The Spring 2020 Manga Guide

My Roomie Is a Dino

What's It About? 

Kaede lives an average day-to-day. She works at a small corner store, lives in a small apartment, and when she can, goes drinking with her friends. One day, after just such a night of inebriated revelry, she wakes to find her benign normalcy has been upended. You see, a dinosaur has begun to live with her. An upright, living member of a long-thought extinct species. Despite this inexplicability, Kaede continues to go about her life with Dino in tow. She feeds him ramen, takes him shopping, and even introduces him to her friends. And a remarkable thing begins to happen. Kaede, whose existence was characterized by a comfortable if droll monotony, begins to open up. She begins to try new things, to talk to her co-worker and make friends (even if, at first, it is only to find out just what species Dino hails from). She even reconnects with people she had written off forever, such as an ex-boyfriend. Though Kaede's life might be a lot more absurd, and more than a little incomprehensible, it is certainly a lot more fun.

My Roomie Is a Dino is an original manga series written by Moriko Mori and illustrated by Cota Tomimura. It is published by Kodansha Comics and retails for $5.99 digitally. An anime adaptation, titled Gal & Dino, premiered this Spring (though it is currently on hiatus). It is available through Funimation.

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Is It Worth Reading?

Rebecca Silverman

Rating:

Sometimes you get exactly what's advertised on the cover. My Roomie Is a Dino is one of those cases. Despite the premise – one night Kaede gets drunk and invites a dinosaur to stay at her apartment – the story is much more a slice-of-life tale of a young woman who happens to have a dinosaur for a roommate than a rollicking comedy or even a treatise on dinosaurs in manga form. Kaede goes to work, she and the dinosaur eat various foods, her ex wants to get back together with her and becomes friends with the dinosaur, Kaede becomes friends with her co-worker, and so on. That's not a bad thing, but if you're looking for the next iteration of Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, you're not going to find it here.

Despite its dearth of ambition, the book is fairly pleasant. Kaede's a genuinely nice person who has no issue with living up to her end of the dinosaur roommate bargain (in fact, she's the one who extends their deal from one night to permanently), and she's not only kind to everyone she meets, she's willing to give people more than one chance – even with Dino borrows her purse without asking, all she does is lightly reprimand him and suggest that a different bag would suit him better. Any temper she shows at Dino letting people into their apartment (like the aforementioned ex) fades quickly, and her easygoing attitude is just really nice to see. She has her goofy moments and her less-than-intelligent ones, like when she tries to figure out how to stop stepping on Dino's tail accidentally, but those aren't the focus of the volume.

If anything, this is too nice, because for a wacky set up there's really very little in the way of wackiness. Probably Dino's design is the closest we get – he's very simply drawn to the point where he almost looks out of place in the story, and for no good reason his perpetually open mouth really bugged me. The only other artistic complaint I have is that Kaede really doesn't come off as the gal the story wants us to think she is; there's virtually nothing in her design distinguishing her from any other manga heroine. That makes her coworker's statements about her being a gal just feel awkward and like the story is trying to force that angle.

My Roomie Is a Dino's first volume is pretty much the definition of “harmless.” There's nothing wrong with it and there's nothing especially right with it. It just is in a middle-of-the-road kind of way, and if that's not a ringing endorsement, well, at least it also isn't anything damning, which about sums up my feelings on this book.

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Faye Hopper

Rating:

My Roomie Is a Dino is a strange, offbeat combination of non-sequitur absurdity and low-key slice-of-life that never feels totally certain of the kind of comedy it wants be. And yet, it is intensely readable and occasionally quite pleasant. It is a peculiar thing and one I do not think I recommend. But I do not regret reading it, either.

Of course, the thematic significance of Dino is not lost on me. At the start, Kaede appears to be living an uneventful and routine existence. The antics of Dino, however, force her to go out into the world and get to know others. The manga is at its best in these scenes of making friends (such as when Kaede goes to a co-worker's house to find out Dino's species and in the process ingratiates herself into their family). The problem is these moments are lessened by comedy that is more eyebrow-raising than rib-tickling. Dark jokes involving ‘cutting off tails until they grow back’, asphyxiation and Dino wandering into the 18+ section at video store all grind the sweetness and affability to a disconcerting halt.

The major issues I have with the manga have less to do with its puzzling sense of humor and more to do with the framing of a key subplot. Kaede has an ex-boyfriend named Shota who spends the bulk of the volume trying to worm his way back into her good graces. At the end of the volume, they appear to get back together. I think the idea here is that Shota is a better compliment to Kaede than she is willing to admit, but a lot of Shota's behavior indicates deeper issues with their relationship. In his first scene, he shows up at her apartment unannounced to give her back her makeup and waits at her apartment without her permission (having been let in by Dino). These are not the signs of someone who respects Kaede's boundaries. While there is an argument that even this has authenticity, I do not like how the reasons for their separation are left entirely out of story. That is important, and her hesitancy for not getting back with him is valid.

Perhaps the casually played inexplicability of My Roomie Is a Dino is its appeal. It's clear it is part of the joke (as evidenced by when Kaede wakes up hungover and proceeds about her day normally even though there's a dinosaur living with her), but it is not a joke that works terribly well. Despite this, there are moments here that charmed me and even made me smile. It is an odd contrast, to be sure, and one that does not leave an entirely pleasant taste in the mouth. But given that the manga is about everyday doldrums that just happens to center a walking, smiling Dino, perhaps that is fitting. Perhaps that is the point.