The Life and Times of a Busty Office Lady

After over 150+ chapters of this manga, and years of fanart, I’ve come to the conclusion that its existence was used as an excuse for artists try and draw its title character in various outfits and hairstyles. Except by “artists,” I mean “creator” Yanbaru, though countless other artists have aped his art style in order to draw Takizawa-san.

Artist: AfterProject

Oops, I’m jumping the gun. Let’s properly introduce the series. Created by mangaka Yanbaru, Bijin Onna Joushi Takizawa-san (rough translation: My Beautiful Female Superior, Miss Takizawa), is a yonkoma/4-panel manga about office workers. A slice of life that cheekily takes the piss out of Japanese work culture, at least on the mild end where the bosses aren’t evil. You’d need Japan’s answer to Trey Parker and Matt Stone if you wanna take the piss out of Japanese black company culture, and biting satire, though honest, requires an above average number of braincells before the powers that be realize that it’s a plea for change masquerading as a comedy act.

But I digress, it’s primarily a comedy with romantic elements thrown in later into the manga, and quite late I might add, at least 50 or 60 chapters. Sounds like a dissuasion, but the benefit of a yonkoma format is that you can blaze through the first 20 chapters in under five minutes. It would surely explain Azumanga’s popularity back in the day.

Lovely Boss Takizawa starts off with baby-faced new hire, Kota Takeda, starting his job at a company under which he’s accepted into Takizawa’s department as her underling. The first few chapters show Takeda getting accustomed to the office life at this place and his slow introduction to some other characters. The unnamed Section Chief is meant to be written as a comic relief character, but with the gag being that he makes off hand comments about Takizawa’s extra large bust size, very much to her chagrin. This adds him to the shortlist of manga characters with a sexual harassment case as thick as a Yellow Pages. A step above Minoru “Grape Juice” Mineta of MHA fame, but somewhat below Minoru Kobayakawa who’s a lolicon at best, and pedophile at worst.

Mingling with his contemporaries, Takeda meets Shimizu who can best be described as a slacker, but not necessarily harmful to his own or Takeda’s personal development. A middling bro who means well but if given a character to bounce off of with a similar personality comes across as a Rigby to that character’s Mordecai. Wait, that’s pretty much Takeda’s role when I think about it, but the Regular Show comparison ends there since there aren’t any supernatural elements that damn near explode a local park every day.

By the time Takeda’s largely embedded into the company, another newcomer joins up in the form of Aya Miyamoto, a nervous young woman whose exposure to men her age was so severely limited as a consequence of graduating from an all-girls’ school. She has a bit of an anxiety towards men and thanks to her being introduced to Shimizu and the Chief of all people, her anxieties are realized. Thankfully, she makes contact with Miss Takizawa who metaphorically slaps them into gear and helps reintroduce Miyamoto to Takeda whom she regards as more trustworthy and less “dangerous” than the other two.

Away from the 9 to 5, Takizawa and Takeda grow closer and closer to the point where Everybody Knows but Them rears its ugly head, but more to the viewer than towards the other characters. Some, like Shimizu have their suspicions, but no one knows better than Takeda’s sisters, imouto Yuki…

…not that one.

And anee-san, Kaoru. I jest about Yuki Takeda and Yuki Suou right here, but the comparison isn’t as apt as I teased. They both read manga, though Yuki Takeda favors Shojo romance then Suou’s outright smut. I’m still catching up to the manga, but from what I’ve seen of Yuki, she shows her love for her brother in a funny way. Practically screaming at him to be a gentleman when around Takizawa, even though he was already doing that on and off work. Aggressive wingwoman box ticked.

For the more passive wingwoman, Kota’s older sister, Kaori, is more foxy in a manner of speaking. Being the first born, she teases her siblings left and right, and seems to do so indiscriminately every time she hangs out with Takizawa. In one such instance at an arcade, they’re playing all the games, and Kaori ends the trip getting more than a little invasive. Poor Takizawa. She’s already playing dodge harassment at work and Takeda’s older sister shows that she’s not safe from the same treatment around Kaori. Still, she exemplifies the opposite end of the spectrum where she seems to be pushing Takizawa towards Kota while Yuki does the same for Kota, pushing him towards Takizawa. I say passive in the sense that Kaori’s intensity shines less in how she accomplishes her mission compared to Yuki, but going by my description she’s still aggressive towards Takizawa. In that category, we may have to hold off on that tick or at least add an asterisk.

Does their hard work finally pay off? Well, after over 100 chapters of “will they, won’t they” teasing, I’m pleased to report that they do become an item, and some of the reactions around the office are funny. Most of the time, it’s generally seen as a bad idea to date a coworker, least of all someone in a managerial position, but in reality it’ll still happen and under ideal conditions, with a relationship that grows organically, this can blossom into something beautiful. So that’s the romantic aspect, the comedy aspect zeroes in on Takizawa’s F-cups… or G-cups or larger.

For an easily lewded character, I’ve yet to see someone even try to get her measurements. Even Yanbaru himself hasn’t bothered with this, AFAIK. I’ll just leave it at G-cup and call it a day. If that’s the case than most of her bras would either be special order (not too hard considering her position and its regular salary) or she’d have to look online for bras normally marketed to heavy-set women in Britain and America.

Do I give this series a recommendation? Depends on what you’re looking for honestly. If you’re looking for boob jokes or commentary, most of them come from the Chief or Shimizu and they’re not good parameters for comedy. If you’re looking for something akin to Kiyohiko Azuma, then you’ll find that in spades. The later chapters do still have visual gags like Takizawa’s boobs bouncing every which way, but I figure when your chest is big enough to shake your table if you plop them on the top, that mostly comes with the territory. And if you want to see a romance develop in a yonkoma, well you’re in for the long haul. Slice of life stories tend to have to fight to be seen or heard when every animanga these days is about balletic, bombastic fights and pseudo-kung fu mysticism, but this works in Great Boss Takizawa’s favor seeing as it can be break from the Jujutsu Kaisens and Solo Levelings getting all the praise these days.

For as much as I like this manga, pacing can summon the Sandman in some areas and the Azumanga Daioh is strong in the story structure seeing as this kind of format favors nonlinear storytelling. There is progression in the story, but with each chapter being written the way it is (usually apropos of nothing until a prior plot point is connected), it can be something of a chore in some areas. But the announcement of Takeda and Takizawa’s relationship developing is something to look forward to at least. For now, all the chapters are available on MangaDex with regular updates, but if you wanna find a pirate site to read it, then by all means. Beware the sidebar and pop-up ads.

Artist: yan-baru

Yanbaru may be having fun with putting Takizawa in outfits like this, but reading the manga shows why she’d never wear something so provocative.