, also known as , is a genre of Japanese

manga Manga ( Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is use ...

and

anime is hand-drawn and computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japanese, (a term derived from a shortening of ...

where

food Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is ...

cooking Cooking, cookery, or culinary arts is the art, science and craft of using heat to prepare food for consumption. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely, from grilling food over an open fire to using electric stoves, to baking in vari ...

eating Eating (also known as consuming) is the ingestion of food, typically to provide a heterotrophic organism with energy and to allow for growth. Animals and other heterotrophs must eat in order to survive — carnivores eat other animals, he ...

, or

drinking Drinking is the act of ingesting water or other liquids into the body through the mouth, proboscis, or elsewhere. Humans drink by swallowing, completed by peristalsis in the esophagus. The physiological processes of drinking vary widely among ...

is a central plot element. The genre achieved mainstream popularity in the early 1980s as a result of the "gourmet boom" associated with the

Japanese bubble economy The was an economic bubble in Japan from 1986 to 1991 in which real estate and stock market prices were greatly inflated. In early 1992, this price bubble burst and Japan's economy stagnated. The bubble was characterized by rapid acceleration of ...

Characteristics

In '' Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics'', author

Frederik L. Schodt Frederik L. Schodt (born January 22, 1950) is an American translator, interpreter and writer. Biography Schodt's father was in the US foreign service, and he grew up in Norway, Australia, and Japan. The family first went to Japan in 1965 wh ...

categorizes cooking manga as type of "work manga", a loose category defined by stories about activities and professions that stress "perseverance in the face of impossible odds, craftsmanship, and the quest for excellence," and whose protagonists are frequently "young men from disadvantaged backgrounds who enter a profession and become the 'best in Japan.'" Individual chapters of cooking manga typically focus on a specific dish, and the steps involved in preparing it. While stories still incorporate standard narrative elements such as plot and character development, significant emphasis is frequently placed on the technical aspects of cooking and eating. Cooking manga stories often feature detailed descriptions or photorealistic illustrations of the dish itself; a

recipe A recipe is a set of instructions that describes how to prepare or make something, especially a dish of prepared food. A sub-recipe or subrecipe is a recipe for an ingredient that will be called for in the instructions for the main recipe. Hist ...

for the dish is often also included. Cooking manga is a

multi-genre A hybrid genre is a literary genre that blends themes and elements from two or more different genres. Works in hybrid genres are often referred to as cross-genre, multi-genre, mixed genre, or fusion genre. Hybrid genres are a longstanding element ...

category, with cooking manga stories that center romance,

crime In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Ca ...

, mystery, and numerous other genres having been produced. The age and gender of a cooking manga's protagonist typically indicates its intended audience, with both men and women forming the audience for the genre; while home food preparation is stereotyped as

women's work Women's work is often assumed to be solely the realm of women, and it is associated with specific stereotypical jobs that have been associated with the feminine sex throughout history. It is most commonly used in reference to the unpaid labor that ...

in Japan as it is in the West, professional cooking and connoisseurship tend to be considered as male activities. Cooking manga is inclusive of stories concerning a variety of world cuisines, and is not limited to stories about

Japanese cuisine Japanese cuisine encompasses the regional and traditional foods of Japan, which have developed through centuries of political, economic, and social changes. The traditional cuisine of Japan ( Japanese: ) is based on rice with miso soup and ot ...

exclusively.

History

While manga has long contained references to food and cooking, cooking manga would not emerge as a discrete genre until the 1970s. The three manga that are considered forerunners of the modern genre are ''Totsugeki Ramen'' (

Weekly Shōnen Jump is a weekly ''shōnen'' manga anthology published in Japan by Shueisha under the '' Jump'' line of magazines. The manga series within the magazine consist of many action scenes and a fair amount of comedy. The chapters of the series that r ...

, 1970) by Mikiya Mochizuki, ''Cake Cake Cake'' ( Nakayoshi, 1970) by Moto Hagio and Aya Ichinoki, and ''Kitchen Kenpo'' ( Shimbun Akahata, 1970) by

Mieko Kamei Mieko (written: , , , , , or ) is a feminine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: *, Japanese women's basketball player *, Japanese actress *, Japanese singer *, Japanese politician *, Japanese psychiatrist *, Japanese write ...

. The rise in interest in gourmet and cooking manga has been linked to the rise in average family income in the 1970s and the ability of ordinary Japanese families to eat out.Sugimura, Kei. 50 Years of Gourmet Manga. Seikaisha Shinsho, 2017. ISBN 978-4061386181. Jirō Gyū and Jō Big's ' (''Ajihei the Cook''), serialized in ''

Weekly Shonen Jump Weekly, The Weekly, or variations, may refer to: News media * ''Weekly'' (news magazine), an English-language national news magazine published in Mauritius *Weekly newspaper, any newspaper published on a weekly schedule *Alternative newspaper, als ...

'' from 1973 to 1977, is noted as one of the first cooking manga titles. ''Hōchōnin Ajihei'' established several of the conventions still present in cooking manga today, including the exaggerated reactions of people eating the food as a way to convey its deliciousness to the reader who may have never tasted the pictured ingredients and the cooking battle where a qualified judge describes the taste to the reader. The genre achieved mainstream popularity in the early 1980s as a result of Japan's "gourmet boom", wherein economic growth associated with the

widened access to luxury goods and caused the appreciation of fine foods, fine dining, and the culinary arts to become popular interests and hobbies. During this period, ''

Oishinbo is a long-running Japanese cooking manga series written by and drawn by . The manga's title is a portmanteau of the Japanese word for delicious, ''oishii'', and the word for someone who loves to eat, ''kuishinbo''. The series depicts the ...

'' ( ''The Gourmet'') was first published in the manga magazine '' Big Comic Spirits''; the 103-volume series would become the most-circulated cooking manga of all time. ''Oishinbo'' is notable for shifting the focus of cooking manga from an artisan's skill or craft to a critic's discernment. The art is extremely restrained compared to previous cooking manga and the characters display their good taste through monologues about the purity of the ingredients or techniques used to draw out the best taste. Along with ''Oishinbo'', the other two long running cooking manga that influenced this period were ''The Chef'' (1985) by

Tadashi Katou Tadashi (Kanji: 正, 禎, 忠, 荘, 匡史 Hiragana: ただし), Japanese masculine name, may refer to : *, the first aikido master to live and teach in the west *, Japanese manga story writer, novelist and screenwriter *, Japanese basketball coach ...

and '' Cooking Papa'' ( Weekly Morning, 1986) by Tochi Ueyama. In the early 2000s, cooking manga began to focus more on attainable or everyday foods. Depiction of real restaurants' specialties became common as well as the inclusion of recipes at the end of the manga's chapter or anime's episode, a technique ''Cooking Papa'' pioneered. After ''Oishinbo'' was put on hiatus in 2014, there was an explosion of narrowly focused food and cooking manga. Themes included everything from

ekiben are a specific type of ''bento'' boxed meals, sold on trains and at train stations in Japan. They come with disposable chopsticks (when necessary) or spoons. ''Ekiben'' containers can be made from plastic, wood, or ceramic. Many train statio ...

hamburgers A hamburger, or simply burger, is a food consisting of fillings—usually a patty of ground meat, typically beef—placed inside a sliced bun or bread roll. Hamburgers are often served with cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, bacon, ...

to eel. To date, nearly 1,000 manga series in the cooking genre have been produced.

References

Works cited

* * *

Characteristics

History

See also

References

Works cited

Further reading