Kinou Nani Tabeta

きのうなに食べた？Kinou Nani Tabeta? (What did you eat yesterday) by Yoshinaga Fumi
Serialized in Morning
Published by Kodansha.

What did you eat for dinner last night?

Fish and chips? Chinese takeout? Pot Roast? How about a grilled fish, marinated in soy and miso, but not too long to save the sweetness of the fish, matched with a clear vegetable soup and red rice? And probably at the same price as your Chinese takeout. Yoshinaga Fumi returns to us with a very delectable treat, one that we have missed ever since Antique Bakery. We now have 2 guys in their 40s, sharing an apartment, and eating some of the yummiest dinners with ingredients bought in the best of seasons and on a budget. Yes, Fumi’s back in her element with a delightfully yummy manga serving where she asks us “Kinou, nani tabeta?”, what did you yesterday?

FOOD! FOOD! GLORIOUS FOOD!

Kinou Nani Tabeta, what did you eat yesterday, is a slice of life tale between a gay couple living together and trying to eat hearty meals under a budget. You have Shirou Kakei, a conservative gay lawyer who would rather think of how he can save 300 yen on a watermelon over confessing to his office that he’s gay. His partner, Kenji Yabuki is a flamboyantly gay hairdresser who would rather buy the newest Haagen Daaz in a convenience store than waiting for it to go on sale in the nearest grocery. The couple’s quite an odd pair, the kind that Yoshinaga-sensei loves to mess with in her mangas. But instead of getting the usual dose of scrotching,¹ she illustrates a more normal, less raunchy couple who seem to be more passionate about sharing dinners than letting Yoshinaga-sensei draw them doing the nasty. And it’s heart-warming to see how this series shows how important it is to share meals with other people. Really, this series is barely about the gay couple that stars in it. It is really more about the food and pleasure of saying how yummy it tastes!

It was in Manga Cast where I first heard of Yoshinaga Fumi’s seinen venture. Ed was oggling over some new series running in Morning and one of them was this said title. I’m not sure if that was Ed’s inner fujoshi that got him to talk about the series, but I’m sure his inner gourmet glossed over the supposed BL overtones and just pimped the series anyway because of the food. This series has more foodie elements than Antique. Yoshinaga-sensei goes deeper into her foodie element and dedicates chapters on the preparation of a dish or an entire menu. She thinks about costing, how to mix and match ingredients, and even how you can use the left overs for the next day. It’s amazing to read the dedication that Kakei puts in every meal. Occasionally, you get a tip or two about preparing dishes, like adding the mirin at the end of some dishes to make it sweeter. Yoshinaga-sensei encapsulates the love and art in food preparation in this manga and god, I do wonder what her Morning editor ate when she came up with this manga.

Okay, so I can’t disregard the fact that they’re both gay

Fine, I’m somewhat obliged to write it because as much as I love the food in this series, I am also amused with how Kakei and Yabuki get by with their relationship. I can’t help it, my fujoshi instincts cannot deny how amusing Kakei and Yabuki are. In between the food oggling, Kakei and Shirou would find themselves in situations wherein they would have to tackle their homosexuality. Unlike most BL which forgets the idea of homosexuality and just let them have it, this couple has to deal with their homosexual reality in conservative Japan. Of course, with Yoshinaga-sensei, she does this with great humor, often forcing Kakei to come out of the closet or getting into a jealous spazz because Yabuki can’t get his tongue tied when it comes to their relationship.

I cannot say if sensei is trying to do this in order to give voice to homosexuals in Japanese society, but either way, the manga does pleasantly represent a social stigma that most homosexuals of this day face. You have overly-concerned mothers, flamboyantly gay friends, suspicious women, and a slew of supporters. Of course, she does this in a very light-hearted fashion and more often than not, you gloss this over because of the food. Now that I think about it, maybe she’s using the food as an avenue to open awareness to homosexual issues to Morning readers. Perhaps, how normal most of them act despite being homosexual. In the end, despite the presence of the homosexual couple, I wouldn’t say that this title is her shot at getting back to BL though. This is closer to Antique than it is to Gerard and Jacques. More so, romance is barely the key in this manga. I seriously doubt you’ll be seeing some action in it too.

Whichever way I look at it, whether it’s the food or the gay, Kinou Nani Tabeta is a hearty manga that warms your heart with every story. It shows to us the joys of preparing food and the importance of sharing that meal with others.

1. I have to thank Dan for this term… even if it wasn’t for BL

Ateneo de Manila University, my alma mater,  is opening its food manga library to the public and its students. To those who are interested in checking out this library should take advantage of seeing all the amazing food manga out there.

This is quite an interesting collection of books with over 100 titles to choose from. In this delicious manga library are complete collections of great food manga giants such as Oishinbo, Cooking Papa, The Chef, Mister Ajikko, Osen, Chuuka Ichiban (Cooking Master Boy), Addicted to Curry, and the popular Yakitate Japan. At the same time, it also contains short takes such as Kinou Nani Tabeta, Oishii Kankei, Oishii Ginza, Barista, Green, and a couple of other titles that celebrate the glory of food through manga.

The Food Manga Library is for free, and is open from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. You are more than welcome to peruse through the titles, write down some amazing recipes from these manga, and have a feast with your eyes with every page.

I’ve personally seen the collection and my only suggestion is… don’t go there hungry.

I write this spotlight today with a mildly sore leg as March started with a big bump… in more ways than one.

I wonder if living life past a quarter of a century meant seeing your life in still panels with soft lines and endearing faces. Surely, my face was far from endearing, nor was the experience of being hit by a car in any way graceful. But strangely, all worries, anxieties, and fears disappeared as soon as I shared a meal with the lady who hit me with her car. And I can visibly remember the joy of eating food with someone, even if she kind of messed up my legs a little.

At that time, I felt that moment reminded me of a Yoshinaga Fumi panel, two people eating, healing pains and worries with a quiet but hearty meal and smiles on their faces.

Hence, in commemoration of being thankful for life, I put a spotlight on Fumi Yoshinaga.

My journey in writing this spotlight was nothing but enlightening. My rule of thumb is to try to read the artist’s work in sequence and try to see their development as a mangaka, both in art, their themes, their interests, and their stories. Strangely though, I have read Yoshinaga-sensei in various points in my life that when I started to look back, I couldn’t exactly see pin-point where she started. When I started asking if she had grown as a writer, in the back of my head, I was thinking… she had always felt mature as a writer.

So I went back, taking cues from the Japanese Wiki and tried to read most of her works in order. What I had thought as a flawless consistent act turned to be quite a growth of an artist.

