359 – State of Shonen 2 with Ryan aka RUSH – Dr. STONE
This week dakazu and Darfox are joined by their friend Ryan(RUSH) who has been helping out with content on our YouTube channel! Ryan joins us to tell us about discovering anime through Toonami and reading One Piece in the Shonen Jump issues he bought at Blockbuster! Then we dive into the current story arcs on Ryan’s reading list of popular shonen manga, such as Dr. STONE, Black Clover, Tokyo Revengers, and more!
A manga about a salaryman who eats local delicacies whenever he goes out on business trips. He always meets a married woman while eating and it leads to them having a steamy one-night affair.
It think this manga is conceptually really gross. It’s one thing to tie food with sexual appetite like Zange Meshi but specifically about this guy who always cheats on his wife every chapter with a different woman? Not something I’m really interested in reading. Later on the creator Masakazu Yamaguchi switches things up by focusing on a newbie salaryman and a career woman but the series formula doesn’t change. A business trip leads to a local meal leads to adultery. However, this series is super popular in Japan. It’s over eighteen volumes long now and there’s even a live-action drama. I can understand the appeal but I don’t personally like it myself.
A food manga where a husband cooks meals for repentance whenever he angers his wife.
This manga is alright. I would be remise not to mention it’s so very clearly a commercial piece of entertainment made to appeal to the male gaze. The wife is an ultra busty woman who cutely pouts when she’s mad but always forgives her husband when he feeds her delicious food. There lots of fan service but I just looked past it and focus on the scrumptious food instead. If anything, the series is thirty chapter in and things are getting stale pretty quick with how the husband keeps messing up something almost every chapter. Hatsumi Kodama focuses some stories on some side characters which helps but they always return to the husband appeasing his wife. I’ll keep reading for now but they could stand to do something to really shake up the formula.
Love this. Not only is there a manga that introduces craft beer, there is a underlying BL romance as the young actor is attracted to the director. I’m not a fan of craft beer myself but all the drinks presented in the series look delicious so I might track some of them down.
A food manga about a newlywed couple who live in different cities due to their jobs. They enjoy their limited time together by grilling up different recipes outdoors.
A food manga that focuses on grilling that’s good! I will say the initial premise seems a bit forced. The couple meet over a dating app but when the guy gets transferred to a far city the lady immediately proposes they get married? I get that creator Shiori Hanatsuka wants to do that slow burn of adults getting to know each other but it all seemed very sudden. But regardless of the setup, the series has a really relaxed tone that makes for some lighthearted reading. I wouldn’t be surprised if Kodansha decides to release this in English someday.
A manga about Yoshitsune, the leader of a biker gang, who ends up taking over his father’s ramen shop in order to stop the local yakuza from buying it out.
The first food manga by Shigeru Tsuchiyama that would eventually become his genre staple. You have a simple story here of a delinquent struggling to learn his father’s secrets for making the best ramen. It’s nothing fancy but solid entertainment about enjoying some noodles. It’s what you can expect from any series by Tsuchiyama.
There is some extremely outdated sexual assault stuff that happens at the beginning but at least the female character doesn’t take any of Yoshitsune’s shit and it doesn’t come up after that. This is a solid read but I still think Kuishinbo! is Tsuchiyama’s best food manga.
A manga about culinary journalists Shiro Yamaoka and Yuko Kurita as they explore different foods and recipes to create the Ultimate Menu for the Tozai newspaper. Their search puts them at odds with Yamaoka’s father, the grand gourmand and artist Yuzan Kaibara, who is creating the Supreme Menu for a rival newspaper.
This is THE food manga. An absolute juggernaut of a franchise that has been synonymous with manga about food, this series ran from 1983 all the way to 2014. This is an all ages manga that even my parents liked and bought. My brother and I would often eat meals while reading a volume in one hand and chopsticks in another.
I’ve been revisiting the series ever since the Mangasplaining podcast covered it. I wasn’t aware of the controversy regarding the Fukushima nuclear disaster that led to the series going on hiatus. Rereading it I notice a lot more conservative political takes throughout the series. Some of them are just products of the times but the series stance on defending whaling for Japanese culture is pretty hard to stomach.
Oishinbo is available in English from VIZ but they are nonlinear. Assorted chapters from different volumes are collected and wrapped around a general theme, such as sushi or ramen. I do wish we could just read all of the series but I understand why this was a much more financially viable choice for publication.
On this episode dakazu tries to explain his issues with Shuzo Oshimi’s Welcome Back, Alice and he gushes over Natsume Ono’s Badon! Then we dive into the world of children’s card games with a Saikyo Selections on Kazuki Takahashi’s Yu-Gi-Oh!! Morgana leads to charge on our discussion about everything from the 4Kids anime dub to the treatment of her favorite character Bakura!!!
Wow. I cannot stress enough how much I enjoyed reading this. It is such a ridiculous concept to make a hardcore Boys Love manga about such a silly concept of a battle between gorgeous men trying to make their opponent come first. Reibun Ike is clearly having fun with this and it shows, from the fantastic facial hair to the most elaborate cod pieces. When a prostate massage is presented as an unknown technique that puts one warrior at a huge advantage, all I can do is howl with laughter at how absurd everything is. This is easily one of the most entertaining books I’ve read in a long time.
A manga about delinquent Yusuke Urameshi who dies saving a child. Since it was not his time to pass on, he is offered a chance at reviving and goes on the become a spirit detective for the Underworld.
This is an absolute classic. While is starts as a ghost procedural, once Yu Yu Hakusho shifts into battle manga it really takes off. The dark tournament is one of the best arcs out of all shonen manga. It’s really such a shame that Yoshihiro Togashi struggled so much with health issues and pushback from editors while he was drawing this series. At least now with Hunter x Hunter he’s given free reign over his chapter release schedule.
