In my small closed minded anime viewing world there seems to be a few more
cooking shows than normal recently. I enjoy anime and love cooking, so
this should be a win win for me right? Not exactly. The most recent
shows that have cooking or eating themes have been rather disappointing in a
few areas, most notably the need to be a bit more than natural.
Gourmet Girls Graffiti ended up being a banal story for director Simbo Akiyuki to apply his unique sense of humor to. His previous works, Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei and Arakawa Under the Bridge were engaging and off the cuff. Yet Girls Graffiti more seemed like strained attempts at food sexualization in order to make the story more interesting.
Food Wars on the other hand uses worn out shonen battle formats and unnecessary sexualization to entice its adolescent target audience. I guess it's a bit more realistic to be an amazing chef compared to the 10th Hokage, but it’s still rather pointless pandering in my world view. It appears to be little more than attempting to cash in on some time tested concepts instead of actually telling an engaging story.
Wakako-zake on the other hand offers barely anything other than to remind me that too much bar food in Japan consists of animal parts I don’t eat. But, I guess there isn't much you can do with the material, especially in a 2 minute format. Still, the entire premise of a show internalizing the dialogue of a lone OL and her nightly drinking and feasting routines is a bit banal. (Ignore the fact I greatly enjoy reading 34-sai Mushoku-san).
What has grabbed my attention though is an honest slice of life manga on Crunchyroll called Sweetness & Lightning. The story focuses on a recently widowed father and his preschool aged daughter. The father has little cooking abilities and in the months since his wife has died he and his daughter eat convenience store meals and other prepackaged fare. The father is 'forced' to allow one of his students to teach him how to cook at her family restaurant. Each issue of the manga details them formulating a menu for the day and the process of cooking the dish with the recipe provided at the end. While this may sound rote and boring the cooking portion is typically blended well with slice of life issues for all of the characters involved. Most notably the main characters desires to fill in the void left in his daughter’s life following his wife's death. His student is using the guise of teaching him how to cook to fill the loneliness from her absentee mother.
Sweetness & Lightning offers something I crave these days in manga/anime, realism and some relatability. As I grow older I find myself drawn to more and more slice of life stories, particularly quirky and believable ones. Not so much to moe fan service driven titles. This manga is another addition to a steadily growing list of stories that make my smile and remind me of segments of my own life, if only small portions. Plus, it's a nice was to expand my recipe list.
Not that the other cooking stories are worthless, they just have little appeal to me today, if they even would have in the past. Either way, Sweetness & Lightning is yet another 'hidden' gem of a manga I found on Crunchyroll and am enjoying it as it comes.
Gourmet Girls Graffiti ended up being a banal story for director Simbo Akiyuki to apply his unique sense of humor to. His previous works, Sayonara Zetsubo Sensei and Arakawa Under the Bridge were engaging and off the cuff. Yet Girls Graffiti more seemed like strained attempts at food sexualization in order to make the story more interesting.
Food Wars on the other hand uses worn out shonen battle formats and unnecessary sexualization to entice its adolescent target audience. I guess it's a bit more realistic to be an amazing chef compared to the 10th Hokage, but it’s still rather pointless pandering in my world view. It appears to be little more than attempting to cash in on some time tested concepts instead of actually telling an engaging story.
Wakako-zake on the other hand offers barely anything other than to remind me that too much bar food in Japan consists of animal parts I don’t eat. But, I guess there isn't much you can do with the material, especially in a 2 minute format. Still, the entire premise of a show internalizing the dialogue of a lone OL and her nightly drinking and feasting routines is a bit banal. (Ignore the fact I greatly enjoy reading 34-sai Mushoku-san).
What has grabbed my attention though is an honest slice of life manga on Crunchyroll called Sweetness & Lightning. The story focuses on a recently widowed father and his preschool aged daughter. The father has little cooking abilities and in the months since his wife has died he and his daughter eat convenience store meals and other prepackaged fare. The father is 'forced' to allow one of his students to teach him how to cook at her family restaurant. Each issue of the manga details them formulating a menu for the day and the process of cooking the dish with the recipe provided at the end. While this may sound rote and boring the cooking portion is typically blended well with slice of life issues for all of the characters involved. Most notably the main characters desires to fill in the void left in his daughter’s life following his wife's death. His student is using the guise of teaching him how to cook to fill the loneliness from her absentee mother.
Sweetness & Lightning offers something I crave these days in manga/anime, realism and some relatability. As I grow older I find myself drawn to more and more slice of life stories, particularly quirky and believable ones. Not so much to moe fan service driven titles. This manga is another addition to a steadily growing list of stories that make my smile and remind me of segments of my own life, if only small portions. Plus, it's a nice was to expand my recipe list.
Not that the other cooking stories are worthless, they just have little appeal to me today, if they even would have in the past. Either way, Sweetness & Lightning is yet another 'hidden' gem of a manga I found on Crunchyroll and am enjoying it as it comes.
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