Fumi the fangirl

Yes. Tachibana should be uke.

As some would know, Yoshinaga’s beginnings started with doujin. She was a prolific doujin artist, known to participate even in Comic Market. Her doujin work is popular enough to sell for thousands in Mandarake. When I was in Osaka, her old MitKo Slam Dunk doujin was being sold for 5,000 yen. This said pairing was so popularized by her that it was even mentioned in Genshiken.

One thing clear is that Yoshinaga started as bubbly fangirl with homosexual fantasies. While this was obvious in her early doujins, this could also be seen in her debut work, Tsuki to Sandal (The Moon and the Sandals).

Her first published work was an interesting fantasy of lovers struggling to come to terms with their relationship, as asymmetric as it was. And while this debut was, the way I see it, virginal and pure, in more ways than one, Yoshinaga was one of the few mangaka who opened up issues of homosexuals in Japanese society in her BL works.

In those two volumes, she managed to explain the difficulty of homosexuals taking an apartment, being accepted in the workplace, and the possibility of marriage by means of adoption. To a degree (and I’m not saying a reality), she also opened up the difficulty of sexual orientation as Ida and Kobayashi experience their “first time”.  Unfortunately the stories were still hazy, still tapering between reality and fantasy. What was perhaps disappointing was how sudden and instant things were happening that it was like reading through a fangirl fulfilling her fantasies with every chapter. You’re shown bombs rather than montages and while I have always admired her art, her first work was very crude, messy, and cartoony that it wasn’t as graceful as her cover.

It was a rough start, and not exactly the Yoshinaga that we actually have grown to admire. In fact, her works that came after, Don’t say any more, Darling and Truly Kindly were closer to experiments on what kind of stories were best for her. By reading these one shots we could see how she played with themes and characters that by the end of Solfege, she had stories to tell.

And her stories were fantastic. I believe every girl who read yaoi or BL will not deny how memorable her French Revolution series were. We loved Claude. We loved Gerard and Jacques. It was hardly their cleft chins, sharp jaws and regal standing that got us but rather the intense passion that she captured in every panel that she drew. Finally, she had given her characters life. Gone were the faceless and unmemorable BL stereotypes and here were characters that stood out and stuck to our memory.

Sure, the lines she drew were chiefly soft but one could swiftly be caught in the romance and wished they witnessed this passion first-hand. Most of us met Yoshinaga this way and we began to starve for her works however she was taking a different turn as soon as she was wrapping up Ichigenme. Perhaps it came with age and taste but the dreamy fag hag fangirl was slowly noticing other stories brewing in her heart. The wild scribbles were traded in for soft refined and calculated lines. Fumi the fangirl was growing up.

Fumi and her cafe

Yoshinaga Fumi dreamt of other things as soon as she started writing outside of Biblos Eros. It was fascinating how her move to Wings, a shoujo magazine, was not a complete change but rather just a small shift in the way she built her stories. Hence Garden of Dreams, Kodomo no Taion and All my Darling Children were explorations on fragile human relations. The works were nostalgic and picturesque. At the same time, Yoshinaga manage to capture the emotions of her characters luring our sentiments and sympathies towards their stories.

The gay did not disappear (it honestly never disappeared!) but has now taken a different position in her stories. They’ve now become a part of an ensemble – not characters in the background, but part of a whole.

From the 5th Antique Bakery Doujin

In reading Antique Bakery, we read her first ensemble: Tachibana, Ono, Chikage, and Kanda. The story of Antique, while light-hearted, presented real questions on love and life. It was honestly a strange read at first as fangirls were hoping to get some action only to find simple and heart-warming servings that made people hope for a better day, one cake at a time. Suddenly, you wished you had an Antique nearby. Suddenly, you started craving for whatever pastry Ono just made. Suddenly, you wanted to dance and seduce someone under the rain. Suddenly, you wanted to forgive, forget, smile, live, and say “It’s going to be a beautiful day.” Japan, and eventually the world, was enchanted by this little pastry shop that as soon as the series ended, we were hungry for more. And we got more! We got a TV drama, an anime, and even a Korean version of the movie which was thrice better than the Japanese TV drama (the drama didn’t even make Ono gay!) Her success in Antique opened tons of opportunities for Yoshinaga however she stuck through familiar elements and honed her craft further under Wings.

Her stories in Wings showed a great ensemble of people who seem to teach us a little or two about life, one chapter at a time. The ensemble allowed Yoshinaga to move away from being just another BL writer to someone who had a grasp of people, and not just gays. Yoshinaga focused on the banality of everyday life and highlighted the small but wonderful memories that we often taken for granted. Flower of Life was such a story that it was clear that Yoshinaga was more concerned with reminding us about the important things her stories.

This sense of nostalgia and sentimentality became her trademark under Wings. It captured a lot of people’s hearts enough to give her prestigious prizes such as the Kodansha Manga Award and even an Eisner. I’m not exactly sure how much she is of a household name in Japan but in my experience, the mention of her titles more often than not bring smiles unto people’s faces.

Fumi today and beyond

I really began to fully appreciate Yoshinaga’s style and genius when she started to venture outside of Wings and wrote Kinou Nani Tabeta and Ooku.

Ooku is a brilliant work that takes manga to the levels of Taiga. It was something unexpected for many but for those who knew her love for history, knew that this was a story that was only meant for her and only her. I don’t think any other author can pull off something like this without compromising either the story or the sensuality that comes out in these volumes. Yoshinaga’s art manages to tell the delicate situation of this alternate time without making it feel too boring or too simple. It’s an elaborate world filled with complex social striations that she manages to capture so flawlessly. I love it even if it makes my head ache everytime I read it. She’s quite a poet in Ooku and I can’t help but feel like I’m reading some old Japanese story when I’m reading this manga. It’s such a shame that in English, her poetry was misappropriated as Shakespeare.

No one knew that she was capable of doing these things for we have only read her simpler trivial slice of life stories. However,  we believed that she was someone who was capable of telling complex situations because of we knew how she understood people. If there’s one thing she really understood well and managed to illustrate well, it was people. She has a way with faces and expressions and it became more refined as she grew older.

From Kinou Nani Tabeta

Thus as such her everyday life tale of two homosexuals living together was nothing but heartwarming, if not a filling read. Unlike her other stories, Kinou Nani Tabeta basks in everyday life and does not find any closure beyond that of the dinner table. It’s a lovely read that takes on the formula of Antique but with a far more sophisticated, if not mature altogether. To be honest about it, it feels domestic. More so, unlike Antique, Kinou Nani Tabeta puts as much focus on food as it does on its character. Then again this was expected of Fumi. She is a foodie after all.

