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Servant x Service #1
Servant x Service, Vol. 1
On any given day in a certain city, in a certain public services office building down in the Health and Welfare Department, you just might run into a clerk with a tongue twister of a name, a huge flirt, a bundle of insecurity, and a cosplay maniac?!
152 pages, ebook
First published September 24, 2011
10 people are currently reading
79 people want to read
About the author
Karino Takatsu
77 books4 followersTAKATSU Karino
Name (in native language): 高津カリノ
Karino Takatsu is a Japanese manga artist. She is from Hokkaido. Blood type O.
Name (in native language): 高津カリノ
Karino Takatsu is a Japanese manga artist. She is from Hokkaido. Blood type O.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
June 20, 2024
[Reread, 6/19/2024 - This is an old review I'm just now adding to GR. I started the second and final omnibus volume and realized I needed a refresher, so I did a quick reread of this volume. My feelings are pretty much the same, right down to being kind of surprised that I found myself rooting for Lucy and Hasebe's potential romance.]
I know it seems like I’m on some kind of four-panel comic strip series kick, but it’s mostly by accident. I’m trying to get through more of my manga collection, and they looked like the quickest reads and the volumes most likely to help me free up some shelf space. Unfortunately for my shelf space situation, this actually turned out to be pretty good.
Servant x Service is primarily set in a public service office building in Japan. The cast includes several newly hired employees in the Health & Welfare Department: Yutaka Hasebe, a carefree and lazy guy who is also somehow brilliant at everything he does; Lucy (etc.) Yamagami, a woman who became a civil servant in order to find the civil servant who approved her amazingly long name and give him a piece of her mind; and Saya Miyoshi, a woman who can never get her paperwork done because elderly people love talking to her and she doesn’t know how to gently disengage. They are overseen by Taishi Ichimiya, who hasn’t been around that much longer than them. The cast is later joined by: Megumi Chihaya, a temp who cosplays in her free time; Touko, a teenaged civil service geek; and an adorable stuffed bunny.
The beginning of the volume was okay, but not terribly exciting. The humor focused on the quirky cast and their efforts to do their jobs (or not, in Hasebe’s case). The strips about Hasebe featured jokes about his laziness and playboy behavior (he asked nearly every attractive woman for her email). The strips about Lucy featured jokes about her long name, her big breasts, and her oblivious attitude towards Hasebe’s flirtations. Miyoshi was always that person who couldn’t seem to get away from talkative elderly ladies. The artwork didn't really grab me either. Hasebe and Ichimiya looked too similar, and Hasebe's facial expressions sometimes felt a bit stiff and limited.
The volume really started to grow on me when it began to focus more on the various relationships. My absolute favorite was the sorta-romance between Hasebe and Lucy. Hasebe was one of those characters I kept expecting to dislike and then...didn’t. His attitude said he didn’t care about anything, and no one could even really yell at him about it because he was so effortlessly good at his work. He constantly hit on women and even used Lucy’s obliviousness against her, getting physically closer to her than necessary during sign language lessons she’d asked him to do for her. Also, if I remember right, he was the one who was involved in most of the “Lucy has huge breasts” jokes.
He should have made my skin crawl, and yet… After he asked Lucy out for the first time, Lucy learned that, although he’d filled up his phone with women’s email addresses, he’d never actually emailed any of them or asked any of them out. When Lucy rejected him, he asked if they could still go out to eat as coworkers/friends. While, granted, he was secretly hoping she’d eventually change her mind about him, he seemed at least as concerned about making sure that Lucy, who had a tendency to spend all her money on books, ate properly. There was repeated evidence throughout the volume that he genuinely cared about Lucy and what she thought about him, although he did his best to continue projecting his usual carefree image.
I enjoyed the signs that Hasebe was a more complex character than I’d originally taken him to be. As for Lucy, she was the character I most identified with. We both try to do our work well, we both think books are important (I, too, have saved money for books in the past by skimping on groceries), and we’re both pretty oblivious (although I’d probably have noticed what Hasebe was doing during those sign language classes...and then done my best to avoid him from that point on). She hasn’t really done much searching for the civil servant who approved her very long name yet, and I can’t help but wonder if that civil servant will turn out to be Hasebe’s father. It’d certainly add more drama to the series.
