Image via MangaPlaza and An Hamana
With the global situation being what it is and things like inflation making lives harder, we’re also seeing different kinds of media acknowledging the situations people face and toll crunch takes. The MangaPlaza manga series Burned-Out Rika Can’t Take Care of Herself is a perfect example. We see a teacher who gets pushed so far that there’s no choice but to stop and course correct, and when reading it felt like a reminder that good things can come from pacing yourself and taking a break.
Editor’s Note: There will be no spoilers for the Burned-Out Rika Can’t Take Care of Herself manga below.
Burned-Out Rika Can’t Take Care of Herself begins with Rika Tachibana, a veteran teacher at a middle school, pushing herself too hard for 10 years and not enforcing proper boundaries at work. As the first chapter begins, we see how not only her assigned tasks get to her, but that her position also meant she ended up stuck as badminton coach and has colleagues disrespecting her by dumping someone else’s due-next-day assignment on her. As a result, she’s been unable to clean her apartment, hasn’t been able to maintain friendships or a social life, and is stuck living on convenience store food. It’s so bad that a complete stranger competing for the same bento box for her sees how visibly run down she is and what she’s eating and doesn’t “fight” her for the meal as a result.
Naturally, this results in real and tangible consequences. She collapses between classes at school and winds up at the hospital. A reality check from a doctor results in her realizing everything she’s sacrificed and inflicted upon herself for the sake of her job, leading her to resign. It’s then that Burned-Out Rika Can’t Take Care of Herself really gets good and the manga starts to get good.
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Part of this is because it seems like mangaka An Hamana acknowledges this isn’t a “quick fix” for Rika. After resigning, we see she’s still stagnant and frozen, perhaps even depressed and too burned out to really determine what she could do next. It’s incredibly identifiable, especially if someone personally went through a job or series of classes that dominated their life for weeks, months, or years. She doesn’t keep track of food expiration dates. This leads to her eating the same sort of (unhealthy) meal repeatedly. When she tries to clean, she realizes she doesn’t even know what she likes. She doesn’t know how to socialize with her friends again when she finally sees them for dinner after over a year.
When she does finally get out of the house by the end of the first chapter, she’s still so visibly run-down that the man named Yuji Momose who surrendered the bento earlier who runs the Chinese restaurant Manpuku recognizes how basically broken she is. He strongly suggests a kind of comfort food and offers her a low-pressure part-time job there, providing hope for the future in the process.
While Momose’s offer sort of comes across as charity, especially since the role would include a free lunch and dinner, it’s handled in a comforting and reassuring way with no pressure or pity. Which, in turn, makes the manga feel more cozy. Like who among us, who’s dealt with a ton of work at once, wouldn’t leap at an offered job that would cover our necessary expenses while also offering us essentially all the delicious food we would need? I enjoy my job, but I would leap at a more relaxed, part-time role that would cover my rent and bills and make it so I basically never needed to worry about groceries again. Especially since, even though Momose is direct when discussing things, we see a consideration and respect for boundaries that her previous didn’t offer. Respectful as well, as we watch the boss step in to handle an unruly customer and even a customer show Rika more consideration than her past teaching colleagues.
The manga Burned-Out Rika Can’t Take Care of Herself sort of forces a reader to accept and recognize what burn-out is and that stepping back is a necessary remedy. It doesn’t shy away from the fact that even acknowledging the problem and recovering from it takes time. But the care with which it shows the problem and presents a situation that’s a best-case scenario makes it feel like recovery is possible and everything could be okay.
Burned-Out Rika Can’t Take Care of Herself is available on MangaPlaza and all 15 chapters can be found there.