Main Review
Najika is a great cook and likes to make meals for the people she loves. But something is missing from her life. When she was a child, she met a boy who touched her heart–and now Najika is determined to find him. The only clue she has is a silver spoon that leads her to the prestigious Seika Academy. Attending Seika will be a challenge. Every kid at the school has a special talent, and the girls in Najika’s class think she doesn’t deserve to be there. But Sora and Daichi, two popular brothers who barely speak to each other, recognize Najika’s cooking for what it is–magical. Is either boy Najika’s mysterious prince? (From the back of the first volume) Along the way, she meets and helps many students, including a teen model with an eating disorder and a teenage cooking prodigy.

This is one of the best shorter shojo manga for the younger age set I've come across. The first 5 volumes are pretty generic shojo fair: girl meets two great boys, boys fall for girl, girl chooses one, etc. It does a great job of handling issues such as eating disorders and familial strife in these first few books. Then the series begins to get deeper and sadder. One of the male leads dies helping Najika, and a new male lead appears. In the last 5 volumes it tastefully deals with issues such as suicide, death, secrets, and parental neglect. It's story and art is so beautiful and you really start to truly care about the characters. I cried a TON in the last 5 books. I'm sure you will too.

While Del Rey Manga gave this manga a 13+ rating, I would really recommend for girls as young as 10-It's really a very clean shojo manga.

Violence Details
Some girl fights, ripped clothes, bruised cheeks, etc. Most notably, during shots of Spoiler: a main character being hit and killed by a truck, shots of another character's mother dying in the act of saving him,and the scene where a character falls from a cliff.

Nudity/Sexual Content
A very clean series in this respect. In the first volume, Najika walks on a shirtless Daichi.
Najika's dress is ripped once, revealing some cleavage, but Sora covers her with a sheet to save her dignity. At their first meeting, Daichi gets a view of Najika's panties as she climbs down from a tree, and out of embarassment she looses her footing and falls on him. Some kissing between characters. In a side story, a straight man is kissed on the cheek by a presumably gay French chef (he's also WAY too affectionate). For the most part, very clean.

Problematic Theology
This series has a lot of death. In a side story, Najika and co. help a lovesick ghost find peace. After a death, Najika cries, "Why, God, do always take the people most important to me away from me?!" She receives supernatural comfort is not from God, just a message of sorts from those who have died. A dead character "tells" Najika that they will send someone to take care of her and that they will put a rainbow in the sky (ironically, the rainbow is the Biblical sign of promise). The same character appears to Najika while they are visiting his grave.

Problematic Themes
Akane is a teen model, and accordingly, struggles with bulemia and anorexia. Spoiler: She later overcomes them.

This is a fairly adorable, but still fairly average shoujo romance. All the characters that come into play are average, but the plot manages to surprise enough that they all interact in some fairly unique ways. At first, I thought it would be the stereotypical love triangle plot that is the basis for most shoujo romances, but the one that our heroine was going to start dating was an utter surprise and very much a twist on the normal set-up.

Unfortunately, a tragic turn of events steers this right into the situation I was expecting from the start, but with a new player replacing the character that leaves. At least the way it happened was far from usual! I was shocked, actually, because to have something so tragic and permanent happen really isn't common in shoujo, and made a really stand-out moment for me.

So while the romance starts out unusual and disappointed me in the end by going back to the standard, the way the plot went about it really got to me in some parts.

The other half of the story is Najika using her skills to keep her place at the school. This was also very decently done, with a few interesting twists to the story. She is a good, thoughtful cook, adnd comes into the school knowing a lot about it from the beginning- she doen't really have room for 'improvement', just adjusting her recipes slightly, which streamlines the plot very nicely and made it move at a good pace. Instead, the focus is on letting her manage a restaraunt, deal with the faculty objections, and entering some competitions.

All in all, the end wasn't surprising at all, but I really did enjoy some of the atypical plot points that made the story more enjoyable than most shoujo.

Violence/Gore- A character is hit by a car and dies- you see some blod and his body lying in the street.

Nudity/Sexual Content- A boy sees her panties when she is climbing a tree. Najika's dress rips, but she's covered by someone's coat. There are two or three kisses.

Theological Themes- A side story features a ghost that has come back to say good-bye before going to heaven. Najika meets the spirit of the boy who dies when at his grave.

Other Themes- One of Najika's friends ends up with an eating disorder- Najika helps her recover. It's clearly made out to be unhealthy.