I’m a little worried that future volumes will sour Hasebe and Lucy’s relationship for me, but so far I like it. The “Lucy has huge breasts” jokes were frequent enough at times to bug me, but some of them were surprisingly funny. My favorite was a series of strips about the time Lucy’s bra broke just as she got into work. Most of the focus was on Lucy’s coworkers and their desire not to embarrass her but also somehow let her know that she wasn’t hiding her problem as well as she thought she was. This part featured one of my top favorite Hasebe moments. Also, the strip on Lucy's bra shopping difficulties felt depressingly realistic.
Besides Hasebe and Lucy, there was one other office romance, plus one client basically shoving a relative at a character who really wasn’t interested. Those storylines had their fun moments, even though they didn’t grab me quite as much as the developments between Hasebe and Lucy. Miyoshi was probably the most one-note character out of the bunch, although I did like the brief period when she started to become dissatisfied with her job. Of all the characters, she was probably the least interested in romance. I hope Takatsu does more with her in the future.
I definitely plan on reading the next volume, although I do have some concerns about it. I’m crossing my fingers that Takatsu allows the various relationships introduced in this volume to evolve. One romantic relationship, in particular, is already showing signs of strain. Either something has to give, or the whole thing will feel forced.
Extras:
- Four full-color pages.
- Two postscripts written by the author.
- Four pages of translator's notes.
- Six pages of bonus comics that were included on the jackets of the original Japanese editions. Unfortunately, most of these focused on Hasebe's efforts to customize his latest game character so that it looked as much like Lucy as possible.
(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)
I know it seems like I’m on some kind of four-panel comic strip series kick, but it’s mostly by accident. I’m trying to get through more of my manga collection, and they looked like the quickest reads and the volumes most likely to help me free up some shelf space. Unfortunately for my shelf space situation, this actually turned out to be pretty good.
Servant x Service is primarily set in a public service office building in Japan. The cast includes several newly hired employees in the Health & Welfare Department: Yutaka Hasebe, a carefree and lazy guy who is also somehow brilliant at everything he does; Lucy (etc.) Yamagami, a woman who became a civil servant in order to find the civil servant who approved her amazingly long name and give him a piece of her mind; and Saya Miyoshi, a woman who can never get her paperwork done because elderly people love talking to her and she doesn’t know how to gently disengage. They are overseen by Taishi Ichimiya, who hasn’t been around that much longer than them. The cast is later joined by: Megumi Chihaya, a temp who cosplays in her free time; Touko, a teenaged civil service geek; and an adorable stuffed bunny.
The beginning of the volume was okay, but not terribly exciting. The humor focused on the quirky cast and their efforts to do their jobs (or not, in Hasebe’s case). The strips about Hasebe featured jokes about his laziness and playboy behavior (he asked nearly every attractive woman for her email). The strips about Lucy featured jokes about her long name, her big breasts, and her oblivious attitude towards Hasebe’s flirtations. Miyoshi was always that person who couldn’t seem to get away from talkative elderly ladies. The artwork didn't really grab me either. Hasebe and Ichimiya looked too similar, and Hasebe's facial expressions sometimes felt a bit stiff and limited.
The volume really started to grow on me when it began to focus more on the various relationships. My absolute favorite was the sorta-romance between Hasebe and Lucy. Hasebe was one of those characters I kept expecting to dislike and then...didn’t. His attitude said he didn’t care about anything, and no one could even really yell at him about it because he was so effortlessly good at his work. He constantly hit on women and even used Lucy’s obliviousness against her, getting physically closer to her than necessary during sign language lessons she’d asked him to do for her. Also, if I remember right, he was the one who was involved in most of the “Lucy has huge breasts” jokes.
