Everyone loves this one but I instead loved Summer Blonde and only liked Shortcomings a lot. 3.5 on the Richter scale. 
 Even fans will have to agree that Ben Tanaka, the non-hero, is a thoroughly depressed and depressing person, the sad dark centre around which swirl various much more engaging characters so I was all - come on, Tomine, let's go with her or her, let's ditch this dweeb, purlease. But no, we got the close focus on the dweeb. Also - now, I don't know if this is a little politically incorrect or something - but the always-gorgeous artwork seemed oddly wrong in one really major aspect - maybe readers don't agree with me - but the Asian American characters (all except two) just didn't look Asian at all, they looked generically American : 
 which wouldn't be relevant at all except that this story is all about Asian Americans and their cultural situation. That said, you couldn't get a hipper graphic novel this side of Alison Bechdel, my Goodreads Hipometer (tm) (now available from Amazon at $14.99 plus $265 shipping) was giving me readings in the high nineties, mainly because of all the Asian American lesbians in the story, some of which were in New York! In a loft! And also because the term "rice king" is used as if everyone knows what it means. I figured it out. It's nothing to do with that restaurant in Toledo or the current men's basketball coach at Monmouth University. Different thing altogether. 
 I kind of also wanted to deduct one star because of the 108-pagesness of this book. Like our glum protagonist's dingledangle, allegedly (see pages 79-80), it's not the biggest thing you ever saw. It's not even medium sized. It's wee. So this slender graphic novel is fiction's version of high art or nouvelle cuisine - really pricey stuff you can consume in two shakes of a lamb's tail. I know it's art, dwarlingk, but sometimes you need a bit of heft too. It's not all in the motion. Size matters.