How to describe YOKOHAMA SHOPPING TRIP? This ongoing story is lighthearted, serious, fun, beautifully drawn, moving, and easy. After reading and watching stories whose sole goal seems to be to emotionally stress the reader out either through romantic tribulations or through intense earth-shattering action, a story like this is a welcome relief. Not that emotional or action packed stories are unpleasant by any means! Just that after several intense stories a soothing break can be very refreshing. It is also nice to see these media we enjoy so much continuing to span an extremely wide range of possibilities.
YOKOHAMA SHOPPING TRIP is such a story. Although relaxing, it is not mind candy, at least not your usual type. This is a manga that will catch you by surprise.
This story is about Alpha Hasseno, an Alpha 7 M2 series robot. She appears and acts fully human. We never find out, yet, where she originally came from and who originally made her. She lives out in the countryside of what appears to be a future Japan and runs a small coffee shop: Cafe Alpha. All we really learn early on about Alpha is her "owner" left her in charge of the coffee shop. She does not know where her owner is, what her owner is doing, or when her owner will return. All she knows is that she is happy that she is a robot so she can wait for her owner to return.
However, this story is about more than just Alpha. It is about all the people she comes into contact with one way or another. These other characters have their own stories. The first of these characters we meet is pretty much only known as "Ojisan." He runs what passes for a gas station nearby Cafe Alpha, speaking with a curious accent, somewhat bent over, and with the widest face distorting grin. We meet him when Alpha is making her first shopping trip to Yokohama. He comes to her aid in several ways over the series, also providing a curious twist as a bit of stage comic relief from time to time. In time we learn a little more of his past and his relation with the somewhat enigmatic woman we only know as "sensei."
The second major character to be introduced to the series is a boy by the name of Takahiro. We have not yet learned who his parents are, where they are, or his relation to Ojisan. He is introduced early in the first book when he shows up at Cafe Alpha looking for Ojisan. Takahiro becomes a rather important character in the story as he seems  to become Alpha's most frequently visitor and she ends up spending a lot of time with him. We are reminded of what seems to be a brother-sister relationship building between the two. Of course, it could be more than that. You never can tell. Takahiro also becomes very important in relation to another character: the feral Misago.
Kokone does not appear until the end of the first volume. She shows up with a package for Alpha saying that it is from Hasseno-sama (to which Alpha thinks to herself with shock, "From owner?!"). She is a robot, like Alpha. Actually, we do not know if she is a robot at first or not, but Ojisan notes when he first sees Kokone that she resembles Alpha, and Alpha later refers to her as her younger sister. Kokone is after all an Alpha Series 7 M3. Although she appears late in the story relative to most of the other characters she will grow far more important later on.
Sensei has saved Alpha's life once, and provides some fascinating depth to some of the panoramic story elements we come to later in the story. One thing we learn later on is that she and Ojisan have known each other for quite some time in what seems a curious somewhat romantic relationship.
Misago, what can we say about her? She hunts fish in the pond and likes to play with Takahiro; she has possibly saved his life once as well. She is a feral being who lives in the wild. People seem to fear her due to her rather pointy incisors. So far she is an entertaining sidebar and an interesting twist on just what sort of place this Japan of the future is. One person described her as being like "(Nuku-Nuku + Totoro) / 2".
Ayase seems to be traveling over Japan. We are not sure why, so far he has shown up in the story three separate times. The first time is when he meets Takahiro while Takahiro is hanging out at the local pond hoping for Misago to show up. Takahiro is surprised by Ayase's Kamasu, which is a winged fish-like being that hunts in a fashion very similar to Misago. Another time involves Alpha and a mysterious ship called Tapon, and a third meeting includes an encounter with what appears to be a living, stone god. He also seems to have some relation to Hasseno-sensei (Alpha's owner?). Much is left to be explained and we will be seeing more of him in the future.
