Drama Queen, the new manga by Kuraku Ichikawa, just dropped two days ago, and it already became controversial on the social media platform “X”.
It is being called “racist” because the main character, Nomamoto, straight-up hates aliens. Readers aren’t happy with how the story portrays this, labeling it as “alien hate.”
Twitter is MAD mad about Drama Queen 🍿
— Avizie (@MangaVizie) December 1, 2024
Anyways read Drama Queen guys, it has an interesting concept. People should just stop drawing parallels to it to real life issues, because it's just a manga at the end of the day and not that deep. pic.twitter.com/4CKj3AeJpQ
The story’s got a crazy mix of comedy and sci-fi. Nine years ago, aliens saved Earth from a massive meteor using their advanced tech.
As a thank-you, humans welcomed them with open arms. Now, aliens and humans live side by side.
These aliens quickly climbed the social ladder and took over top positions, leaving many humans feeling left behind. I mean alot of humans are happy about this since they got the technical advancements and they survived the meteor as well.
But our female protagonist Nomamoto is not happy with them. She is frustrated with her life since she cut all ties with her parents and has to make a living for herself, and having to take orders from her alien boss only adds fuel to the fire.
Our female protagonist then meets another alien hater ‘Kitami’, whose family was killed by aliens. They become friends and they come up with a plan to deal with the aliens in their city. The official synopsis of Drama Queen is as follows:
After saving the earth, aliens have taken up residence with the humans in Japan. Nomamoto, a factory worker with an abusive alien boss, one day meets Kitami, who tells her his own family was killed by aliens. The two quickly forge a friendship, but one day Kitami does the unthinkable…
Drama Queen Chapter 1 Recap
Aliens, Ego, and a Bloody Nose
Drama Queen Chapter 1, titled ‘Who Needs Love, When You Have Got Rage‘, starts with Nomamoto casually walking around the city, and suddenly an alien elbows her.
She confronts the alien who apparently is walking with his human girlfriend. However, the alien quickly diverts the blame back to Namamoto and says she is falsely accusing him, even though her nose is bleeding.
The girlfriend of the alien apologizes on the behalf of the alien. We then learn aliens have egos too and they don’t apologize.
The Alien population has surpassed 17Million and Senoo city has more than 60,000 aliens.
Humans are truly grateful to Aliens for saving them and providing them with technology but turns out aliens don’t even pay minimum wages to the humans, they have pretty much taken over the Earth but humans haven’t realized this yet.
Boss From Space, Paycheck From Hell
Nomamoto arrives at her job, and the alien boss hits her for no reason. Sadly, she can’t hit the alien back since she would get fired.
The alien also hits our male protagonist “Kitami”, but he confronts the alien and says why someone who can’t even speak their language is their boss.
Nomamoto realizes there is someone at her job who hates aliens as well. And this is how our main characters become friends, over coffee.
Nomamoto heads back home and she receives her paycheck, which apparently is not enough for even a single person.
She goes over how she is a 17-year-old with no skills so she can’t land a proper job, and she has cut all her ties with her parents, so she can’t ask them for help either. Her hate for aliens keeps getting stronger, and she says wish they’d all disappear.
Nomamoto heads to the beach nearby and Kitami is there too, she is there to catch a fish but Kitami reveals she won’t catch anything at this time of the year.
However, they do catch a small fish after trying for three hours straight. Kitami reveals that his whole family was killed by the aliens, even his little sister with whom he used to go fishing.
Turns out it was a drunk alien driver who killed them. The police didn’t help him since it could create problems with the aliens.
They then discuss whether there was even a meteorite or aliens just made this up to take over our planet.
Their hate towards the aliens brought them closer and they became good friends. The next day Nomamoto heads over to her job again, and her boss hits her again.
Her boss has a habit of using cooling spray since there is no air conditioner in that place. This time around, after using the cooling spray, the boss lights up the cigrate, and it turns out the cooling spray is highly inflammable, the alien catches fire and dies.
Nomamoto received the letter of termination the same day even though it wasn’t her fault.
She was still processing the letter when suddenly she received a call from Kitami who asked her for a favor.
Killing Aliens and… Cooking Them?
Kitami has killed an alien who apparently tried to bully him. At first, Nomamoto hesitates, but eventually, she agrees, they try to find ways to hide the body and finalize cutting the body and cooking the alien.
Turns out alien meat isn’t that bad after all, does that make Nomamoto a cannibal? or rules don’t apply to eating an alien? Well, Kitami doesn’t eat, and then they come up with a plan to get rid of all the aliens in their town.
Kitami will kill the aliens and to get rid of the evidence, Nomamoto will eat them. The chapter ends with the author’s remarks:
A dynamic duo, eating their way to a better life.
Drama Queen Chapter 1 Review
Drama Queen Manga has a mix of humor, sci-fi, and dark themes that will either pull you in or make you question its direction. It pulled me in, alien hate, workplace abuse, accidental murder, and… eating aliens?
Definitely not your typical manga. If you’re into something different, this one is worth a look, a warning, the first chapter is 68 pages long!
Drama Queen Chapter 1 is available on MangaPlus.
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