Fumi’s not just about love but all about food

Kenji expresses his joy that Kakei chose to make their dinner sweet for his sake and this was an expression of his love.

One of the things I find amusing about reading all of Fumi’s works is that this food does not fail to mention food at any given point in her stories. In Tsuki to Sandals, there were doughnuts. There were tons of cakes and pastries in Antique. Even bento looked great in Flower of Life. Of course we can’t forget that she dedicated Kinou Nani Tabeta to the act of eating and cooking plus there was her restaurant hopping escapades in Not Love But Delicious Food.

This woman loves her food and I can feel her heart skip every time she has the opportunity to explain how a particular food is made and why it is awesome. I love her passion for food and while this is mostly seen in Kinou Nani Tabeta, I think anyone who has read Fumi would have also grown to appreciate food.

Fumi is the fangirl that I wish to be

If there was one thing that made this spotlight really delayed (beyond my accident) was how I had so many things to say about Yoshinaga Fumi.  On one end, I want to talk about her representation of homosexuals and how she has captured a movement in the least politicized manner that I have seen in comics. I can go on about the social relevance of her works and how she had a flair for kitsch and so on and so forth but I thought overthinking her work defies the heart of her work.

I believe that at its core, Yoshinaga works simply wished to portray the beauty of humanity, in all of its simplicity, banality, and its complexity. Her art is simple not because it’s her style but I think it captures how straightforward our emotions are that even the simplest of lines can portray our sadness or happiness.

Personally, as a fujoshi, I’d like to be in that same age of maturity as she is. I’d like to appreciate the porn without compromising the story and the emotions of the characters. I’d like to poke fun at my fangirl self and have a laugh at the couples I adore. I think to a degree I have turned into the fangirl that she is but at the same time, I am much like her who still manages to squee and dream about the possibilities of the love that’s never said. In her heart of hearts, Yoshinaga Fumi is a fangirl and that fangirl was never lost. She just matured in a very graceful and elegant manner.

It is this very gracefulness that made her one of the 20 important shoujo mangaka of this day and age. She was unlike the 49ers because she did not bask too deep in a fantasy. On the other hand, she was not too hardcore to over dramatize the reality. She was the perfect example of a contemporary author who was dealing with post-modern concerns of identity, banality, and meaning. However she did not have to write an existential piece for us to appreciate it. She merely wrote down fascinating personalities living their lives as they believed it.  I personally feel she paved the way of other BL mangaka who also managed to present great slice of life stories driven by great characters: Nakamura Asumiko, Basso, Est Em, and Yamashita Tomoko. And I think I’m more than grateful to her for giving me not only some of the best stories I’ve ever read in manga but also the best lessons in life.

I do have one heartbreak with her… she didn’t give me closure for Ono and Tachibana in her doujins.  :<

The Reading List

Fumi at her BL Best: Tsuki to Sandal (The Moon and Sandals), Lovers in the Night, Gerard and Jacques, Don’t say Any More Darling, Solfege, Ichigenme wa Yaruki no Minpou (First Class is Civil Law)

Fumi at her Foodie Best: Antique Bakery, Not love but Delicious Food, Kinou Nani Tabeta

Fumi at her Best: Flower of Life, Garden of Dreams, All my Darling Daughters, Ooku

About my favorite panel

I believe it was Melinda who asked me what was my favorite BL panel ever and I told her that it had come from a Yoshinaga Fumi manga. As I have lost my copy of the Japanese version, this panel does not capture the exact amazing of the Japanese hence I modified this English copy to mimic that scene in Japanese.

My favorite scene ever

This was taken from my favorite Yoshinaga BL story, Ichigenme wa Yaruki no Minpou volume 2, and as you guys can see Tamiya’s panting “haa… haa…” before screaming “hazukashii!!” which means “it’s so embarrassing!” It just sounds a lot better in Japanese because you’re not exactly sure if he was panting or he was soooo embarrassed that it was it was a mixture of both. It’s gold and I think it led to one of the hottest BL scenes I’ve read.

That said, I want to ask, what are your favorite Yoshinaga Fumi moments and why do you love her work?

Note: This spotlight was intended for February so this counts as the February Spotlight.

Tuna and Tomato Soumen

All this Yoshinaga talk around mangadom through this month’s Manga Moveable Feast has honestly left me hungry. We all know how much Yoshinaga Fumi loves her food and many of us often suffer from all the lovely food that she features in her manga. If you read Antique Bakery, I’m quite sure you’ll be craving for cakes. If you read Not Love But Food, you’d wish you were in Japan to try out all the fun restaurants they ate in. What’s frustrating is how the food she features in her manga is inaccessible unless you’re a genius baker like Ono.

Well, not any more. At least if you can read Kinou Nani Tabeta. 

My favorite non-BL Yoshinaga is her domestic story between a lawyer and a hairdresser and their laidback dinners. They’re an odd couple of sorts but they share a passion for food and love for sharing meals. While some would think that reading into their dinners can get one hungry, the ease they show in preparing the dishes make you think that maybe… just maybe… you can cook it at home.

Starving for some Yoshinaga dishes, I thought I’d share with you two easy meals I learned from Kinou Nani Tabeta. These ingredients can be easily found in a Japanese grocery. I’ll also point in some alternatives just in case you want a taste of these dishes but can’t find the ingredients.

Tuna and tomato soumen (ツナとトマトのぶっかけそうめん)

This is a relatively easy dish featured in volume 1 after Shiro-san meets a lady in a grocery who seems to share his knack for making a bargain. It was a hilarious chapter that involves Shiro’s need to confess his homosexuality. Needless to say, all’s well end’s well and they had this dish to cap the night.

Instructions:
Prepare the sauce
1. Mix the mentsuyu, water, and ginger together

Prepare the tuna
1. Drain the can of tuna.
2. Add the mayonnaise and mix it to a desired consistency. By this I mean that you place enough for the tuna to stick together but not too much at that the tuna’s dripping in mayonnaise.
3. Salt and pepper to taste.

Prepare the soumen
1. Cook the soumen as instructed in the packet. This is a cold soba so please drain the noodles as soon as it’s cooked and wash it with cold water.
2. Lay the noodles down on a shallow dish and start assembling the cucumber, tomato, shiso, and tuna on top of the noodle.
3. “Splash” the sauce over the dish and serve cold.

I personally loved this because it’s a fairly light yet filling dish. It’s very easy to do too! I recommend adding the shiso in this dish because it gives a very refreshing taste to this soumen.

