I found out about Wash It All Away by Mitsuru Hattori via The Manga Test Drive (an excellent review site). It’s about a young woman who runs a clenaners/laundry in a small seaside town known for its hot springs.
That’s significant because, while I enjoyed the low-key, slow-paced, community feel — and the bits about cleaning techniques were interesting — we weren’t allowed to forget about the bathhouses because it’s apparently important to the series that we see our young female protagonist naked in almost every chapter. Sometimes, she’s clearly posed for the reader, as she’s looking out of the page at something that doesn’t exist in the story.
Kinme is super-chipper, always cheerful. We’re told that she has amnesia, that she doesn’t remember anything (except cleaning techniques) from her life more than two years ago, but we’re not shown any way this affects her life, and there’s no explanation in this volume. (There are 11 volumes, of which eight have been announced in English. An anime has been announced for January 2026.) From what the reader knows in this first volume, she’s just a dream girl: cute, dedicated, hard-working, mostly smiling with the catchphrase “Leave it to Kinme.”
I didn’t mind reading Wash It All Away, although the bathing scenes and their convenient wisps of steam did make me roll my eyes. I’m not sure I will want to keep going all that long with it, although when Kinme keeps her clothes on, it seems like a lovely place to visit, and I appreciate her hard work and optimism — they’re an encouraging bit of escapism.
English (US) · 