Summary
The book, The Gangster’s Guide to Housekeeping, is a unique guidebook inspired by the anime and manga series, The Way of the Househusband, and offers advice on various topics like recipes, cleaning tips, and even self-defense. Screenwriters Laurie Ulster and Victoria Rosenthal capture the rhythm of the series effectively by getting into the character’s thoughts and understanding his point of view. The book maintains Japanese cultural elements found in the series, such as haiku writing and flower arrangement, and the writers have conducted research and engaged with local restaurants and markets to ensure authenticity.
The path of a housewife husband is an anime and manga series by Kousuke Oono about a retired Yakuza who now lives as an ordinary ‘housewife’, doing chores like cooking, cleaning, and shopping. Much of the humor stems from the way the main character, Tatsu, intensely completes these daily tasks, and the series itself also contains some helpful tips on cleaning the house.
Related to the series is a new book, The Household Husband’s Way: The Gangster’s Butler’s Guide.
Writers Laurie Ulster and Victoria Rosenthal in Gangster’s Hygiene Guide
Rant screen:
Nice to meet you both. I really enjoyed reading this book and felt that it created some themes that would otherwise be, you know, a little bit more mundane, that would be much more interesting.
Laurie:
Great. Thank.
Rant screen:
Well, I definitely put some stuff in the book to work, so it was very helpful to me. But I’m curious, but what made you think of creating a guidebook like this from Way of the Househusband?
Laurie:
Victoria, I’ll throw that one for you.
Victoria:
Well, to be honest, it all started with an editor from Viz, contacting me, and at first it was like, we were just discussing other anime and manga that I was interested in. And then at a point, she said, ‘Oh, we’re going to continue with The Housewife’s Way, and we see that it’s on your list.’ And I’m a recipe writer, I write recipes and all that fun stuff. She said, ‘Oh, do you know how to clean the room?’ Like, no. Incorrect. So that’s where Laurie comes in. And I was like, Okay, perfect. But it’s an easy project to like, let’s get going because I love the series and there’s a lot of food in it, so it’s easy to pull out a bunch of recipes to put together for this.
Laurie:
Yes, and then I was hired to do the other part. Because I like to write a lot of, you know, lifestyle content and stuff like that. And then it’s just… Yeah, try to see it all through this character’s eyes and approach things in that particular way.
Rant screen:
Well, I’d say you captured the tone of the series pretty well, in the book, to the point where I read it in my head in Tatsu’s voice. How did you capture the character’s voice so effectively?
Laurie:
I mean, for me, I just really immerse myself in the pages that I’m reading and understand who he is. And then once you do that, it’s just fantasy after that, and just trying to see the world through his eyes and how he does each thing and how he thinks about it and how it relates to his past experiences.
Rant screen:
Attractive. One thing that I appreciated when going through the book is that you have maintained a lot of the Japanese cultural elements that you see in the series, and you have incorporated those elements into the book, such as writing Haiku and Ikebana, flower arranging. Was there any difficulty in bringing this work from another culture to you in this particular book?
Laurie:
I mean, for me, I’ll say it as if, there are some things that I’m definitely not familiar with at first. Like the example I keep giving us, ‘laundry counter’, that’s not something I’m familiar with at all. But then, you know, you just have to research and gather information and try to make sense of it. I mean, for Victoria, I’m sure it’s different because she’s dealing with actually creating recipes.
Victoria:
Yeah, there’s been a lot of research behind it and visiting local restaurants and Japanese markets, sort of talking to some of the owners of those places and being like, ‘Oh, this ingredient, do you have any suggestions on where I can get it, how do I work with it?’ Over the years, I’ve learned that the best source of information is to ask people and ask the people who work at the restaurant, what they use that information for and just the type of social interaction. Sometimes it helps to figure out how to use a component that I’ve never used before.
Rant screen:
As I read through this book, I also noticed that the book covers a wide variety of topics, from cleaning to baking to self-defense. How is the scope of the book determined? For example, what are some things that you know you need to have in the book versus some things that you might not want to include in the book, but are still there in the end?
