Title: Heaven’s Design Team Vol. 1
Author/Illustrators: Hebi-zou & Tsuta Suzuki
Publisher, Copyright/Release Date: Kodansha Comics, 2020
Price: $12.99
ISBN: 978-1646511136
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Summary and Thoughts: When God created animals, they didn’t do it alone. Enter: Heaven’s Design Team! This is the team that gets animal assignments from God. The cast is as varied as their creations. Each designer has their best-designed animal from horse, to frog, to snake which they incorporate into all of their designs since its creation (hey, if it worked once, right?). Each chapter focuses on the creation of an animal. Given an assignment of “cute” the team might create the Koala for example. The episodes are formulaic: get the assignment, discuss the various aspects they want, test the animal out, potentially on an island on Earth, get Divine Approval. In this volume readers follow the Animal Design Team but also meet the Bug Design Team.
It is very much a manga title from character designs to common tropes. Each character has a quirk and lives up to it. The elderly designer only wants to design horses (which actually works out for the seahorse). The other creator wants to create poisonous creatures (she is a cute and frilly Goth, aka Gothic Lolita).
Yet, it is the character designs that make this a hard book to pin down and recommend. (Upon further research it is recommended for ages 14-17 which I’d agree with.) Most of the men/male-identifying characters are muscular and tall, along with the rotund, teddy bear character. Most of the women/female identifying characters are, well, Shonen-type women plus the Chibi Goth Girl. Shonen-type women tend to be short-skirted, big-chested, and cleavage-showing. They are there and then you get to the swimsuit chapter (hence how I know the men/male identifying characters are muscular; granted, this could be a shojo thing too because one absolutely looked like the love interest in a Shojo manga, but I digress).
On the flip side this is a fantastic STEM title. At one point, I realized that what I was reading was the STEM process. It models the plan, design, and implementation stages over and over. It models failure and changing things after a failed test. There are explanations as to why certain elements worked or failed. Between sections, there are fact pages about the animals covered. Granted, it becomes a bit of a slog after a while due to the repetitive nature of the STEM process, but the educational component is the strongest part of this work. This is great for introducing STEM to readers who prefer manga. I only wish it was aimed at a wider audience because younger readers inclined to books like this would love this. Also, there is no cohesive story either (with some references to previously designed animals), but overall, it is super formulaic and repetitive.
Overall, this is a great manga to add to STEM collections at the secondary level, college level, and teen library collections as needed. It’s been recommended for ages 14-17, and I would even add that college students and adults would enjoy this if they prefer non-fiction comics.
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Recommended Audience: Teens, High School, College, Adults
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Source: Netgalley Digital ARC. Read on a 6 inch screen color eReader.
The Graphic Novel Shelf 
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