I started reading this comic because it was incorrectly tagged as a comedy. I'm really not one for dramas (you might be able to claim that the drama is so over the top dramatic it's funny) but I couldn't help but get addicted - however, note I'm a person who wants a career in cooking so this was specifically up my alley - The first several chapters are short stories about different chefs and their specialized foods, each ending and beginning pretty neatly that it reminded me of an old TV show where missing episodes was never a big deal since there was hardly ever an overarching plot. The second I started getting really tired of not having something the story could anchor to, plotlines started getting longer and taking up more and more chapters before ending, and I couldn't help but get more and more sucked in. The way that the main character trains chefs comes off as really silly and gimmicky at first but once you realize that the true heart of this comic lies in the ideologies of what makes a chef, a restaurant, or food in general truly "good", you will fall in love with it. I feel that the author genuinely believes that food can bring anyone happiness and unity, and I can't help but believe it well witnessing the passion this author put into their comic. Every time I started to think that the comic was starting to lower in quality, it quickly got better - the same passion about food goes into this author's passion for creating this manga. I feel like if you could argue with any belief that this author has about what makes cooking good, he'll be able to convince you otherwise.
My most favorite thing about this comic is that no matter what kind of dastardly evil self-centered type of chef that is encountered, that chef eventually learns to become a better person and chef, getting on friendly or at least neutral terms with the protagonist in a shared love of making food better for the whole country. Violence is often verbally downtrodden often. It's very refreshing to read a comic that's passionate and exciting while not forgetting humanity. This comic is love. Food is love.
But with anything, I can't give it a perfect score. Here's my reasoning;
-Even though this comic does focus on more than just Japanese cuisine, such as Western and Chinese cuisine, It's still cuisine that you don't see very often outside of Asia and Japan (As an American, the closet we get to American cuisine is hamburg steak.). Unless you're someone who cooks often with Asian ingredients you'll probably not have any reasonable opportunity to try the recipes in this comic, which is pretty disappointing. (of course this isn't the author's fault though; I doubt they were expecting to have a worldwide audience.)
-Even though the comic goes into techniques and a ingredients list for each major meal (which is great!) I really would have loved if the comic included formal detailed recipes at the end of chapters. I've seen other cooking manga do this and wish this one would, too. This is definitely a nitpick though; I think some of the fun of the food in this comic is that it's got some sort of magic goodness that could only come from a fictional top chef. It makes sense if the author wanted us to strive to figure out the recipe ourselves.
-Artwork, though absolutely beautiful and detailed, has it's moments. Again this is absolutely a nitpick. The main character's brother looks too similar to him and seems to go through redesigns multiple times throughout the book (most notably he lost a mole because the author kept forgetting to draw it lol). chapter introduction artwork also seems to repeat a lot.
-some axedness. The ending was awesome when it went through the history of the restaurant our main character is from but it felt like it was leading up to something and then just stopped. This backstory also would've been a lot better earlier on -- our protagonist is a pretty blank slate for half the comic. Maybe it'll make sense if I read Super Shoku King now? lol. There's also a big plot point about
making udon for his brother
that's just never followed up on. Weird.
I still highly recommend this comic if you can get through the over-the-top cheesy chef training. This comic had a ton of love put into it and it deserves love back.
