Thank you to NetGalley for granting this ARC, super cute and fast read. The illustrations were adorable and the story was cute.

There are some absolutely beautiful illustrations in this manga and the characters are all very enjoyable. I would definitely recommend it.

Adventures of a Female Cop – Police in a Pod Vol. 1 [Manga]

Mangaka: Miko Yasu
Publisher: Kodansha
Genres: Seinen, Slice of Life
Published: June 2021

Police officers are somewhat a touchy topic nowadays, and rightly so. Police brutality and corruption is nothing to scoff at as civilian lives are literally at state. On the other hand, generalizing that all police officers are bad worldwide isn’t really fair for countries with actual good cops. That being said, being a police officer isn’t an easy job either. Faced with a lot of prejudice and whatnot, one must have patience beyond belief. Or maybe, just be a badass female cop. That’s exactly what Police in a Pod is all about.

Contains Spoilers

Discussion Time

New police officer Kawai gets disheartened as she faces constant mistrust and taunts from those she apprehends. Since she doesn’t really have a deep reason for joining the force, she readies her resignation letter only to postpone it as she gets a new female director. Not just any female director, a very badass one at that. The more she spends time with her, the more she reconsiders submitting her resignation letter.

Why You Should Read Police in a Pod Vol. 1

1. Slice of Life Indeed

As we follow Kawai and her director as they go about their daily routines, we see things through a police officer’s lens, albeit fictionally. Since the series doesn’t have any fixed plot, we have no idea what the next chapter holds. However, every chapter doesn’t fail to make us smile at least once or twice. Typical to slice of life series, Police in a Pod has a very relaxed tone and the gravest dilemmas are nothing but mundane. Be it a confrontation with a professional criminal or perhaps a heated encounter between one’s relative, everything hits somewhere close to home.

2. Sitback, Relax, and Read

With such a calm set up, we rarely get annoyed or frustrated. Of course, those scenes still exist, especially when Kawai gets taunted and shouted at. However, those scenes don’t really pan out, so we can’t really get angry even if we tried to. Even though it’s a series about cops, we don’t really see any action from them. Perhaps that’s because they’re just cops on the streets, which mostly means enforcing traffic rules. That being said, it’s a good title to pick up to pair your casual morning coffee or a short read before a good night sleep.

Why You Should Skip Police in a Pod Vol. 1

1. Not Really Too Convincing

The lack of tension is good and all, but it somehow costs the series depth. In order to finish the arc quickly and calmly, the series creates an unrealistic thought process and rationale. For instance, the serial burglar that acted as a sacrifice in order to highlight Fuji’s badassery just somewhat decides to spill everything out without the slightest resistance. What’s more, he’s amicable enough to teach Kawai a thing or two. That guy definitely doesn’t act like a criminal. Of course, it doesn’t always turn out like this, but when it does, it’s too glaring not to notice.

Final Thoughts

If you’re looking for something light and relaxing to read, do give Police in a Pod a try. It’s definitely not the best within the genre, but it still delivers a chill read. But if you’re looking for an action-packed series or something that provides depth, then this isn’t the series for you.

By: Christian Markle

'Police in a Pod 1' with story and art by Miko Yasu is a manga about a rookie police officer learning her job.

Kawai is new to the police force and she is already fed up with the job. That is, until she meets the new female directore of the station. She is stretched in a series of different scenarios like a school PR trip, helping a runaway teen, and even an autopsy.

There could have been something interesting here, but the story makes odd jumps and there is just an underlying meanness to it that I didn't like. The art is good. I just wish I'd liked it more.

I received a review copy of this manga from Kodansha and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you for allowing me to review this manga.

Police in a Pod volume 1 is a nice humorous tale of Kawai's journey to become a successful police officer despite her own doubts about her ability. throughout the title Kawai is guided by her mentor, a fellow police woman who helps Kawai overcome her insecurity.

#PoliceinaPod1 #NetGalley

I was duped.

I thought this was going to be a yuri. I thought this was going to be gay. That’s the impression I hit from the synopsis, but sadly I had the wrong impression. That’s fine. Maybe the manga had something else to offer.

