Having moved all over the country for the better part of a year working one-month stints as a pharmacy student, I have come to appreciate the postal system. It has often been a physical link to family and friends when I was in an unfamiliar location…
Publisher’s description: In a savage world ruled by the pursuit of the most delicious foods, it’s either eat or be eaten! While searching for the tastiest foods imaginable, Gourmet Hunter Toriko and his bottomless stomach travel around the world facing every beast in his way. When Toriko is hired to capture the rare and delicious Puffer Whale, he’s going to require some help. In order to remove the Puffer Whale’s poison Toriko will need to track down his old friend and fellow gourmet hunter, Coco, but will this team be enough to beat the other dangerous hunters to the prized ingredient? By: Mutsutoshi Shimabukuro Publisher: Viz Media Age Rating: Teen Genre: Action/Food Price: $9.99 There’s two kinds of shows, for the most part, on the basic cable Food Network. From the beginning, it’s been a channel dominated by the cooking show as invented by Julia Childs: engaging, knowledgeable host makes cooking and recipes both fascinating and accessible at the same time. Then there’s the contest shows, in which various skilled chefs compete against themselves and each other to produce the most delicious, conceptually stunning food possible. Whether cozy or over-the-top (Sarah Moulton vs. Guy Fieri), crazy or deadly serious (Outrageous…
Go back to the beginning, when the owner Lorenzo was just opening Casetta dell’Orso. His wife Olga’s particular preference for a certain bartender inspires Lorenzo to hire an entire staff of gentlemen in glasses. Watch the cranky-but-kind Luciano juggle babysitting duty and the advances of an amorous customer. Witness handsome playboy Vito meet a healthy young college student who will eventually become his wife. All this and more awaits you, just beyond that discreet restaurant door… By Natsume Ono Publisher: Viz Media Age Rating: Older Teen Genre: Drama Price: $12.99 Most of the men you see in manga are young and good-looking, almost to the point of being beautiful, in order to appeal to girls and young women. But what if your tastes run toward the older, more “distinguished” looking man? Then this is the title you’ve been waiting for. Gente is a sort of prequel/sequel to Ono’s previous work, Ristorante Paradiso. Gente tells the story of how the bespectacled, older gentlemen came to work at Casetta dell’Orso. It starts with Lorenzo finding and bringing the men together to work at his restaurant, and then each successive chapter tells a tale feature one of the gentlemen, inside and out of…
Leaving her internship at Sushi Hyuga to go on her family’s annual trip to France is the last thing Hanayu wants to do. On the other hand, a pastry-research trip in Europe is Hayato’s idea of a dream come true–can the two aspiring chefs ever catch a break? Plus, Hayato has become suspicious of patisserie assistant Maezawa, who has expressed an interest in Hanayu. As it turns out, both Hanayu and Hayato may have their wires crossed about what Maezawa is really after! By: Ayumi Komura Publisher: Viz Media Age Rating: Teen Genre: Romance/Food Price: $9.99 I read the first 2 preview chapters for this series back when Shojo Beat was still around, and wasn’t impressed. Further reviews from fellow reviewers didn’t inspire me to look further into the series, and I’m not a foodie, so this volume had three strikes against it going in. But it actually wasn’t so bad. There wasn’t anything great about it. It’s a fairly average title, but I didn’t regret the time I spent reading it. Hanaya and Hayato, the leads that I found so annoying in the preview chapters of volume 1, aren’t so bad by this volume. Hanaya no longer has to…
It’s hard to not expect great things from Rumiko Takahashi. Ranma 1/2 and InuYasha are some of the most well-known manga series around, and her fame for these series doesn’t even touch how awesome some of her more romantically inclined work like One Pound Gospel, Mermaid Saga or more importantly, Maison Ikkoku is. So, when things weren’t automatically awesome in the first volume of Rin-Ne, I get a little fidgety. You might call it prejudice, or InuYasha syndrome, or whatever, but while Rin-Ne was interesting in the first volume, it didn’t sparkle like other Takahashi manga.
With Ryo’s birthday around the corner, Asuka’s all aflutter making preparations for the festivities. Even the best-laid plans tend to go awry, however…especially when Ryo already has plans with another man!
Publisher’s description: Complex, powerful, and emotionally wrenching, not simple is a novel told in visual form by one of the most acclaimed creators at work today. R to L (Japanese Style). Ian, a young man with a fractured family history, travels from Australia to England to America in the hope of realizing his dreams and reuniting with his beloved sister. His story unfolds backwards through the framing narrative of Jim, a reporter driven to capture Ian’s experiences in a novel: not simple. A story within a story, a book within a book, a tale about the search for family, for an emotional home. By Natsume Ono Publisher: Viz Media Age Rating:Teen+ Genre: Drama Price: $14.99 I found this book very affecting, yes, but neither as brutally disgusting as Tucker Stone, nor as frank and “phenomenal” as Christopher Butcher seems to have. Instead, I fall somewhere in between. When I first saw the cover image, I fell in love. Seriously, I probably drooled a little. And the look of the book is gorgeous. It’s a great size, with subtle colors and line work on the cover unique among it’s manga brethren. In fact, the interior art, the pacing, the characterization– it has…
Oishinbo is something of a cultural oddity here in the United States. It follows a sultry, gourmet journalist Shiro Yamaoka and his girlfriend/wife Kurita Yuko in their quest to create the Ultimate Menu, which has been commissioned for the celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Tozai News. Shiro is a slacker cynic, but has an incredibly refined palate, and so along the way to the completion of this menu McGuffin, Yamaoka teaches his friends and colleagues the finer points of just about every type of food. Written by Tetsu Kariya; Illustrations by Akira Hanasaki Publisher: Viz Media Age Rating: Teen Genre: Food Price: $12.99 Shiro isn’t all-knowing – his knowledge and attitude kept in check by his father, a potter virtuoso and elite gastronome. The two constantly fight, and occasionally the old man gets a few past his son. This tension keeps the story engaging, and this tension makes Oishinbo a great comic instead of it being more of a illustrated Japanese food encyclopedia. The artistry of the book comes in two forms – the depictions of the food and background, and the depiction of the characters. The characters have been drawn simply, without much thought to shading and…
Rumiko Takahashi is a big name in manga – creator of the immensely popular Ranma 1/2 and InuYasha, she knows what it takes to write an enjoyable story. Arguably one of the most influential manga writers still writing today, she is the one manga-ka who could pull off the feat that is Rin-Ne.
Ayu still can’t give up on her love for Mayama, even though his relationship with Rika seems to be deepening. Nomiya’s growing interest in Ayu might be a balm to her broken heart, but he’s moving to Tottori for six months! Is Ayu cursed to suffer hopeless love affairs forever? By Chica Umino Publisher: Viz Media Age Rating: Older Teen Genre: Romance Price: $9.99 This volume is all about the love polygon of Mayama, Ayu, Rika and Nomiya. Ayu seems to be deliberately torturing herself by working with Mayama and Rika, and seeing their relationship grow. Rika is preparing for the Valencia Art Museum Annex, a project she and her late husband submitted for and won, and seems prepared to also make it her last, something Mayama’s not prepared to let Rika do. And Nomiya, the player, finds himself doing something he never thought he would, falling for Ayu. There’s a lot of drama going on in this volume, especially with Rika. She still haven’t been able to get over her husband’s death, no matter what kind of face she puts on. A flashback from Hanamoto shows what a difficult time she had after the accident, and how she became…