manga review: Kino Nani Tabeta?

January 16, 2009 by J!-ENT 

In a recent manga review of “Kino Nani Tabeta?” for the Daily Yomiuri, Kumi Matsumaru wrote:

Kino Nani Tabeta? (What did you eat yesterday?) is an interesting piece of manga as it offers readers many flavors, even beyond pondering an answer to the title.

The manga, which has been carried on a monthly basis in the weekly comic magazine Morning, published by Kodansha Ltd., is about the daily life of a gay couple in their 40s, Shiro Kakei and Kenji Yabuki. What makes the manga distinctive is that, as suggested by the title, it elaborately depicts scenes of cooking by Kakei, a 43-year-old, good-looking, highly able lawyer who is dedicated to and finds consolation in making tasty dishes, to a degree that almost turns the comic into a recipe book.

Protagonist Kakei is a man who does not like to do things halfway, either at work or in his private life. He takes pleasure in finding foodstuffs at great prices and thinking of ways to effectively use them in a balanced diet for himself and Yabuki, the laid-back, sweet-tempered 41-year-old beautician with whom he shares an apartment. Kakei tries to keep their monthly food bill under 25,000 yen.

The lawyer wonders–even while enjoying minestrone and chicken salad for dinner–what he should do with the celery left over after making the dishes. (With a hint from a colleague whose parents once ran a restaurant, Kakei safely is able to finish the vegetable by cooking stir-fried beef and celery with oyster sauce the following evening.)

Mangaka Fumi Yoshinaga’s depiction of ingredients and cooking processes is elaborate enough to allow readers to fill their own dinner tables by reading just one episode. This reviewer often found her mouth watering as she read, especially in the episodes with dishes such as spinach lasagna or rice cooked with chestnuts.

Of course, the manga is about more than the enjoyment of cooking. Although a heterosexual reader can imagine there are things that gay people would find uniquely annoying or troublesome in their relations with their colleagues, friends and families, this reader felt strong resentment toward some characters, presumably heterosexuals, who automatically think another character must have a special interest in any man as soon as they find out that character is a gay male.

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