Nope.

I can say for certainty that this manga is not worth reading. I have never read such a disjointed story that was just so lifeless and boring. There wasn’t a coherent plot to follow, the characters are one dimensional at best, and there was just nothing to enjoy.

The only way I could recommend this is if someone was looking for a manga full of examples of what not to do when writing a story.

I don't know what to think about Police in a Pod by Miko Yasu. It has so much potential that seems to be wasted.
The story follows a young female police officer who hates her job and wants to quit. On the day she plans to quit, a more experienced female officer is demoted to her department and she starts to learn a thing or two about the job that she was supposed to already be doing.

This could have easily been a more feminist forward title, and there are elements and moments when I think that could have been the purpose of the work. But, conversely, there are moments when it is very much not feminist and actually highlights the male dominated aspect of the police force in Japan.

The artwork was strange and not appealing or sophisticated, it felt more graphic novel than manga in style. It was certainly more aimed toward a male audience than a female asthetic - hence my confusion as to this works purpose?

The main downfall of this work is the translation and editing, or lack of! A Proofreader would have been able to identify the many instances of error or lack of flow, pace, fluency, or general understanding that the reader would pick up on. I dodn't know if a translator has done a shody job or the editor butchered it - but this manga did not even make sense at times and I feel that in the Japanese it would have been a much more entertaining read. It is potential wasted!

In saying all the above, I still actually enjoyed this title and found it interesting just not engaging. It lacked sophistication and purpose!

I'm gonna be honest... I couldn't get into this book at all. The art work wasn't engaging, I had no idea what was going on with the story and it just felt... like a draft. I don't really have much to say about it in a positive way. It felt like someone accidentally published their first draft of the story.

One out of five stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and Kodansha for providing me a free copy of this book in exchange of an honest review.

The illustrations look good and the main character's micro bangs are what made me stay. She's so innocent and kind, it's hard to believe she was a police officer at all. The storyline is a bit disjointed and all over the place for my liking though. Nothing substantial really happened and I'm constantly asking what's the point throughout the entire reading experience.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this eARC. This manga was OK. I thought the premise was interesting. Some stories were gritty, others were slice of life. The artwork was passable.

This manga was nothing like the cover or synopsis. I was expecting a cute yuri title, and instead found a load of pure copaganda. Absolutely a never purchase.

A fun read with a main protagonist that finds her passion through great inspiration. What really works is the relationship between the two female officers as they navigate and grow together in their profession.

This one's just not for me. I don't care for the art. The plot while interesting in description is rather a dull affair when reading. It just doesn't stand out in any way and feels like a major disappointment for what could have been. It is readable and not truly terrible which saves it from a dreaded one star... but it's just not that interesting. 2/5

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

I was intrigued to read Police in a Pod, since we don't get to see police work that much in manga. Kawai is about to resign from being a police, since it wasn't what she even wanted and she doesn't feel like she fits in the police force. Her station gets a new female director and this woman is not only a badass, but really good at her work and begins to teach Kawai too. She does it on the side and soon Kawai notices that the work doesn't suck as much as she thought. I really liked the fact that there were lots of women in the police force especially considering we are talking about Japan here. I liked the dry discussions and all, but I'm not so sure if the manga is correctly done. I don't think officers such as these do all the work themselves. Like checking dead bodies, working with police dogs and whatnot. This felt unprofessional.

I had hard time getting into this, since in Finland police school is a polytechnic level education and one of the hardest to get in. It's very strict what you can do and in the manga this protocol felt lazy. We also never get to know our characters, since they don't really have a persona. It's just dry police talk and jumping from one case to another. I didn't understand what the manga wanted to say and thus two stars.

This manga was an overall letdown. From the cute cover and the summary, I was expecting a story about gay police officers with adorable art, but my hopes were very quickly dashed. Between an inconsistent, unaesthetically pleasing art style, randomly different fonts, and misplaced humor, there was nothing to make up for the transparent police propaganda this manga was.

