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Oishinbo A La Carte, Volume 4 - Fish, Sushi And Sashimi (2009)

by Tetsu Kariya(Favorite Author)

3.95 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

1421521423 (ISBN13: 9781421521428)

languge

English

genre

Food & Cookbooks

publisher

VIZ Media LLC

series

Oishinbo

review 1: Take Iron Chef (the original Japanese version) and flesh it out with some father-son rivalry from what must be the most dysfunctional family in Japan and you've pretty much got this strip. While the plots of the stories can be formulaic to say the least, that didn't seem to be quite as true in this volume as in some others I've read. But the main draw is that you'll learn lots about Japanese cuisine - in this case, fish in all the various ways it's served in Japan.Since each volume in this series draws from the complete run of the strip, they aren't really sequential. So you could start with any one and read them in any order.
review 2: You have to give this manga credit for having one of the most oddly specific and fussy of plot devices ever conceived. A food ... morecritic has the job of designing the ultimate menu for Japanese cuisine of all time. Each episode involves the hero, a too cool for school guy in a black suit and tie, solve some dilemma with his knowledge of gourmet sushi, and then they eat. That's it. Repeat.The caste of characters centers mainly on the hero gourmand Yamaoka, his plucky but demure girlfriend, and his tough as nails father who also happens to be his arch-nemesis. Frequently the plot centers around them having some kind of weird food tasting competition. Trust me it is weird. Especially because this isn't even about them being skilled cooks but skilled eaters. Imagine Dragon ball Z, or some action manga except all of the fight scenes have been replaced with pictures of raw fish. Quite odd. Since this manga began in the 80's I wonder if it might have somehow inspired the "Iron Chef" show, which in turn seems to have influenced various cooking shows a lot. Who knows?In each episode, the hero, Yamaoka uses his food expertise to solve the problems of, among other things: a boy who is sad about going to his second choice college (!), a pompous businessman overly cocky of his cooking prowess (he gets humbled), and a guy who was dumped because he is ugly learns to get over it and take pride in his cooking instead of his looks. Every problem is solved by the hero's knowledge of food.Jaw droppingly ridiculous stuff. To some extent it is entertaining, and in fact amazing that the writers were able to come up with issue after issue of this manga, while repeating basically the same plot ad naseum. It ran from 1983 to 2008 totaling over a hundred volumes! And that is why people are a fan of this no doubt, one can dip into any volume and have a very good idea of what is going to happen. Predictability is comforting, so this is comfort food. Of course this criticism, that each issue is merely a slight variation on what came before, that actually the writers and artists are simply recreating the exact same product over and over, holds true for most manga, as well as the majority of books, tv shows, movies etc. This is the distinction between high and low art. Low art is simply an endless iteration of a non-changing template. Most mystery novels and most romance novels are essentially the same soup reheated, with maybe a different pinch of seasoning depending on the day of the week. Just as every sitcom is the same plot reborn endlessly. In other words, all repetitious art is just as contrived as plots involving this super hero whose super power is his epicurean knowledge of sushi. On the other hand there is only one, say, Moby Dick, all examples of actual art exist as a singularity.All of this is a long-winded way of saying, that while low art may be entertaining, and even skillfully and craftfully made, life is too short to read the same thing more than once. It is like choosing between a Mcdonald's fish filet and a plate of salmon nigiri . . . less

Download links for: Oishinbo a la carte, Volume 4 - Fish, Sushi and Sashimi

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