Tetsu Kariya

Foodies, Japanese-style. Oishinbo follows the adventures of culinary journalist and slacker Shiro Yamaoka and his partner Yuko Kurita in their apparently never-ending quest to create the "Ultimate Menu," a meal embodying the pinnacle of Japanese cuisine. Shiro often butts heads with his estranged father Yuzan Kaibara, a famous artist (whose sculptures Shiro once smashed to bits -- thus the estrangement) and founder of the ultra-exclusive Gourmet Club.

The American version of this popular show more manga series is published "a la carte," which means that the American publisher pulled it apart and put it back together according to food category. So instead of a coherent narrative, you get all the episodes dealing with sake, sushi, pub food, etc., in one volume. As a result, the continuity gets lost, and you'll probably be a little confused while reading the series in the order it's published in the United States. Still, the end notes do a decent job of explaining the back story you lose, and the main story is simple enough that you won't be lost. This is a fun series that will make you run to the nearest Japanese restaurant hoping to find something you read about here. (This review applies to the other volumes that I read in the series .) show less

That was painful.

I love manga, I love books about food and cooking, I love books about Japan. What could go wrong?

Well, a cast of characters that I don't like, for one thing. Kaibara Sensei is such a jerk and his son is not much better and the rivalry between them gets old really quick. There are some interesting tidbits about Japanese cooking - how to prepare a great sea bream, for instance. Unfortunately, the part I would be interested in turned out to be extremely boring.

The art work was show more so-so. I couldn't really tell anyone apart except for a couple of the characters.

At the end, I was hoping they would all just get food poisoning so there wouldn't be a volume 2, but no such luck. I, however, will be returning it to the library unread.

(I did see that this is a popular serialized manga and has been around for many years. This book seems to be highlights from the series. Perhaps one of the problems is that this is too much Oishinbo to take in at one time. Like good food, perhaps one should not be greedy and try to eat too much and ruin their appetite and think the entire meal a disgrace. And now I sound just like the manga. . . .) show less

Japan has one of the very greatest eating and drinking cultures in the world – deep, rich, complex and delicious. Many Japanese people are passionate about food, and will travel all over the country and the globe in search of interesting regional specialities. For a visitor the choice is bewildering. As with many things there, a person could happily spend an entire lifetime just finding new and awesome Japanese food experiences. Where to begin? Well, what worked best for me is this: show more Oishinbo, written by Tetsu Kariya with art by Akira Hanasaki, is a manga about Japanese food and drink. And it’s brilliant.
It’s incredibly detailed. This is because the characters talk about food and pretty much nothing else. From preparation, recipes, ingredients and where they come from, discussion often spins out into the wider subject of old versus new – the necessity of preserving precious traditional ways of doing things as set against the exciting possibilities of new developments, new techniques, new influences.
But all this detail also comes wrapped in a surprisingly compulsive /story/. When challenged by the newspaper he works for to create an Ultimate Menu, moody young misfit journalist Yamaoka Shiro and his friends become locked in a titanic ‘battle of the foodies’ with Shiro’s estranged father, Kaibara Yuzan. Between that and the episodes from the lives of Oishinbo‘s cast of supporting characters – each one of whom is impeccably believable and entertaining to hear about – the result is a reading feast as fascinating and moreish as its subject. And then, after putting the book down, I’ve gone out and eaten, drunk and enjoyed things I’d never even heard about before I picked Oishinbo up. Result! :D
The theory that you can tell a lot about a country and its culture from its food is proved again in Oishinbo: it’s a riveting insight into both Japanese food and Japan itself. But I think this manga’s even better than that. If you’re at all interested in good eating you’ll get a kick out of Oishinbo. In fact if you’re interested in living your life with care and passion for anything else either I reckon you’ll get a kick out of it, too. show less

A highly educational, if dated dive into Japanese cuisine. The protagonist is an unsympathetic, abrasive, mansplaining, misogynist so that is off-putting. Besides that, the content is well researched and fascinating. Unless you are a chef or a serious Japanophile, the information will likely be too obscure to be useful. This volume has some highly nationalistic views, especially a bizarre editorial about Chinese and Korean ways of eating rice.