This review is for all volumes and chapters currently in English. (Fifty)
Amaama to Inazuma is a series that focuses on the growth of a young girl and her recently widowed father. It touches sensitive subjects such as remarriage, life as a single parent, and a father struggling to understand the needs and emotions of his growing daughter without a mother in her life. The daughter is incredibly cute, and the father is as sweet as can be. They end up getting into a friendly relationship with Kotori, a girl who runs a restaurant who often is alone due to her mother constantly working and her parents being divorced. It does follow a similar routine about every chapter, but each one usually covers a different subject or feeling and neatly wraps up by the end of it. If you're looking for an ecchi series or a 'jail bait' manga as some other reviews claim this to be, you're in the wrong place. Any romance is one sided at the moment, however the manga has already covered two years so it's quite possible that it will happen but only when the characters are ready. It's a cute, fluffy read that makes you fall in love with the characters in the first chapter.

This review is for volume one only, specifically the english edition by Kodansha Comics USA.
Though I'm a young lady who's most often reading shoujo, I can certainly appreciate a good seinen 'young widowed father raising child' story - and My Girl by Sahara Mizu and Be with You by Takuji Ichikawa are among my favorites.
Unfortunately, Sweetness and Lightning doesn't know wether it wants to be a touching family drama, a contrived jail bait student-teacher romance (the suggestive imagery of Kotori eating oblong food is in pretty poor taste when contrasted with the general mood of the story - so was seeing her mother in a school uniform), or a generic beginners' cookbook. Lacking the great artwork or gripping emotional core that would have made this series far more interesting (if you're going to draw a food manga, that food should look amazing, not all scribbly) it's hard to know just who this story is supposed to appeal to? Lonely 30+ Japanese men with a fetish for high school girls who are trying to learn how to cook basic, basic Japanese food? That is a pretty narrow audience and one that I'm not in.

Mostly, this is a fluffy kind of healing manga where they cook delicious-looking things in pretty much every chapter, BUT it also has a bit of serious subject matter examination. Wrote a long review of the series. It's quite the good'n; lovely art, too.

Full review:
https://terrenceswiff.wordpress.com/2016/02/26/amaama-to-inazuma/

If you enjoy slice of life titles, you will likely enjoy this one. Amaama to Inazuma is very emotionally captivating. You will be moved. You will be saddened, but not in an upsetting way. It is a very uplifting, sweet story.

To my surprise, the focus is not necessarily the little girl. Of course, she is a main character. Her cuteness as the cover character draws people in. Then you're captured by the budding relationship between her father and another girl. It's one of the sweetest ones I've come across.

I've read a lot of mangas, from poorly written to award winning. Sweetness and Lightning is an instant favorite.

This series is like: Everything is okay with delicious food!
Me like: Alright, I'm in.

This series is really adorable, the kid is way too cute (seriously, that girl is adorable x1000), the art is awesome and I tend to get really hungry after reading a chapter... that and I get really motivated to start cooking, but then I'm disappointed because everything in the manga looks way more delicious than you could ever recreate in real life. First and foremost, this is a cooking manga. The best I've ever seen, but the plot is still secondary. Now I'm hungry again.

I've been waiting for this series, Im so glad I checked back on it! This manga is so so cute, the art is nice, (forgive me for not knowing the names.) I love the little girl, the way she kisses her daddy! >//w//<
I love when they meet the teen-age girl Im gonna guess he'll probably meet her in school. I also love I know this manga will be awsome! I can't wait for more chapters, thank you for translating this!


What's up with the sudden chapter jump?,

... Last updated on September 8th, 2015, 6:32am