Oishinbo

Back in 2020, I was lucky enough to catch the Youtube re-run of Oishinbo. At the time, I knew nothing about this anime other than that it was about gourmet food. I decided to give it a try after a friend told me that this re-run came with English subtitles. It’s pretty unusual to see an anime Youtube re-run have English subtitles, as most rarely have any, if at all. I ended up loving the almost year-long journey it took to watch the weekly-releasing episodes, which is why I was bummed out to find that Oishinbo is relatively unknown in the western community, at least on MAL and Anilist. There was barely any information about it on the web, with only the occasional article and a wiki. What I did find however, rather surprising, is that Oishinbo is one of the best-selling manga in Japan, selling a total of over 135 million copies out of 111 volumes. Alongside its 136-episode anime, it has two animated films, one live-action film, and a goddamn Famicom visual novel adaptation, with its popularity spawning numerous references within Japanese pop culture. Okay, let's take a step back for a moment. What even is Oishinbo? And why is it so popular in Japan? (To preface this review, I will be referencing and occasionally paraphrasing an academic paper written on Oishinbo that I’ll link below. I recommend anyone who’s interested give it a read, as it’s very interesting.) Oishinbo is about gourmet food. Gourmet is actually a genre of anime and manga called “Gurume” in Japan, which had an explosion in mainstream popularity back in the 1980s. Manga like Cooking Papa, Aji Ichi Monme, Mister Ajikko, and, of course, Oishinbo were all bursting at the seams due to an increased interest in fine foods and culinary dining associated with the economic bubble at the time. Oishinbo was at the forefront of this wave of popularity and thus catapulted to becoming the most recognisable and critically acclaimed of the bunch. This popularity isn’t without reason. Oishinbo took a unique approach with its storytelling compared to the Shonen Jump Gourmet manga that came before it. Instead of focusing on a character’s "Perseverance in the face of impossible odds, craftsmanship, and the quest for excellence," as described by Frederik L. Schodt in his book “Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics," Oishinbo focuses on the character’s discernment. While there are still moments where characters show off their artisan's skill, it’s less about striving to be the best but rather describing the sophisticated processes that go into the craft of making food. Compared to the Gourmet manga before it, Oishinbo had a sense of relatability, as it’s less about a character's journey and more about learning alongside the characters. This is a key difference in storytelling that helped propel Oishinbo into mainstream success, and only five years after its initial publication, Oishinbo gets its first adaptation in the form of a 136-episode-long TV anime. The story of Oishinbo is relatively simple. A journalist and food critic named Yamaoka Shirou and his co-worker Kurita Yuuko are tasked by their newspaper company to provide recipes for an “Ultimate Menu." They set out to meet new people and learn about new foods, thus creating the episodic stories for each episode. Being an episodic drama about food, stories can range from learning how to properly fillet a massive fish to the effects of pesticides on vegetable agriculture. There are episodes that focus on interpersonal relationships between family members and marriages, and there’s even episodes like episode 18, where Yamaoka challenges a biker gang to see how fast they can drive to deliver fresh oysters in time, which causes a massive police chase and- Okay, some episodes can get pretty silly. However, a major aspect of most episodes is learning new information. Whether it be correct cooking techniques or scientific information about the food itself, most episodes are about Yamaoka teaching others about these things. This educational style of storytelling is very entertaining, which is how Oishinbo maintained a high level of popularity over multiple decades. Even after the economic bubble popped in the 90s, you can imagine that Oishinbo became a way to continue exploring culinary arts and gourmet foods for many people throughout Japan. As a westerner, Oishinbo is an incredibly captivating series to me, as it provides an insight into both Japanese and all sorts of other Asian cuisine that I haven’t even heard of before. Not only this, certain episodes feature Yamaoka travelling to different locations throughout Japan, another aspect I love about Oishinbo as someone who’s never experienced Japanese culture before. This sense of learning and relatability is incredibly captivating, and Oishinbo takes full advantage of this in more subtle ways than one might realise. The art of Oishinbo’s manga utilises a technique known as masking, wherein the designs are kept purposefully simple yet recognisable, as a way for the reader to project themselves onto said designs. This is then contrasted to the incredibly detailed background art and, in Oishinbo’s case, the art of the food as well. This way, the realism is focused more on the food than the characters, who represent more of a fictitious element that the reader can mask themselves as. This is seen commonly throughout the earlier volumes with Yamaoka’s “gremlin” design; however, later on in the manga, he becomes much more detailed and refined. Anyway, the anime takes a much different approach to Oishinbo’s art style. While the same masking principles apply—the designs are kept somewhat cartoonish and simple—the anime designs feel a lot more detailed and personalised to the characters themselves. Translating a masking art style into animation is possible; however, since this adaptation is within a completely different medium, Oishinbo is able to focus on other elements that produce the same effects as masking. What I mean by this is that Oishinbo is able to instead utilise animation and sound as a way to engross its audience within its world. We get to see Yamaoka actually move around and speak, so when Yamaoka starts teaching characters about culinary information, it feels as if the audience is being taught as well. Information is presented in a way that is purposefully made to be easy for the audience to understand. This is what makes Yamaoka so captivating as a main character; he purposely presents cooking as an accessible artform that anyone can master if they understand the proper techniques and facts. Not only this, the food itself is kept impressively detailed, which recreates the manga’s contrast between what is fictional and what is realism. This realism is also supported by incredible sound design, an element unique to anime. In the manga, the sounds of food and people eating are expressed through onomatopoeia, but the anime is able to utilise sound design to add another layer of realism. We hear the sound of food being prepared and served, and we hear the slight sounds of characters chewing on food. The Oishinbo anime makes the most of elements unique to its medium to create an experience unlike the manga. However, there is another important aspect to Oishinbo’s visual style that not only aids these audio-visual elements but also gives it another layer of visual flair. The Osamu Dezaki influence is written all over Oishinbo’s visual style. This makes a lot of sense, taking into consideration the director, Takeuchi Yoshio. Prior to Oishinbo’s release, Takeuchi had worked on almost every major Dezaki production since Ace wo Nerae in 1973, joining MADHOUSE around that time. He’s listed as an assistant episode director, storyboarder and script writer, and main episode director for many anime like Gamba no Bouken, Ie Naki Ko, Takarajima, Versailles no Bara, Ashita no Joe 2, Space Cobra, and many, many more. To say Takeuchi was influenced by Dezaki feels like a bit of an understatement. His style …