Miso Butter Ankake Ramen

This was a hilarious recipe that Kenji managed to do only when Shiro-san went home for the New Years. Shiro is and advocate for eating healthy hence eating instant ramen or any junk food was totally out of the question. Somehow, Kenji managed to make a compromise with this ramen.

Instructions:
1. Cut up all the vegetables and set aside
2. In a hot pan, add salad oil and once that’s hot, add the pork
3. Stir fry the pork until cooked and then add the cabbage and carrot. Stir fry until it has changed color then add butter.
4. Add 500cc (250 ml) of water into the hot pan and cover the vegetables and wait for it to boil.
5. Once the water’s boiling, add the noodles and let it steep in the broth for 2 minutes. ONLY FOR TWO MINUTES. Sapporo Ichiban can get soggy really fast so this two minute count is important.
6. Crack an egg in a microwave dish and cover it. Poke the yolk once just so steam can cook it a little. Then microwave it for 20 secs. or until the white area is cooked. Make sure that the yolk part is not overly cooked unless that’s how you like your eggs. Kenji and I like it runny so I made sure my yolk wasn’t fully cooked.
7. In a bowl, add the seasonings of the miso ramen.
8. Once the 2 minutes is over, take the noodles off the heat and add the moyashi. Mix it for a bit to heat the moyashi.
9. Carefully pour the ingredients into the bowl with the miso seasonings and top it off with a sprinkle of sesame seeds, spring onions, and the microwaved egg.

There are more dishes in Kinou Nani Tabeta but some of them can get complicated. I have managed to make these two dishes, a strawberry jam, some crepes, and some of their awesome nimono and stir fries. While all of us dream of expensive dishes, somehow Shiro’s stinginess and his creativity in mixing ingredients based on what’s available makes Fumi’s dishes quite accessible.

If you have a chance to read Kinou Nani Tabeta, then go right ahead and try some of the dishes featured in her manga. If not, then these are two of the recipes that I can share. I can’t cook all of them at the same time, since these two were more than enough to fill me up yesterday.

So what did you eat yesterday? Maybe you can have these dishes for tomorrow.

This was a difficult set to write because it was difficult to whittle down the list to seven. This week/month, I’ve been reading various food manga and here are the seven titles that I enjoyed… right now. I have a feeling that if I read the other stories, I’d probably go to my wits and them here. But right now, these are the titles that we’ll all probably enjoy, regardless if we love manga or food a little more than the other.

1. Shinya Shokudo (Midnight Diner)

Shinya Shokudo

Open from 12:00 AM to 7:AM, this late night diner is a safe haven for late night stragglers who want a good meal after a tiring day. This is one of my favorite food comics as it draws on people’s memories and its relationship with food. The food served in this series is simple and heartwarming, with little fuss over ingredients and more into the care in making the dishes. I love how this diner invites the oddest of people who all find solace in this place. It’s still running but it’s a relatively short series that is feasible as a license abroad. As said in our podcast, Ed Chavez even suggested that if Drawn and Quarterly wanted a food manga, this would be the perfect food title for them. And I couldn’t agree more. It’s quite popular in China because of the drama and the comic. The featured image on top is from the Chinese edition of the comic.

2. Addicted to Curry

Addicted to Curry

After travelling all over the world, searching for the diverse flavor of curry, Makito Koenji returns to give respects to his curry master. Disappointed that his master’s restaurant was going down, Makito helps the daughter to resuscitate this curry joint. This series is an epic shounen title that involves a lot of curry battles. What I particularly enjoy about this title is its dedication in showing tons of awesome curry dishes. And I’m talking about a mix of authentic curry dishes from India and Southeast Asia, as well as new dishes created for the series. I have nothing but love for this story and while it’s a long title, I’m thinking that we’ll have a chance to appreciate this title and see it running in Jmanga.

3. Cheese no Jikan (Age of Cheese)

Cheese no Jikan

Les Fromage is a new cheese restaurant owned by a Japanese girl who couldn’t forget her love for cheese after going to France. This series is enjoyable because of its endless love for cheese. It discusses mostly flavor notes, food and wine matching, some recipes, and history of cheese. It’s a lovely title that I truly adore and definitely a must read for many cheese lovers out there.

4. Kuitan (The Case Files of the Gourmand Detective)

Kuitan

This is an old series but I still have nothing but love and devotion for this title! When the police district gets in a pinch, sometimes they call on Seiya Takano as their consultant. A private detective by trade, this guy solves a mystery by discovering how men lose their crumble. He investigates what the person last ate, the food he has been eating, and other circumstantial evidences that are related to food. While you might think that this might just revolve around poisoned folks and their meals, this fun title also explores the history and meaning of food to various people and cultures. A fantastic title that would be worth reading for mystery and food nuts like me.

5. Shitsuren Chocolatier (The Lovelorn Chocolatier)

Shitsuren Chocolatier

A nominee for the 2011 Manga Taisho award, this heartbreaking tale of a man’s broken affections from the love of his life is must read for all chocolate lovers. His chocolate captures the tumultuous emotions that he encounters from chapter to chapter and while the art might be questionable to many, if the Manga Taisho nomination doesn’t convince you, then perhaps your love for bittersweet chocolates can convince you how this story is just as bitter sweet. This title frustrates me and makes me happy in a way that any good josei should do. I hear this series is quite popular in France as well.

6. Cooking Papa

Cooking Papa

This is probably too long for licensing, but there is a Cooking Papa Selection that contains quite a great number of stories from the series. Cooking Papa is as much an institution in food manga as Oishinbo is. However, unlike Oishinbo, Cooking Papa is a more episodic, slice of life tale that focuses more on domestic cooking rather than high-class food fare. And this makes it a better casual read than Oishinbo. The manga in itself is a slice of life tale where the father takes charge of the kitchen rather than the mother (more to help the family and not because the wife can’t cook!) While it’s fun to see his family grow, it’s a lot lovelier seeing the awesome food they manage to cook and eat. The dishes are also very easy to cook, but some of them can be quite ambitious, like that dorayaki wedding cake. OTL.

7. Kinou Nani Tabeta (What Did You Eat Yesterday)

Kinou Nani Tabeta

I think I’m not alone in featuring this comic, and while there are still some mixed emotions on getting this title on board, to this day, this is one of my favorite titles which religiously follow. Forget the whole idea of the homosexual couples or the gender issues in this tale. What I appreciate about this is how the act of sharing food builds relationships between people. I’d love to see this title in English someday so that more people will see Yoshinaga Fumi at her best.

