, also known as , is a genre of Japanese

manga 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 history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

and

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

where

food Food is any substance consumed by an organism for Nutrient, nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or Fungus, fungal origin and contains essential nutrients such as carbohydrates, fats, protein (nutrient), proteins, vitamins, ...

cooking Cooking, also known as cookery or professionally as the culinary arts, is the art, science and craft of using heat to make food more palatable, digestible, nutritious, or Food safety, safe. Cooking techniques and ingredients vary widely, from ...

eating Eating (also known as consuming) is the ingestion of food. In biology, this is typically done to provide a heterotrophic organism with energy and nutrients and to allow for growth. Animals and other heterotrophs must eat in order to survive – ...

, 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 the country's economy stagnated. The bubble was characterized by rapid acceler ...

Characteristics

In ''

Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics ''Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics'' is a 1983 book by Frederik L. Schodt. Published by the Japanese publisher Kodansha, it was the first substantial English-language work on Japanese comics, or manga, as an artistic, Literature, lite ...

'', author Frederik L. Schodt 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 Photorealism is a genre of art that encompasses painting, drawing and other graphic media, in which an artist studies a photograph and then attempts to reproduce the image as realistically as possible in another medium. Although the term can b ...

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 (food), 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 r ...

for the dish is often also included. Cooking manga is a multi-genre category, with cooking manga stories that center romance,

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

, 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 a field of labour assumed to be solely the realm of women and associated with specific stereotypical jobs considered as uniquely feminine or domestic duties throughout history. It is most commonly used in reference to the unpaid la ...

in Japan as it is in the West, professional cooking and

connoisseur A connoisseur (French language, French Reforms of French orthography, traditional, pre-1835, spelling of , from Middle-French , then meaning 'to be acquainted with' or 'to know somebody/something') is a person who has a great deal of knowledge ...

ship 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 language, Japanese: ) is based on rice with m ...

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, ''shōnen'' manga anthology published in Japan by Shueisha under the ''Jump (magazine line), Jump'' line of magazines. The manga series within the magazine consist of many Action (fiction), action scenes and a fair ...

, 1970) by Mikiya Mochizuki, ''Cake Cake Cake'' (

Nakayoshi is a monthly Shōjo manga, ''shōjo'' manga List of manga magazines, magazine published by Kodansha in Japan. First issued in December 1954, it is a long-running magazine with over 60 years of manga publication history. Notable titles serialized ...

, 1970) by

Moto Hagio is a Japanese manga artist. Regarded for her contributions to ''shōjo'' manga (manga aimed at young and adolescent women), Hagio is considered the most significant artist in the demographic and among the most influential manga artists of al ...

and Aya Ichinoki, and ''Kitchen Kenpo'' ( Shimbun Akahata, 1970) by Mieko Kamei. 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'' 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 Culinary arts are the cuisine arts of food preparation, cooking, and presentation of food, usually in the form of meals. People working in this field – especially in establishments such as restaurants – are commonly called chefs or ...

to become popular interests and hobbies. During this period, '' Oishinbo'' ( ''The Gourmet'') was first published in the manga magazine ''

Big Comic Spirits is a weekly Japanese ''seinen'' manga magazine published by Shogakukan. The first issue was published on October 14, 1980. Food, sports, romance and business are recurring themes in the magazine, and the stories often question conventional val ...

''; 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 and ''

Cooking Papa is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tochi Ueyama. It has been serialized in Kodansha's ''seinen'' anthology magazine ''Morning'' since June 6, 1985. Kodansha has collected its into individual ''tankōbon'' volumes and it ...

'' ( 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 stations ...

to hamburgers to

eel Eels are ray-finned fish belonging to the order Anguilliformes (), which consists of eight suborders, 20 families, 164 genera, and about 1000 species. Eels undergo considerable development from the early larval stage to the eventual adult stage ...

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

References

Works cited

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Characteristics

History

See also

References

Works cited

Further reading