The Fall 2022 Manga Guide

Sasaki & Peeps

What's It About? 

When Sasaki brightens up his tired corporate life by buying a pet sparrow, he never imagined the bird would actually be a reincarnated sage from another world! With his new avian roommate teaching him all sorts of magic tricks, could this be Sasaki's chance to escape his droll office job?

Sasaki & Peeps is based on the light novel series by Buncololi (story) and Kantoku (character design). The manga is drawn by Pureji Osho, with English translation by Alice Prowse and lettering by Rachel J. Pierce, and Yen Press will release its first volume both digitally and physically on October 18.

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Is It Worth Reading?

Jean-Karlo Lemus

Rating:

Well, credit where it's due: Sasaki & Peeps doesn't star a potato. Having a salaryman in his 30s as the main character definitely adds some variety to this story; even if he isn't the most conventionally attractive hero, seeing Sasaki smirk his way through business deals with fantasy nobles is a bit more interesting than if it was just some teenager. But Peeps is the real star of the show here: a profoundly wise wizard trapped in the body of a little birdie. It's amusing to see him scarfing down a whole slab of beef.

The concept for this isekai is interesting, but the trade deals are a far cry from Spice & Wolf or even Maoyuu. There's no actual conflict in this story; Sasaki manages to make bank in his deals with a trading company, he starts picking up on magic like a natural, he starts a fancy restaurant, and he shmoozes with a nobleman. Everything goes his way. It's not until the very last few pages when something seems like it might finally start standing in his way. While the basic concept is interesting, this story desperately needs a kick in the pants if it wants to hold my interest. Mildly recommended.

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Christopher Farris

Rating:

I had perhaps higher hopes going into Sasaki & Peeps than was fair. But the initial setup really does appear to be rather refreshing, by the standards of isekai light novels and their typicalities. Making the reincarnated inter-world traveler a sage from the alternate realm having wound up in a cute little bird-body is a fun enough spin, and it powers the inherently amusing dissonance of watching a java sparrow spout overwrought fantasy jargon. But that need to espouse details, coupled with leading office-man Sasaki's focus on the 'realist' aspects of exploiting the potential to obtain money and resources between the two worlds, ought to have clued me in sooner as to how high the actual ambitions for this one actually reached. That, as they say, is on me.

Because what you actually end up getting out of Sasaki & Peeps, within this first volume anyway, amounts to little more than a retread of the same sort of plot-lite easy-street fantasy you've seen in a thousand other isekai stories. Except most of those ones just immediately shunted their protagonists off via a chance encounter with Truck-kun, rather than hooking them up with a funny talking bird and tempting them with the convenience of teleportation magic. What follows is a perhaps overwrought detailing of Sasaki's engagements with fantasy economics and the wondrous profits one can earn and utilize thanks to the low overhead of everyday goods from our world. As with so many isekai exploits before it, the idea of selling printer paper and ballpoint pens to a less-advanced medieval population is fine as a moderately interesting thought experiment, but it quickly becomes tedious when you try to tell a full story using it. It feels less akin to something like Spice & Wolf, where the long-term market manipulation and the twists in doing so was the story, and more like a means to an end to see how much money Sasaki can accumulate to throw at restaurant ventures and find time to practice a moderately-detailed magic system.

The one advantage that Sasaki & Peeps has over so many of its contemporaries is the inherent likability of its leads. Sasaki himself is an appreciably chill guy, one who's just trying to make his own comforts with the advantages he's stumbled into, while still working within systems so as not to cause himself too much trouble. And he passes the base test of empathy for an isekai lead, taking in a cast-out chef not just because he wants to try that restaurant venture, but because he genuinely wants to support the man as generously as possible. We see that further in his little interactions with a parentally-neglected schoolgirl as he helps her in what limited capacity he can in the situation. And Peeps gives him a unique vector for rapport and back-and-forth exposition. But unless you're specifically into the over-analytical light-novel fantasy exploits this is patterned on, it mostly feels like a squandering of its offbeat premise. There are signs of a plot with more urgency skirting around the series, mostly in its extended title, but nothing of that manifests until the actual final pages of this volume. Aside from that and the goofy bird, this is boilerplate fund-raising fantasy.

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MrAJCosplay

Rating:

Sasaki & Peeps is a story that takes its time to tell you what it's really about, and that can be both a good and a bad thing. It's nice when a story can catch you off guard while still being overall consistent or not breaking any promises. On the other hand, I wouldn't say that my patience wasn't tested in the first couple of chapters, as I fiddled my thumbs and wondered what exactly everything was building towards. The initial absurdity of a little bird talking to a rather simple Salaryman with a sense of self-importance is a hilarious bit of whiplash that pulls you in. But after you adjust to Sasaki & Peeps' particular brand of eccentricity, what you're left with is a surprisingly straightforward and grounded story of trade relationships and navigating business deals.

I remember that one of the things I found appealing about That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime early on was its surprisingly in-depth exploration of what it means to build a society in a fantasy world. Sasaki & Peeps kind of has a similar appeal – it's very hard to describe because it's far from exciting or action-packed. The artwork is simple yet rich, with some tight back-and-forth writing. There's a laid-back feel to everything, but it certainly doesn't feel boring either. At the very least, Sasaki & Peeps is a book that's worth checking out simply based on its absurd novelty.