He should have made my skin crawl, and yet… After he asked Lucy out for the first time, Lucy learned that, although he’d filled up his phone with women’s email addresses, he’d never actually emailed any of them or asked any of them out. When Lucy rejected him, he asked if they could still go out to eat as coworkers/friends. While, granted, he was secretly hoping she’d eventually change her mind about him, he seemed at least as concerned about making sure that Lucy, who had a tendency to spend all her money on books, ate properly. There was repeated evidence throughout the volume that he genuinely cared about Lucy and what she thought about him, although he did his best to continue projecting his usual carefree image.
I enjoyed the signs that Hasebe was a more complex character than I’d originally taken him to be. As for Lucy, she was the character I most identified with. We both try to do our work well, we both think books are important (I, too, have saved money for books in the past by skimping on groceries), and we’re both pretty oblivious (although I’d probably have noticed what Hasebe was doing during those sign language classes...and then done my best to avoid him from that point on). She hasn’t really done much searching for the civil servant who approved her very long name yet, and I can’t help but wonder if that civil servant will turn out to be Hasebe’s father. It’d certainly add more drama to the series.
I’m a little worried that future volumes will sour Hasebe and Lucy’s relationship for me, but so far I like it. The “Lucy has huge breasts” jokes were frequent enough at times to bug me, but some of them were surprisingly funny. My favorite was a series of strips about the time Lucy’s bra broke just as she got into work. Most of the focus was on Lucy’s coworkers and their desire not to embarrass her but also somehow let her know that she wasn’t hiding her problem as well as she thought she was. This part featured one of my top favorite Hasebe moments. Also, the strip on Lucy's bra shopping difficulties felt depressingly realistic.
Besides Hasebe and Lucy, there was one other office romance, plus one client basically shoving a relative at a character who really wasn’t interested. Those storylines had their fun moments, even though they didn’t grab me quite as much as the developments between Hasebe and Lucy. Miyoshi was probably the most one-note character out of the bunch, although I did like the brief period when she started to become dissatisfied with her job. Of all the characters, she was probably the least interested in romance. I hope Takatsu does more with her in the future.
I definitely plan on reading the next volume, although I do have some concerns about it. I’m crossing my fingers that Takatsu allows the various relationships introduced in this volume to evolve. One romantic relationship, in particular, is already showing signs of strain. Either something has to give, or the whole thing will feel forced.
Extras:
- Four full-color pages.
- Two postscripts written by the author.
- Four pages of translator's notes.
- Six pages of bonus comics that were included on the jackets of the original Japanese editions. Unfortunately, most of these focused on Hasebe's efforts to customize his latest game character so that it looked as much like Lucy as possible.
(Original review posted on A Library Girl's Familiar Diversions.)
May 22, 2022
Thing is, it wasn't boring or bad. I just... what was the point. I feel exactly the same as I did before picking this book up. It is literally just people working in an office, doing work, and having friends. basically normal life.
March 9, 2016
Servant x Service is a funny comedy manga about a group of civil servants in Japan. It begins with an employee, Lucy (etc.) who wishes to find the civil servant who approved her incredibly long name - the (etc.) part is cause she has to use that as her name is so long - on her official papers her parents filed when she was born. She actually claims to have become a civil servant just for this reason, to help her find the man and give him a piece of her mind.
Fortunately, she has her character fleshed out more and this silly reason for her "origin" as a civil servant is not really important in the grand scheme of things. The heart of the book is watching this group of men and women go about their days. All of them have distinctive personalities. Lucy is hard-working, Hasebe is brilliant but a slacker, Chihaya is obsessed with her hobby, Miyoshi is empathetic to others (too much so for her own good), Ichimiya is leader out of his element at times but still a good boss, and Touka is annoying as hell but clearly loves her brother and has a good heart.
As the story progresses, Hasebe seems to take up more and more of the focus as the pov character. I think this makes sense given his dynamics with Lucy. Despite his laziness, he is a good guy, so it's fun to see his daily routine and interplay with the other workers.
I quite enjoyed this manga and recommend it.