In writing this feature, other titles pop in my head to the point that I have to hold myself and remind myself that someday, I might just be able to write them. For now, these are my favorites which I continue to look at when I feel hungry. Hopefully, these titles get licensed and will become your favorites as well.

I’m not exactly sure if you guys know but I love Yoshinaga Fumi’s What Did You Eat Yesterday?

LIKE WHOA.

By that I mean it’s a book staple that won’t disappear from my bookshelf for many reasons other than it’s a Yoshinaga Fumi manga. I’ve blogged about this title at random times for years and I’ve felt like a solitary fan, oggling this in my own corner.

But something awesome is happening and starting tomorrow, everyone can have a chance to read this awesome title because finally, FINALLY, What Did You Eat Yesterday is being released in English thanks to Vertical!

In celebration of What Did You Eat Yesterday’s release on March 25th, I’m doing a short What Did You Eat Yesterday feast and contest!

Throughout this week, I’ll be sharing with you some recipes I’ve tried from Yoshinaga Fumi’s What Did You Eat Yesterday. At the very least, I’m hoping to share the good eats you can expect from the series as well as some easy and awesome recipes from the series that you can do at home!

During this week, I’ll also be giving away 2 copies of What Did You Eat Yesterday vol. 1 to two awesome people!

Joining the contest is easy peasy. All you have to do is take a photo of an awesome meal you ate within this week and tag it with #whatiateyesterday.  You can use instagram, twitter, or tumblr. And it doesn’t have to be home cooked meals (although that would be most ideal) but it can be meals shared with important people in your life (your lovely pets included!)

It’s open to everyone and anyone from any part of the globe (as long as you guys have a post office!).

So I hope you all will join me in this feast in celebration for the English release of What Did You Eat Yesterday!

Yesterday was such an odd morning because it started out as a really hot day and so I prepared a really cold breakfast I learned from What Did I East Yesterday. I was hoping this breakfast would keep me cool, but as soon as the rain poured, the cold breakfast was not seemingly.

But that doesn’t mean this wasn’t good eats though! It’s a very simple breakfast with the warm intention of putting a smile on your face.

This Banana Yoghurt dish appeared in a chapter where Shirou, What Did You Eat Yesterday‘s hardworking lawyer, was having a difficult time at work. His ever perceptive boyfriend, Kenji, feels that Jirou needed something to cheer him up. So Kenji went out to buy some things and prepared this dish (among many) for Shirou.

Kenji’s Banana Yoghurt

Ingredients: 1 banana, yoghurt, and honey
Instructions:
Cut the banana in rounds, put it in a bowl, put some dollops of yoghurt, and top it off with honey. All of these are based on how you like things so if you like things excessively sweet, put more honey or use a flavored fruit yoghurt. When I did this recipe, I used my leftover mango yoghurt!
Kenji’s tip: To stop the banana from browning, drop a bit of lemon juice over it. Don’t worry about how sour it’ll taste because the honey will balance that!

I think this is the easiest of all the meals in What did you eat yesterday, a dish that I don’t mind doing on a daily basis. When Kenji served this, he also served a grilled corned beef sandwich and his special Cafe Au Lait. I’ll give those a try when I have the ingredients but this yoghurt recipe was a really nice treat.

So what did you eat yesterday? If you had an awesome meal this week, share a photo and tweet, tumblr, or instagram it with the hashtag #whatdidieatyesterday! You might even win a copy of this comic!

When I first started blogging about cooking meals from What Did You Eat Yesterday, someone was telling me about how he just can’t have the time or the chance to cook it because the ingredients were hard to find. I suppose that raised the challenge for me to find recipes in the series that were not difficult and were fairly easy to recreate in places without Asian groceries.

In this recipe, I try out Shirou’s dinner after an interesting day at the Tominaga’s.

The Tominaga family is one of my favorite recurring characters in What Did You Eat Yesterday? They’re good “normal” people who make an effort in accommodating people in their lives. So even when one of Kayoko’s friends, Shirou, turns out to be gay, they try their best to make him feel welcome in their family.

Hence one afternoon, Tominaga-papa thought it’d be best to introduce Shirou to one of his gay friends! The result is a very interesting afternoon for the “unconventional”¹ gay man, Shirou Kakei.

While pondering on his new friend’s Gilbert-esque lover, Shirou makes this fantastic cheap dinner for Kenji.

Green Peas Rice with Chicken Mushroom in Tomato Sauce

Green Peas Rice 

Ingredients: 1 cup of rice, 1/2 cup (100g) of peas, cooking sake (optional), salt
Instructions: In a pot or your rice cooker, put your cup of rice and the instructed amount of water it requires to cook it. Shirou suggests to get a ladle of water out because you’ll be adding cooking sake instead. However, if it’s unavailable, you can just leave the water as is and a bit of salt. Add the peas after and cook in your rice cooker.
P.S. I took some liberties by adding a bit of butter in my rice. That always makes things a little better. :3

Chicken Mushroom in Tomato Sauce

Ingredients:

• 500g of chicken thigh fillets, cut in bitesized pieces
• 500g mushrooms (as much as you want, really, as to what kind, bunashimeji was used but I used pearl mushroom)
• 1 clove of garlic, finely chopped
• 1 onion, cut lengthwise
• 1 can of whole tomatoes
• 1 chicken bouillon/stock cube
• Herbs, salt, pepper to taste

Instructions:

1. Fry the chicken thigh fillets until it changes color and the fat is rendered. Don’t over cook it so that it won’t be dry when you cook it again. Set aside when cooked.
2. Fry the onions and garlic next until it changes color. Then fry the mushrooms until it wilts.
3. Add the can of tomatoes, and yes add all of it. Break the the whole tomato pieces for a bit and then let the mushrooms simmer in the sauce for a while. Also, don’t waste the leftover sauce. Put some water in the can and add it to the sauce.  After a few minutes, add the chicken and then let that simmer.
4. Add the chicken stock cube, salt, pepper, and if you want, herbs and chilli (those parts are my suggestions!)
5. Let it simmer until the sauce is nice and thick.

Shirou’s trick: Don’t waste the leftover sauce in your canned tomato. Put some water inside and pour those juices back into your sauce!

Khursten’s note: When Shirou cuts up his veggies, he uses the term aramijin, which is just basic chopping, but I thought you guys might be interested how the Japanese cut up their veggies. I think it’s no different than what they do in usual television shows, but yeah, it’s really nice and helps making things look pretty.

