Oishinbo (美味しんぼ) is a long-running Japanese cooking manga series written by Tetsu Kariya and drawn by Akira Hanasaki. The manga's title is a portmanteau of the Japanese word for "delicious", oishii (美味しい), and the word for someone who loves to eat, kuishinbō (食いしん坊). The series depicts the adventures of culinary journalist Shirō Yamaoka and his partner (and later wife), Yūko Kurita. It was published by Shogakukan between 1983 and 2008 in Big Comic Spirits, and resumed again on February 23, 2009, only to be put on an indefinite hiatus after the May 12, 2014, edition in the weekly Big Comic Spirits, following harsh criticism of Oishinbo's treatment of the Fukushima Daiichi disaster. Before this suspension, Oishinbo was collected in 111 tankōbon volumes, making it the 18th longest manga released and among the best-selling manga series in history. The series was a perennial best-seller, selling 1.2 million copies per volume, for a total of more than 135 million copies sold. The series received the 1986 Shogakukan Manga Award for seinen/general manga. It was adapted as a 136-episode anime television series broadcast on Nippon Television from October 17, 1988, to March 17, 1992, followed by two sequel TV anime film specials in 1992 and 1993. It was adapted into a live-action film directed by Azuma Morisaki, starring Kōichi Satō and Rentarō Mikuni, which premiered on April 13, 1996. The manga is licensed in English in North America by Viz Media. In March 2016, writer Tetsu Kariya announced on his blog that he wanted to end the manga after it returned from hiatus. He wrote that "30 years is too long for many things" and that he believed "it's about time to end it."

Plot

Oishinbo is a drama featuring journalist Shirō Yamaoka who works for Tōzai Shimbun. He is a cynical food critic who is tasked by the newspaper's owner, along with the young Yūko Kurita, to provide recipes for the "ultimate menu". During their search, they encounter Yamaoka's fastidious and demanding father, Yūzan Kaibara, a famous gourmand who tries to sabotage Yamaoka's project.

Characters

The character names listed here are in western order of family name last. The official English language manga volumes use the Japanese naming order of family name first.

Media

Manga

Volume List

Anime

The manga was adapted into a television anime series that ran from October 1988 to March 1992 for 136 episodes. The series was followed by two television specials. Oishinbo: Ultimate VS Supreme (美味しんぼ　究極対至高　長寿料理対決!!) was aired in December 1992 and Oishinbo: Japan-US Rice War (美味しんぼ　日米コメ戦争) was aired a year later in December 1993.

Video games

North American release

The manga is licensed in English in North America by Viz Media, which published the first volume in January 2009. Seven volumes from the Oishinbo à la Carte (美味しんぼア・ラ・カルト) series were published from January 2009 to January 2010. These editions are thematic compilations (and include stories from across the timeline), making the English editions effectively a best of the "best of." These volumes are:

Reception

In the 1980s, Japan had an upsurge in popularity in the gurume movement, called the "gourmet boom." Iorie Brau, author ofOishinbo’s Adventures in Eating: Food, Communication, and Culture in Japanese Comics, said that this was the largest factor of the increase in popularity of gurume comics. The series's first volume sold around one million copies. The popularity of Oishinbo the comic lead to the development of the anime, the live action film and many fansites. The fan-sites chronicle recipes that appeared in the manga. Tetsu Kariya, the writer of Oishinbo, said in a 1986 interview that he was not a food connoisseur, and that he felt embarrassed whenever food experts read the comic.

Controversy regarding Fukushima episodes

In April 2014, Oishinbo featured a story about the Fukushima nuclear accident called "The Truth of Fukushima". In this story, characters who visited the nuclear plant suffer nosebleeds that don't stop, and they conclude that the government should help people move away from the area because of the radiation. This prompted an intense backlash, both from local governments in Fukushima and across Japan; even Shinzo Abe weighed in, calling the claims "baseless rumors". The publisher had included statements along with the story from the Fukushima prefectural government and radiation expert Ikuro Anzai, objecting to the story for misleading people and noting that discrimination against Fukushima residents and products was doing far more harm than any radiation in the area. Despite these statements, Kariya stood by the story in the midst of the controversy, saying he had researched Fukushima for two years and could "only write the truth," but noted that he was not expecting such a strong reaction from the public. The following month, Shogakukan Inc. put Oishinbo on hiatus, its last appearance being the May 12, 2014, edition in the weekly Big Comic Spirits. Although the halt of publication coincided with the controversy, the editorial staff claimed they had scheduled the hiatus beforehand.