Listen, the characters are one-note and so are the stories - so what? It's fun and silly and entertaining, plus it goes into surprising depth about Japanese food and food culture. The drawings are an interesting mix, with the main characters looking very anime and the others drawn in a more realistic style. The scenery and especially the food are likewise very realistically drawn. ( )

I picked this volume up since it sounded the mos interesting of all the ones in the library. Since there were a couple of volumes it was pretty easy to figure out that it was a rather long running manga series and each volume is bits and pieces from the chronology. A bit of an odd choice.

That being said, the stories are good and the description of the food is wonderful. There's a "recipe" included in the front of each volume, but the description of food usually gave one enough of an idea of what it was. I wish I had noticed the glossary/page notes in the back earlier.

The translation felt a little rough at points, but I suspect translating literature about food is difficult due to the large number of cultural references that a non-native reader might not catch.

I liked this enough I think I'll try reading some of the other volumes. Might even try cleaning some ( )

i've been reading the other books in the series and i really like them. the choice of doing the "a la carte" edition sometimes strikes me as questionable since bits and pieces of the story are given to you in a sort of random fashion. anyway, this one is enjoyable, the character of Kaibara Yuzan (the father) doesn't appear here which is a rest from the usual structure of the episodes. ( )