I really loved these dishes for their simplicity and how it’s easy to adapt them. I think you don’t need to use chicken even. If you have fish or pork, you can use those as well! Best part about these dishes was that they tasted really awesome given the little effort I did in making them. These were totally good eats and the left overs are also awesome the next day.

So what did you eat yesterday? If you had an awesome meal this week, share a photo and tweet, tumblr, or instagram it with the hashtag#whatdidieatyesterday! You might even win a copy of this comic!

1. seriously, what is conventional in terms of sexual identities, right?

When I saw this recipe, I didn’t hesitate to make it. If you love tea and sherbets, Shiro’s dessert is an awesome treat without breaking a sweat! 

I love tea and apparently so does Shiro and Kenji! When they hosted a Christmas dinner with their other couple “friends”, Kenji prepared this dessert as a good way to cap off the meal. Their couple “friends” are a pair that I love and one that I hesitate to babble about because meeting them is perhaps one of the funniest moments in What Did You Eat Yesterday, especially if you’re a fujoshi! Needless to say, “Gilbert”-chan and his boy enjoyed this enough to ask for its recipe! 

Earl Grey Sherbet

2014-04-01 19:15:39

Serves 4

A wonderful sherbet of Earl Grey

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Ingredients

1. 2 bags of Earl Grey Tea
2. Condensed Milk
3. 500ml of milk
4. Water

Instructions

1. Steep the tea bags in a small amount of hot water for 3-4 minutes (or longer if you want the tea stronger).
2. Pour the tea on the 500 ml of milk
3. Add condensed milk to the desired amount
4. Freeze for four hours (depending on how cold your freezer is!)
5. Scrape the frozen mixture with a fork

Notes

1. Don't freeze it too long! I suggest checking it at the 3rd hour. Just freeze it enough that it makes a granita-like texture when you scrape it with a fork. Also, just make enough for what you're eating. I made quite a lot and it wasn't good after the first time. :<

By Yoshinaga Fumi

Adapted from What Did You Eat Yesterday vol. 7

Adapted from What Did You Eat Yesterday vol. 7

Otaku Champloo http://www.punkednoodle.com/champloo/

This is the last of my recipe experiments from What Did You Eat Yesterday. I had tons of fun and I think I’ll be doing this once in a while when I cross another awesome manga I’ve read with awesome food! Granted the recipes are easy to cook (and cheap to boot!). If you guys enjoyed these recipes, I’m quite sure you’ll enjoy the manga! You can order it from Amazon or Book Depository! 

A week came like a whirlwind, didn’t it? But I had so much fun eating and cooking these meals, as well as seeing everyone’s awesome meals that I am full to the brim! 

Anyway, I’m happy to announce the winners and random.org was helpful in listing them out! I didn’t have a lot of entries so it was a tough battle! 

Congratulations to @dodogitu and @kitchencow, you folks won your copies of What Did You Eat Yesterday vol. 1! Just look at their awesome meals!

@khursten The country's staple meal for breakfast: Nasi Lemak. #guiltypleasure #whatiateyesterday pic.twitter.com/YD3dZEiOtT

— dodogitu (@dodogitu) March 28, 2014

But but but… I ate this 2 days ago, @khursten http://t.co/sYwx2Byeoq #whatiateyesterday

— Chrissie Peria (@kitchencow) March 25, 2014

Now be awesome and send me your addresses so that I can stalk you – NO! – I meant so that I can send your prizes! Send me your address at punkednoodle-at-gmail! 

Thank you so much for the awesome folks who sent in their favorite meals for the last week! If you missed some recipes I made over the week, you can view all of them here!

If you didn’t win, that’s all right! You can get your copy of What Did You Eat Yesterday from Amazon or Book Depository! 

きのうなに食べた？Kinou Nani Tabeta? (What did you eat yesterday) by Yoshinaga Fumi
Serialized in Morning
Published by Kodansha.

What did you eat for dinner last night?

Fish and chips? Chinese takeout? Pot Roast? How about a grilled fish, marinated in soy and miso, but not too long to save the sweetness of the fish, matched with a clear vegetable soup and red rice? And probably at the same price as your Chinese takeout. Yoshinaga Fumi returns to us with a very delectable treat, one that we have missed ever since Antique Bakery. We now have 2 guys in their 40s, sharing an apartment, and eating some of the yummiest dinners with ingredients bought in the best of seasons and on a budget. Yes, Fumi’s back in her element with a delightfully yummy manga serving where she asks us “Kinou, nani tabeta?”, what did you yesterday?

FOOD! FOOD! GLORIOUS FOOD!

Kinou Nani Tabeta, what did you eat yesterday, is a slice of life tale between a gay couple living together and trying to eat hearty meals under a budget. You have Shirou Kakei, a conservative gay lawyer who would rather think of how he can save 300 yen on a watermelon over confessing to his office that he’s gay. His partner, Kenji Yabuki is a flamboyantly gay hairdresser who would rather buy the newest Haagen Daaz in a convenience store than waiting for it to go on sale in the nearest grocery. The couple’s quite an odd pair, the kind that Yoshinaga-sensei loves to mess with in her mangas. But instead of getting the usual dose of scrotching,¹ she illustrates a more normal, less raunchy couple who seem to be more passionate about sharing dinners than letting Yoshinaga-sensei draw them doing the nasty. And it’s heart-warming to see how this series shows how important it is to share meals with other people. Really, this series is barely about the gay couple that stars in it. It is really more about the food and pleasure of saying how yummy it tastes!

It was in Manga Cast where I first heard of Yoshinaga Fumi’s seinen venture. Ed was oggling over some new series running in Morning and one of them was this said title. I’m not sure if that was Ed’s inner fujoshi that got him to talk about the series, but I’m sure his inner gourmet glossed over the supposed BL overtones and just pimped the series anyway because of the food. This series has more foodie elements than Antique. Yoshinaga-sensei goes deeper into her foodie element and dedicates chapters on the preparation of a dish or an entire menu. She thinks about costing, how to mix and match ingredients, and even how you can use the left overs for the next day. It’s amazing to read the dedication that Kakei puts in every meal. Occasionally, you get a tip or two about preparing dishes, like adding the mirin at the end of some dishes to make it sweeter. Yoshinaga-sensei encapsulates the love and art in food preparation in this manga and god, I do wonder what her Morning editor ate when she came up with this manga.

