Captain Momo's Secret Base Volume 1

Review Date: 2024 November 24 17:24

Reviewed by: Joe

Released by: Dark Horse

Publishing Country: USA

Author: Kenji Tsuruta - Translation by Dana Lewis

Age Rating:

Page Count: 140

ISBN-13: 9781506740584

ISBN-10: 1506740588

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Summary

Except Momo truly does possess office space - because she lives inside a starship, and relativity means Zoom meetings need half an hour just to ask a question! In the year 3019 AD, humanity has gotten even more work casual: most of the time, Momo doesn't bother to wear her captain's uniform - or anything at all - onboard the cargo vessel Blue Chateau, as she struggles against interstellar tedium, company directives, low battery strength, and her ever-underfoot cat John. But fear not, for equipped with plenty of reading material and a crate of peach liqueur, in the long haul past Proxima Centauri space slacker Captain Momo will at last prove Newton correct - a body at rest will remain at rest!

Review

Captain Momo's Secret Base is the latest translated manga by Kenji Tsuruta. We're big fans of Kenji Tsuruta. We've enjoyed his previous works such as Wandering Island (oh, why won't he make more of this title) and the fantastic Emanon.

This manga follows the slice of life adventures of Moshi-Moshi Momo, a merchant marine space captain in charge of Blue Château - a huge space freighter. She's the lone crew member of a highly automated ship, taking long missions to carry cargo into deep space. Her current mission is 500 days long. The focus is the slice of life story of Momo going about her daily business on the ship. From reading books to goofing around with her stowaway pet cat it gives of the feel of regular every day domestic adventures where Momo enjoys the solitude of deep space.



Character design wise Momo looks like Tsuruta's signature character design. He has used the same actor as Emanon. The artwork is in his familiar style, very fine lined and scratchy with detail in the backgrounds used to abundance. Screen tone isn't used, with hand drawn shading lines instead. This makes it feel all very organic and hand drawn, rather than the more uniform look of most modern productions. There are lots of details in the background that you'll probably miss first time through, which means it is worth enjoying the manga more than once.

It's mentioned on the back of the book, but for most of the time Momo is completely naked. During these sweet slice of life moments she's just strutting about in the buff. This is explained as Momo is by herself on this ship and can enjoy just being nude by herself. In reality I feel it's just that Tsuruta is looking for an excuse to draw his favourite character design naked. Before starting this series I can imagine him looking for some sort of scenario where he could legitimately draw a naked lady manga. This is it!



The first 10 pages of the manga are in full colour, painted by Kenji Tsuruta himself. This artwork is exceptional. The amount of detail and care taken makes it seem more like an artbook than manga. I especially like the window view where all the stars in space are visible. At the end of manga there is a post script written by Tsuruta. There is also an afterword by the manga's editor Carl Gustav Horn where he highlights extra details from the story along with sci-fi references in the manga. It is clear that Dark Horse has put effort into this release and it's always nice to see them go the extra mile.

All in all Captain Momo's Secret Base feels like an enjoyable side quest in space, but at the same time having her constantly naked doesn't seem necessary. As there's no violence it could have a lower age rating if it wasn't for the constant gratuitous nudity. It is a bit of a shame as it's such a fun manga title to read with Tsuruta's distinct art style. But then again he's obviously having the time of his life drawing manga he wants.

Rating: 8/10

Notes

Lettering and Touchup by
Susie Lee and Betty Dong
With Tom 2K

Links

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Buy from Amazon.com
Buy from Amazon.co.uk