Victoria:
I know the recipes myself, I’m told ‘We have these many sites, these many places. Go ahead and make a list of recipes you want to go through.’ So I re-read the manga, and then like to take note of every recipe that was in it. And actually, a section added near the end is from some untranslated chapters, at the time I was writing this book a year ago. I think episode 10 wasn’t out yet at that time. And the editor was like, this is this chapter. That’s where they go to harvest a bunch of bamboo. And then I was like, ‘Oh, that’s a really good chapter.’ But me, I didn’t know it existed. So it’s one that was added on request like, ‘Oh, can we add this to the list?’
Laurie:
Yeah, and for me, I was given a sketch of something like, here’s all the things he said and tried to do, and then the number of pages to look at. But there’s definitely some flexibility then to look like, ‘I don’t think this will work, But maybe this, this will work.’ But it’s really all from, or still has to, come from the comic pages. Like that’s the source of everything.
Rant screen:
Well, there’s definitely a lot going on in the manga. So I can see how you end up with such a large amount in the book. Are there any favorite parts that you had, when you were writing the book? Or perhaps your favorite recipe, Victoria?
Victoria:
The simple answer, for me, is the honey lemon chicken sandwich. Double, because I convinced my husband to enjoy the second series by letting him watch the Netflix series, and then it made him read the book. He was like, ‘Oh, this is great.’ But I know the moment that recipe appeared in the anime, he said, ‘can you make that?’ and this is before i have the project. And I thought, ‘maybe someday’, because frying is a bit difficult. And it’s not the best thing for you to have. So when I received the project, I thought, ‘Finally, we have to eat this bread!’
Laurie:
And for me, I mean, the things he does that I love most are definitely babysitting and taking care of pets, and things like that, it’s fun and funny to imagine him doing. And then as a writer, it was fun to combine my own experience with his and give it a try. You know, I’m a mom and I have a teenager, and trying to combine some of the things I’ve learned and some of my experiences with him to come up with something new and fun, like a Halloween costume, or like how to use online groups in your neighborhood and you know, stuff like that.
Rant screen:
Is there anything in particular that makes you work on a project that targets such a specific demographic, who perhaps sometimes aren’t the best at some of these household chores?
Laurie:
I mean, I don’t know, I certainly don’t know those stereotypes in particular, but I’m well versed in fandom in general, like I’m a huge fan of Star Trek, and I write about it, I interview people and I do all that. And that comes with its own assessments. So I don’t make any judgments, because I’m used to receiving them.
Victoria:
Yes, I know. I mean, the main reason I started writing recipes, which is now my career, is for video game fans who find cooking scary. And I understand, the kitchen can be scary. There are a bunch of the same tools you have to use and a bunch of different components. How do you combine all of this? And my biggest thought was, ‘Well, if I combine my love of video games and all the food in them, maybe that will convince a handful of people to start making recipes and maybe adventure into the kitchen.’ And I’ve seen a lot of people go ‘oh, I’ve never cooked this’, or have parents come up to me, ‘Oh, my kids have never liked to cook, but see these recipes and be like, oh, I want to cook this recipe from this game or now from this comic book.’ It gets them into the kitchen and that always gets me so excited that I’ll give someone a little push to start that adventure.
Laurie:
And I will say for sure, that doing Tatsu’s voice tips looks like it’s going to be more fun doing a bunch of these tasks.
An Introduction to The Housewife’s Way and the Gangster’s Butler’s Guide
Kousuke Oono’s Way of a Housewife is a comedy manga series about Tatsu, a former Yakuza who now lives the life of a housewife, but still speaks and behaves like a Yakuza. He faces mundane tasks and old rivals while surpassing everything in front of him with an intensity few can match. The Way of the In-laws received a Netflix cartoon using a limited animation style that has been running for two seasons.
Gangster’s Housekeeping Guide drew inspiration from Tatsu’s adventures in housekeeping and his raw language to create a guidebook completely unlike any other on the market. It contains everything from recipes to cleaning tips to self-defense, providing the reader with a variety of skills to deal with the types of problems that both they and Tatsu face in their daily lives. The Gangster’s Guide to Housekeeping is set for release by Viz Media on July 25, 2023.