Okay, so I can’t disregard the fact that they’re both gay

Fine, I’m somewhat obliged to write it because as much as I love the food in this series, I am also amused with how Kakei and Yabuki get by with their relationship. I can’t help it, my fujoshi instincts cannot deny how amusing Kakei and Yabuki are. In between the food oggling, Kakei and Shirou would find themselves in situations wherein they would have to tackle their homosexuality. Unlike most BL which forgets the idea of homosexuality and just let them have it, this couple has to deal with their homosexual reality in conservative Japan. Of course, with Yoshinaga-sensei, she does this with great humor, often forcing Kakei to come out of the closet or getting into a jealous spazz because Yabuki can’t get his tongue tied when it comes to their relationship.

I cannot say if sensei is trying to do this in order to give voice to homosexuals in Japanese society, but either way, the manga does pleasantly represent a social stigma that most homosexuals of this day face. You have overly-concerned mothers, flamboyantly gay friends, suspicious women, and a slew of supporters. Of course, she does this in a very light-hearted fashion and more often than not, you gloss this over because of the food. Now that I think about it, maybe she’s using the food as an avenue to open awareness to homosexual issues to Morning readers. Perhaps, how normal most of them act despite being homosexual. In the end, despite the presence of the homosexual couple, I wouldn’t say that this title is her shot at getting back to BL though. This is closer to Antique than it is to Gerard and Jacques. More so, romance is barely the key in this manga. I seriously doubt you’ll be seeing some action in it too.

Whichever way I look at it, whether it’s the food or the gay, Kinou Nani Tabeta is a hearty manga that warms your heart with every story. It shows to us the joys of preparing food and the importance of sharing that meal with others.

1. I have to thank Dan for this term… even if it wasn’t for BL

The post #13 – Kinou Nani Tabeta? by Yoshinaga Fumi appeared first on Otaku Champloo.

Ateneo de Manila University, my alma mater,  is opening its food manga library to the public and its students. To those who are interested in checking out this library should take advantage of seeing all the amazing food manga out there.

This is quite an interesting collection of books with over 100 titles to choose from. In this delicious manga library are complete collections of great food manga giants such as Oishinbo, Cooking Papa, The Chef, Mister Ajikko, Osen, Chuuka Ichiban (Cooking Master Boy), Addicted to Curry, and the popular Yakitate Japan. At the same time, it also contains short takes such as Kinou Nani Tabeta, Oishii Kankei, Oishii Ginza, Barista, Green, and a couple of other titles that celebrate the glory of food through manga.

The Food Manga Library is for free, and is open from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. You are more than welcome to peruse through the titles, write down some amazing recipes from these manga, and have a feast with your eyes with every page.

I’ve personally seen the collection and my only suggestion is… don’t go there hungry.

The post Food Manga Library Open in Ateneo appeared first on Otaku Champloo.

I write this spotlight today with a mildly sore leg as March started with a big bump… in more ways than one.

I wonder if living life past a quarter of a century meant seeing your life in still panels with soft lines and endearing faces. Surely, my face was far from endearing, nor was the experience of being hit by a car in any way graceful. But strangely, all worries, anxieties, and fears disappeared as soon as I shared a meal with the lady who hit me with her car. And I can visibly remember the joy of eating food with someone, even if she kind of messed up my legs a little.

At that time, I felt that moment reminded me of a Yoshinaga Fumi panel, two people eating, healing pains and worries with a quiet but hearty meal and smiles on their faces.

Hence, in commemoration of being thankful for life, I put a spotlight on Fumi Yoshinaga.

My journey in writing this spotlight was nothing but enlightening. My rule of thumb is to try to read the artist’s work in sequence and try to see their development as a mangaka, both in art, their themes, their interests, and their stories. Strangely though, I have read Yoshinaga-sensei in various points in my life that when I started to look back, I couldn’t exactly see pin-point where she started. When I started asking if she had grown as a writer, in the back of my head, I was thinking… she had always felt mature as a writer.

So I went back, taking cues from the Japanese Wiki and tried to read most of her works in order. What I had thought as a flawless consistent act turned to be quite a growth of an artist.

Fumi the fangirl

As some would know, Yoshinaga’s beginnings started with doujin. She was a prolific doujin artist, known to participate even in Comic Market. Her doujin work is popular enough to sell for thousands in Mandarake. When I was in Osaka, her old MitKo Slam Dunk doujin was being sold for 5,000 yen. This said pairing was so popularized by her that it was even mentioned in Genshiken.

One thing clear is that Yoshinaga started as bubbly fangirl with homosexual fantasies. While this was obvious in her early doujins, this could also be seen in her debut work, Tsuki to Sandal (The Moon and the Sandals).

Her first published work was an interesting fantasy of lovers struggling to come to terms with their relationship, as asymmetric as it was. And while this debut was, the way I see it, virginal and pure, in more ways than one, Yoshinaga was one of the few mangaka who opened up issues of homosexuals in Japanese society in her BL works.

In those two volumes, she managed to explain the difficulty of homosexuals taking an apartment, being accepted in the workplace, and the possibility of marriage by means of adoption. To a degree (and I’m not saying a reality), she also opened up the difficulty of sexual orientation as Ida and Kobayashi experience their “first time”.  Unfortunately the stories were still hazy, still tapering between reality and fantasy. What was perhaps disappointing was how sudden and instant things were happening that it was like reading through a fangirl fulfilling her fantasies with every chapter. You’re shown bombs rather than montages and while I have always admired her art, her first work was very crude, messy, and cartoony that it wasn’t as graceful as her cover.

It was a rough start, and not exactly the Yoshinaga that we actually have grown to admire. In fact, her works that came after, Don’t say any more, Darling and Truly Kindly were closer to experiments on what kind of stories were best for her. By reading these one shots we could see how she played with themes and characters that by the end of Solfege, she had stories to tell.

And her stories were fantastic. I believe every girl who read yaoi or BL will not deny how memorable her French Revolution series were. We loved Claude. We loved Gerard and Jacques. It was hardly their cleft chins, sharp jaws and regal standing that got us but rather the intense passion that she captured in every panel that she drew. Finally, she had given her characters life. Gone were the faceless and unmemorable BL stereotypes and here were characters that stood out and stuck to our memory.

Sure, the lines she drew were chiefly soft but one could swiftly be caught in the romance and wished they witnessed this passion first-hand. Most of us met Yoshinaga this way and we began to starve for her works however she was taking a different turn as soon as she was wrapping up Ichigenme. Perhaps it came with age and taste but the dreamy fag hag fangirl was slowly noticing other stories brewing in her heart. The wild scribbles were traded in for soft refined and calculated lines. Fumi the fangirl was growing up.