Fortunately, she has her character fleshed out more and this silly reason for her "origin" as a civil servant is not really important in the grand scheme of things. The heart of the book is watching this group of men and women go about their days. All of them have distinctive personalities. Lucy is hard-working, Hasebe is brilliant but a slacker, Chihaya is obsessed with her hobby, Miyoshi is empathetic to others (too much so for her own good), Ichimiya is leader out of his element at times but still a good boss, and Touka is annoying as hell but clearly loves her brother and has a good heart.
As the story progresses, Hasebe seems to take up more and more of the focus as the pov character. I think this makes sense given his dynamics with Lucy. Despite his laziness, he is a good guy, so it's fun to see his daily routine and interplay with the other workers.
I quite enjoyed this manga and recommend it.
August 29, 2017
3.5 stars
This was a really fun 4 panel comedy manga and I really loved the humor. I thought I could give it a try because I watched a few episodes of the anime. Reading this manga was a very good choice because it was so fun and I loved the characters!
This was a really fun 4 panel comedy manga and I really loved the humor. I thought I could give it a try because I watched a few episodes of the anime. Reading this manga was a very good choice because it was so fun and I loved the characters!
not-finished
May 14, 2022Always interested in manga renditions of the stuff I do for a living but since I've left this at 65% for some time, I'm DNFing. Am really not a 4-koma* fan and the art is pretty basic.
Honourable exception = Nozaki-kun
Honourable exception = Nozaki-kun
December 7, 2015
A very slow start to the series. That probably has something to do with the fact that the early chapters were published in a magazine that only came out in months with five Fridays, so the author was afraid to do anything with an ongoing story, and even felt it necessary to rehash plot points that the audience might have forgotten in the previous three months, which makes it a pain to read all the chapters one after another. Thankfully the series shifted to a monthly magazine. You can tell the point where it happened because suddenly the plot starts progressing. Though it is odd to realize that certain elements introduced in the last few chapters came only after the story had been serialized for three or four years.
December 2, 2015
One of the few workplace comedy manga.
Manga Genres go far and wide one of the few to make it to the US is the workplace comedy, and the fact tags this is a 4-Koma Workplace comedy makes it all the more enjoyable. Take a step into the welfare department in a Japanese Government Office. While learning a little about how the bureaucracy in Japan works you also get to have some laughs at this Gut-busting story or Lucy (etc.) Yamagami and the other 2 new hires in the welfare department.
Manga Genres go far and wide one of the few to make it to the US is the workplace comedy, and the fact tags this is a 4-Koma Workplace comedy makes it all the more enjoyable. Take a step into the welfare department in a Japanese Government Office. While learning a little about how the bureaucracy in Japan works you also get to have some laughs at this Gut-busting story or Lucy (etc.) Yamagami and the other 2 new hires in the welfare department.
October 5, 2016
This combined volume definitely takes some time to take off character and plot wise, but this isn't really the fault of bad writing or anything like that - originally, the comic appeared in a magazine that was only published on the fifth Friday of a month. So it was hard to have a continuous story when there was that big of a gap between issues.
Once it gets going, however, the characters become alive and lovable. Since I've worked in an office/bureaucratic setting before, the story was especially amusing to me.
There's an anime as well, I'll definitely have to check it out!
Once it gets going, however, the characters become alive and lovable. Since I've worked in an office/bureaucratic setting before, the story was especially amusing to me.
There's an anime as well, I'll definitely have to check it out!
April 10, 2016
Picked it up on a whim and it quickly became a favorite
This manga was a lot funnier than I thought an office based comedy would be. The characters are very distinct and interesting. They play off of each other really well. I definitely recommend this to older manga fans, especially those tired of high school slice of life comedy.
This manga was a lot funnier than I thought an office based comedy would be. The characters are very distinct and interesting. They play off of each other really well. I definitely recommend this to older manga fans, especially those tired of high school slice of life comedy.
April 14, 2016
Quick thoughts: Hard to rate this one. Almost too realistic in the annoyances of clerical work, to the point where it's not that funny. This hampers the effectiveness of the 4-koma format. Late in the volume it switches to character driven comedy, but the characters are largely single-note cliches. Not bad, but felt really flat to me overall.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews