Happy Cafe
Happy Cafe is a manga series written and illustrated by. The series was serialized in Hakusensha Shōjo monthly magazine Hana To Yume and the serial chapters collected into fifteen Tankōbon released between July 2005 and November 2009. Publishing companies Tokyopop licensed the manga for release in America and as well Sharp Point Press in Taiwan.
Plot
Uru Takamura is a naive and cheerful girl who is often mistaken as an elementary school student because of her short height. After her mother got remarried, she took a part-time job at a small cafe called Cafe Bonheur. There she meets co-workers Satsuki Shindou a pâtissier who rarely smiles but is actually very kind and Ichirou Nishikawa who falls asleep instantly when he's hungry. Even though they're scary and weird at first glance, something inside them will change as they meet Uru and feelings of love will develop as Uru works hard to bring and show them happiness once again.
Characters
;Uru Takamura
;Satsuki Shindou
;Ichirou Nishikawa
;Nankichi Matsumoto
;Sou Abekawa
;Kashiwa Abekawa
;Sakura Abekawa
;Jirou Nishikawa
;'Mitsuka Yamasaki
;Kenshi Tokieda
Media
Drama CD
A drama CD was released on January 25, 2007, by Marine Entertainment under the same title, and a second was released on October 24, 2007. Akemi Kanda, Kousuke Toriumi and Noriaki Sugiyama were the voice actors of Uru, Shindou and Ichirou. The plot of the second CD includes the three of them going to a theme park and entering a haunted house.
Reception
Johanna Draper Carlson felt that the series quickly began to settle into telling "standard stories" for the genre, and criticised the character designs as looking as though Uru and the men of the cafe are from different series. Carlo Santos described the second volume as "halfhearted", later appreciating that although the story is a fantasy about an ordinary girl being surrounded by hot guys, that the series is a balance of humour and character development. He notes that sometimes romantic cliches are deployed, though, and that the art is mediocre. Katherine Dacey describes the author's artistic strength as being her facial expressions. Steffi MC describes the manga as not being "sickeningly sweet" or melodramatic, and feels the artwork is inconsistent, which she attributes to this being the author's maiden work. Jon Morse writes "The story development isn't particularly special, but this is completely overlooked by the laugh-out-loud comedy that fills the pages. It's an excellent read if you're not a total snob about how a shojo manga operates. I call this work a pioneer!"