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What Did You Eat Yesterday?, Volume 1 (2014)

by Fumi Yoshinaga(Favorite Author)

3.98 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

1939130387 (ISBN13: 9781939130389)

languge

English

genre

Food & Cookbooks

publisher

Vertical

series

きのう何食べた?

review 1: The first volume of What Did you Eat Yesterday? from Vertical, Inc., is slim and unassuming. The front cover is lovely in its simplicity, with the two lead characters examining a prepared dish and descriptions of other dishes scattered about the rest of the cover. However, for as slim as the volume is, it packs in luxurious descriptions of foods and cooking processes, much more than one might expect from 154 pages of content.The story itself is a day-to-day look at the lives of Shiro and Kenji, 40-something men who have been in a relationship for several years. Most chapters begin with a snippet of one character’s day or the other’s and concludes with their shared meal. The flow of the story feels very much like vignettes as there isn’t much of an underlying plot hol... moreding each chapter together. They generally fit together quite well, but they could serve as short stories in their own right in most cases. However, the story is unimportant in many ways. It seems to exist solely as a vessel by which Ms. Yoshinaga can draw and write about carefully crafted meals. Each meal depicted is given tender, loving descriptions of the steps, choices of seasoning, and pairing with dishes. There are also recipes and other food details (such meal ideas for leftovers) in between each chapter.While the recipes and food descriptions really make up the bulk of the volume, it’s the characters that really hold everything together. Kenji provides a certain lightness to the story in his role of the open gay man who gets to fulfill the reader’s fantasies by eating the delicious foods described. Shiro, on the other hand, has a heavier personality, not only due to the detailed nature of his cooking, but also because of his uncertainty with his place in the world. While he doesn’t question his orientation, he’s extremely concerned that other people will suspect that he is gay. In a world where being different can be a crushing experience, he clings to a front of “normalcy” even while he cherishes his relationship with Kenji. The story itself doesn’t touch very heavily on this, but we’re given little hints about Shiro’s private nature and uncertainty which help to give the volume more heft than it would otherwise have.The first volume of What Did You Eat Yesterday?doesn’t make a huge splash. It’s relatively understated, it doesn’t have any mysteries or moments of climax to draw a reader in. Honestly, it might be a difficult sell for many people. However, for those who appreciate cuisine and the preparation of food, it will likely be a welcome entry to their graphic novel collection.
review 2: Love, love, love this series. What's not to love about uncontrollable salivation while reading anyway. Along with reading about the meals Kakei is preparing, there are these great short stories of Kakei and Yabuki's day to day lives. Humorous, delicious, wonderful. There's also some serious subject matter that's handled well, like DV and Kakei's parents misguided attempts at accepting his sexuality. cough less

Download links for: What Did You Eat Yesterday?, Volume 1

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