Reading YKK always puts me in a strange mood. Often reading seems to be the only way to trigger this mood in modern American society. Reading YKK makes me want to sit back and appreciate things, rather than just going through life doing what I've always been doing. Whenever I'm forced to take a break, I always have an impulse to go for a long walk - even though I know that as soon as I get back in I will die from allergies (I live in Austin, TX, in all seriousness a contender for "Allergy Capital of the US"). The only reason I don't read YKK on a near-continuous basis is that I'm afraid I'd get sick of it after too many repetitions.

It's not a story for everyone - if you're looking for action, drama, off-the-wall comedy, fanservice, or pretty much whatever most mainstream manga is built around, you won't find that here. (The only reason it counts as seinen is because kids would find it boring.) In a way, that's the best part - rather than just going for constant, almost driving levels of entertainment; it takes the time to slow down and force you to look at life from a perspective of someone who can enjoy things because they're there. YKK is the epitome of the slow, quiet manga - it pulls you into its slow, quiet world, and makes you very depressed when you have to go back to reality since you won't be able to spend your whole day just sitting and looking at scenery (and as boring as that may sound, YKK makes you seriously want to).

YKK gets an overall score of 10 for me.

The story is 10 - very well-done, even though it's in effect a slice-of-life manga with no true overarching plotline between chapters. In fact, most of the plot beyond each individual chapter goes on in the background, rarely if ever interacting with the characters themselves. The beauty of it is that no one has to even mention the background plot for you to understand everything going on in it. For example, the fact that over the course of the manga humanity is slowly disappearing is only mentioned once, and I was a bit surprised when I discovered this line on my second read-through - apparently I missed it the first time, but I had understood that this was happening anyway. It's subtle enough that I'm not sure I can even explain why.

Art is 10 also. It's rather different from the standard manga artstyle nowadays, and transitioning to YKK after reading other things can be a bit jarring sometimes, but that's for no inherent flaw in the art itself. Of course, the scenery is beautiful - most, if not all, chapters have sections with no text and nothing but panoramic scenes of whatever landscape Alpha happens to admiring. The prevalence of these really adds to the manga - rather than slowing it down and making it boring, the images provide a strong sense of the world in which the story is happening, and almost as much is said by the art as by the text (especially when it comes to the background plot).

Character gets a 9 - the Romantic Two Girl Friendship between Alpha and Kotone seems unnecessary and a bit distracting, though that's more my personal taste. It's subtle enough that you don't really have to notice it, though. Beyond that, the characters are done very well, with all but the most minor characters having very well-defined and interesting personalities. There's no one who seems like "all they ever do is X". In the case of Takahiro and Makki, watching them grow up is one of the most heartwarming aspects of the manga.

Enjoyment is turned up to 11. YKK has actually raised my standards for manga - I read a bit less now, since every time I read I hope for an experience like this and am almost always disappointed. (Not to say that whatever I read isn't worth reading, it's just not on the level of YKK.) I mentioned the mood that it puts me in, and I truly wish I could find another story like YKK that would induce the same feeling. There are a few that come close (the Sketchbook anime is pretty good at this), but nothing I have yet found has matched YKK in excellence.

If you're someone who is trying to want simplicity and quiet in their life, but just can't get away from the distractions of modern society, read this. It'll do all the work for you. The hard part is keeping the feeling going once you've finished it.

YKK is a wonderful manga - it's interesting and beautifully-drawn, and it imparts a sense of "the world is worth looking at" and makes you want to go out and do exactly that.