Amid these uncertain times, a strange success story involving one of my current favorite manga artists has emerged over the past few weeks. 

Ootake Toshimoto, author of Mogusa-san and Teasobi, has been drawing a comic series titled 1 Iine 1 Yen de Bangohan o Taberu Harapeko Joshi, or in English, Hungry Girl Eats Dinner Where 1 Like Equals 1 Yen. The premise: Minori Mogusa, the perpetually hungry heroine of Mogusa-san, is in a situation where she gets 1 yen for every Twitter like. Then, she’s supposed to use the amount earned in each comic on her next dinner. In the first strip above, she has 0 yen, so she’s “air-eating.” 

But while the expectation was that she’d get maybe a few hundred likes, and could build a meal based off of that, reality panned out very differently.

The first comic received 70,155 likes. 1 yen is about 1 cent USD, so that’s about $700. Mogusa freaks out.

The second comic received 115,117 likes, or about $1,150. Below is Mogusa gorging herself on 200 pieces of expensive fatty tuna (as well as some salmon roe) in one sitting. 

By the next comic, a rule was implemented so that the ratio would be 10 likes = 1 yen in certain situations to keep things reasonable.

Not only have these manga strips been cute and hilarious, but it’s giving Ootake and the character of Minori Mogusa a lot more exposure. It’s even to the point that other artists have started their own version of the 1 Like = 1 Yen dinner format. It’s fantastic. I love the hell out of the Mogusa-san manga, and I’m genuinely happy to see Ootake getting the notoriety I know he deserves. I hope this gives Ootake a lot more opportunities, and that the world will come to appreciate Mogusa as just an amazing character.

You can find all the comics in the following Twitter thread: Hungry Girl Eats Dinner Where 1 Like = 1 Yen. Bon appétit!