cute, and the romance is cute. It actually managed to keep me on my ... toes in terms of guessing who the "Flan Prince" was, though maybe that's my inexperience as a shoujo fan showing.

The story did delve into pretty serious topics like eating disorders, but as everything moves pretty quickly and the story is focused on the romance, we don't spend too much time with anything serious except death. The supporting cast doesn't get as much detail as I would've liked--Akane and others--but it really isn't the end of the world.

I found that the integration of the series main subject, cooking/mainly baking, was fine. There were a couple eyebrow-raisy moments, but everything's still cute and fun.

It's a short, cute read.

It is a nice and cute manga about food and romance. The story is pretty good and the charcters are well defined.
HOWEVER the art just sucks. At the end of the manga I had to force myself to continue reading because it was just too painful to see. These enormous eyes and the mouth are just terribly drawn and the character's expressions are always the same, I seriously wonder whether the author just copy-pasted it. This was just so dreadful that it dragged the enjoyment down.
The romance part was fairly good tough, a lot of things happened you didn't expect to happen.
Also something else: There ... were far too many characters who changed from bad to good (I think it were like 5?) which were super unfitting and that really annoyed me.
Overall: I don't advice this manga to anyone who gives just the slightest amount of attention to the art when reading a manga.