Overall, I couldn't bring myself to like it because there is zero depth. The bond between Kawai and her new coworker isn't built up very well and every time Kawai, who was originally going to resign, starts to consider possible corruption in the force or why people seem to dislike police so much, her thoughts get smoothed over with sudden humor or a "cute" moment. I especially disliked how civilians were constantly depicted as just being hard on police with their jobs for no reason. When they pulled over an old woman with shaking hands for speeding and gave her a nearly $200 ticket, I expected there to be some reflection of Kawai's part, but there was very little lack of awareness or nuance across this plot. I felt catfished when I expected there to be anything more than the same message I could get out of an afterschool special. I would not recommend this and I will not be continuing.

Is it Gay? No.
Does it feel like a piece of propaganda? Yes.

I definitely enjoyed this manga at parts. But as soon as I'd step away, I was left to consider how Civilians are depicted vs Police Force in this work. This depiction being that the civilians are being to hard on the police for just doing their jobs..

While the protagonist does have fleeting thoughts about corruption in the force it is quickly smoothed over by a piece of humor or wholesomeness.

So all in all, I won't be returning to this manga series.

I found it difficult to focus on the story of Police in a Pod as the artstyle for this manga is disjointed. The characters look different between panels/pages and some are squished. I could identify the main characters more by hair then their actual features. This distracted from the story, which has potential but got lost under the mish/mash art.

Police in a Pod has an interesting premise. I appreciate that the storyline didn't follow a drastic, unrealistic path of one new reassigned colleague changing everything. However, between the entirely different cultural attitudes on policing, the rough flow of the narrative, unremarkable art, and annoying font changes, I couldn't bring myself to like this title. (I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.)

Review to come June 17th on blog/goodreads/etc..

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange of an honest review.

So... when I saw this manga/read the blurb, I thought this would be an interesting manga about police with maybe a dash of f/f... instead it was weird conversations, stilted/1-dimensional art, and a lot of unprofessional stuff.

Meet our MC, she is new to the police force and we see how she struggles through things. Thankfully, she has a very good-looking (in her words) chief to help her out and get her through things. At points this was a pretty interesting manga, seeing what kind of cases the police gets. See them meet with burglars, but also sex offenders, and old ladies ignoring stop-signs. All kinds of facets of the job pass by. From autopsy to traffic controlling to finding missing people. They do a lot of things despite being a small policebox.

Sadly, I sometimes just had to re-read as things just didn't seem to flow right.

The conversations between these characters feel more like scripted than actually flowing naturally. Not to mention the conversations are just so weird at times. I mean, our MC is on patrol with her chief and she just randomly starts to talk about what happened in her youth and why she is not a fan of the police. She even makes constant comments on how the cops are horrible/steal/etc.. which had me very confused given that... she is a policewoman. And so there are more examples, like the girl who was abused and was told that our MC was a virgin (which let to a very weird letter from that girl) or the fact that none of the peeps at the station couldn't help our MC write her report because she didn't know a sex word. WTF? And so there are more conversations that just didn't seem appropriate or just felt out of place.

The art. OH BOY. It was just so flat/stilted. At times it just looked like the characters were stuck on the pages without a care of dimensions, shadows, proportions, or anything. The faces were odd at times as well. I mean at one point the chief meets a guy from her graduate class, he became an ace and she became a policewoman in a police box. Her expression? Shock, with a tiny bit of a gasp. Which just didn't fit the situation at all in my eyes.
Also WHAT was up with that chapter with the missing person? That was such a switch from the art we got the whole volume. And then it went back to normal a few pages after. WHY? While the art was not the best in this one either, it was a step up (though really, don't look at the dog, don't look at the dog), and I was sad we only got a few pages of it.

So yeah, will I continue reading? No. One volume was a struggle, not into struggling through more. I am still happy that the publisher gave me a chance to read it.

Thank you so much NetGalley forgiving me a chance to read this early. This manga wasn’t horrible but it didn’t seems to have a decent story line. The female leads were polar opposite and a lot of the manga was just talking about how people in Japan view the police. I probably won’t finish the series.