The first story in the series is what the manga is named after: "A Yokohama Shopping Trip." Alpha closes up her small, not very often visited cafe, to travel to Yokohama to buy some supplies. After closing the cafe she travels by the gas station that is on her way to Yokohama. Here we are introduced to Ojisan who fills up Alpha's scooter's gas tank. Ojisan recognizes that Alpha is the person who runs the small cafe. He notes that she has many fans. This embarrasses Alpha but pleases her since she seems to get very few customers. Ojisan fills her tank and tells her that it is free, a bit of service.
Ojisan notes after filling the scooter's tank that Alpha is a robot. He indicates that he is envious of her and since he is aging, his body is getting more unsure. Alpha on the other hand, will probably last a good long time. As Alpha drives off, She is glad that she is a robot so she can wait as long as she needs to for her owner. Alpha thinks to herself that she does not know how long her owner will be gone. Where her owner is she does not know. What her owner is doing she does not know. When her owner is going to return she does not know either.
At this point Alpha is jolted out of her reverie. The road has become flooded, and the route she was following to lead her to Yokohama is no longer viable. Studying her map, she sees how the ocean has risen over the years and plots a different course to Yokohama. Eventually, she finds another way to get there. We are greeted with a view of the city. Something is very strange to us, though. It appears that a good part of the city is now underwater, and the Yokohama that Alpha knows and spends the better part of a day in buying stuff is not the Yokohama that we know of today. After a day of shopping Alpha is forced to spend the night on a hillside, the hotel she had visited being out of her price range after all the things she bought. Alpha does not mind, though; it is a nice night.
On her return to her cafe she greets Ojisan as she passes by him. On the door of her cafe, she finds a small note.
This is just the opening of the door that is this story. We learn a little about Alpha and some curious and puzzling things about the world she lives in. Even though this story seems to clearly lie in Japan's future, it seems that common technology is quite absent. It also seems that there has been a catastrophe in the relatively near past. Yokohama flooded out? The ocean continuing to rise? The most striking scene is of Kokone driving through Tokyo to a library. We are greeted with the well-worn ruins of homes, wide fields, and the sort of little shops and such you find out in the countryside, not in the middle of downtown Tokyo. There is only one really tall building that we ever see, and that is in Yokohama. What happened? How long ago did it happen? Where did all the people go? Who made the things we see and what are they? Where did robots like Alpha and Kokone come from. We are left with echoes of the motto of Tyrell Corporation from Blade Runner: "More human than human."
We have here a story that is a series of short episodes in a pastoral, rundown future. It revolves around a being that is not human, but that draws other people out by what is human. We are drawn in by many things: the unanswered questions, the endearing stories, the interesting characters, and the beautiful scenery. So far this review has concentrated on the characters and the stories but not much on the actual art itself. The drawing is exquisite. Ashinano Hitoshi has an excellent grasp of depth, expression, and motion. Frequently we will be presented with panels that span an entire page or cover two pages that set a scene for the beginning or the end of a chapter. Sometimes a character and what they are doing will be presented with out a background at all to make us focus more on this character. Sometimes the background serves as a perfect stage for the panels we are reading. While any one set of panels may seem to be fairly contemporary, readers may start noticing after a chapter or two that the range of styles used is impressive and that they flow so beautifully from one style to the next seamlessly. The author uses a relatively fine line to draw the characters in the story. The faces are usually quite simple, and very expressive. Ashinano-sensei will add a good level of detail to the rest of the character, which actually works out to a very good balance between the character's expressions and their posture or actions.
With volume 4 just out, this story comes highly recommended. The Japanese may be just a bit unapproachable in this story, but the pacing and the frequency of its release gives one ample time to attempt to read it. The art meshes beautifully with the dialogue and greatly aids in understand. In short, find this manga if you can, and enjoy it. The story will continually unfold and redefine itself as you understand it better as more is revealed.

YOKOHAMA KAIDASHI KIKOU (YOKOHAMA SHOPPING TRIP) Copyright © Ashinano Hitoshi / Kodansha 1995-1996 4 volumes so far, still being written.