What this genre is
Oishinbo invented a way to make food itself the drama. From Cooking Papa to The Solitary Gourmet, it grew into a large genre with no real equivalent elsewhere.
Seinen — about this band: Manga for adults, born out of gekiga. Realism, society, work, science fiction.
Connections
Three kinds of line: direct evolution, influence, and born in reaction against.
↓ Flowed into this
Key works
Ultimate versus Supreme, menu against menu. It brought both connoisseurship and drama to food, and established gourmet manga as a genre.
Kazumi Araiwa, a Hakata trading-company father who happens to be a fine cook. A long-running food manga, loved for recipes you can actually use.
A story in which a middle-aged man simply eats alone. No showy expertise, no incident — it opened new ground on the richness of just eating.
An ensemble of human warmth around the people who gather at a small diner open only late at night. A neighbourhood drama told one dish at a time.
The daily life and the dinner table of a middle-aged gay couple, drawn plainly. Loved by a wide readership for its usable recipes and its life-sized living.
The gourmet hunter Toriko hunts for ultimate ingredients. A boisterous world fusing food with battle.
Soma Yukihira takes on shokugeki, cooking duels. Battle manga's heat poured into cooking, in a popular Jump food series.
Seinen — walk the band
Genres in the same band, in order of year. You are at the highlighted one.
- 1957 Gekiga↓
- 1967 Seinen Magazines↓
- 1970 Historical Gekiga↓
- 1982 SF & Cyberpunk↓
- 1983 Gourmet Manga（you are here）↓
- 1983 Business Manga↓
- 1990 Social Drama↓
- 1991 Gambling & Outlaw
All genres
About this entry
Genre boundaries are drawn where the network of manga happens to concentrate, not by decree. Years are approximate. Where opinions differ, this page says so rather than picking a winner.