Fumi and her cafe

Yoshinaga Fumi dreamt of other things as soon as she started writing outside of Biblos Eros. It was fascinating how her move to Wings, a shoujo magazine, was not a complete change but rather just a small shift in the way she built her stories. Hence Garden of Dreams, Kodomo no Taion and All my Darling Children were explorations on fragile human relations. The works were nostalgic and picturesque. At the same time, Yoshinaga manage to capture the emotions of her characters luring our sentiments and sympathies towards their stories.

The gay did not disappear (it honestly never disappeared!) but has now taken a different position in her stories. They’ve now become a part of an ensemble – not characters in the background, but part of a whole.

In reading Antique Bakery, we read her first ensemble: Tachibana, Ono, Chikage, and Kanda. The story of Antique, while light-hearted, presented real questions on love and life. It was honestly a strange read at first as fangirls were hoping to get some action only to find simple and heart-warming servings that made people hope for a better day, one cake at a time. Suddenly, you wished you had an Antique nearby. Suddenly, you started craving for whatever pastry Ono just made. Suddenly, you wanted to dance and seduce someone under the rain. Suddenly, you wanted to forgive, forget, smile, live, and say “It’s going to be a beautiful day.” Japan, and eventually the world, was enchanted by this little pastry shop that as soon as the series ended, we were hungry for more. And we got more! We got a TV drama, an anime, and even a Korean version of the movie which was thrice better than the Japanese TV drama (the drama didn’t even make Ono gay!) Her success in Antique opened tons of opportunities for Yoshinaga however she stuck through familiar elements and honed her craft further under Wings.

Her stories in Wings showed a great ensemble of people who seem to teach us a little or two about life, one chapter at a time. The ensemble allowed Yoshinaga to move away from being just another BL writer to someone who had a grasp of people, and not just gays. Yoshinaga focused on the banality of everyday life and highlighted the small but wonderful memories that we often taken for granted. Flower of Life was such a story that it was clear that Yoshinaga was more concerned with reminding us about the important things her stories.

This sense of nostalgia and sentimentality became her trademark under Wings. It captured a lot of people’s hearts enough to give her prestigious prizes such as the Kodansha Manga Award and even an Eisner. I’m not exactly sure how much she is of a household name in Japan but in my experience, the mention of her titles more often than not bring smiles unto people’s faces.

Fumi today and beyond

I really began to fully appreciate Yoshinaga’s style and genius when she started to venture outside of Wings and wrote Kinou Nani Tabeta and Ooku.

Ooku is a brilliant work that takes manga to the levels of Taiga. It was something unexpected for many but for those who knew her love for history, knew that this was a story that was only meant for her and only her. I don’t think any other author can pull off something like this without compromising either the story or the sensuality that comes out in these volumes. Yoshinaga’s art manages to tell the delicate situation of this alternate time without making it feel too boring or too simple. It’s an elaborate world filled with complex social striations that she manages to capture so flawlessly. I love it even if it makes my head ache everytime I read it. She’s quite a poet in Ooku and I can’t help but feel like I’m reading some old Japanese story when I’m reading this manga. It’s such a shame that in English, her poetry was misappropriated as Shakespeare.

No one knew that she was capable of doing these things for we have only read her simpler trivial slice of life stories. However,  we believed that she was someone who was capable of telling complex situations because of we knew how she understood people. If there’s one thing she really understood well and managed to illustrate well, it was people. She has a way with faces and expressions and it became more refined as she grew older.

Thus as such her everyday life tale of two homosexuals living together was nothing but heartwarming, if not a filling read. Unlike her other stories, Kinou Nani Tabeta basks in everyday life and does not find any closure beyond that of the dinner table. It’s a lovely read that takes on the formula of Antique but with a far more sophisticated, if not mature altogether. To be honest about it, it feels domestic. More so, unlike Antique, Kinou Nani Tabeta puts as much focus on food as it does on its character. Then again this was expected of Fumi. She is a foodie after all.

Fumi’s not just about love but all about food

One of the things I find amusing about reading all of Fumi’s works is that this food does not fail to mention food at any given point in her stories. In Tsuki to Sandals, there were doughnuts. There were tons of cakes and pastries in Antique. Even bento looked great in Flower of Life. Of course we can’t forget that she dedicated Kinou Nani Tabeta to the act of eating and cooking plus there was her restaurant hopping escapades in Not Love But Delicious Food.

This woman loves her food and I can feel her heart skip every time she has the opportunity to explain how a particular food is made and why it is awesome. I love her passion for food and while this is mostly seen in Kinou Nani Tabeta, I think anyone who has read Fumi would have also grown to appreciate food.

Fumi is the fangirl that I wish to be

If there was one thing that made this spotlight really delayed (beyond my accident) was how I had so many things to say about Yoshinaga Fumi.  On one end, I want to talk about her representation of homosexuals and how she has captured a movement in the least politicized manner that I have seen in comics. I can go on about the social relevance of her works and how she had a flair for kitsch and so on and so forth but I thought overthinking her work defies the heart of her work.

I believe that at its core, Yoshinaga works simply wished to portray the beauty of humanity, in all of its simplicity, banality, and its complexity. Her art is simple not because it’s her style but I think it captures how straightforward our emotions are that even the simplest of lines can portray our sadness or happiness.

Personally, as a fujoshi, I’d like to be in that same age of maturity as she is. I’d like to appreciate the porn without compromising the story and the emotions of the characters. I’d like to poke fun at my fangirl self and have a laugh at the couples I adore. I think to a degree I have turned into the fangirl that she is but at the same time, I am much like her who still manages to squee and dream about the possibilities of the love that’s never said. In her heart of hearts, Yoshinaga Fumi is a fangirl and that fangirl was never lost. She just matured in a very graceful and elegant manner.

It is this very gracefulness that made her one of the 20 important shoujo mangaka of this day and age. She was unlike the 49ers because she did not bask too deep in a fantasy. On the other hand, she was not too hardcore to over dramatize the reality. She was the perfect example of a contemporary author who was dealing with post-modern concerns of identity, banality, and meaning. However she did not have to write an existential piece for us to appreciate it. She merely wrote down fascinating personalities living their lives as they believed it.  I personally feel she paved the way of other BL mangaka who also managed to present great slice of life stories driven by great characters: Nakamura Asumiko, Basso, Est Em, and Yamashita Tomoko. And I think I’m more than grateful to her for giving me not only some of the best stories I’ve ever read in manga but also the best lessons in life.

I do have one heartbreak with her… she didn’t give me closure for Ono and Tachibana in her doujins.  :<

The Reading List

Fumi at her BL Best: Tsuki to Sandal (The Moon and Sandals), Lovers in the Night, Gerard and Jacques, Don’t say Any More Darling, Solfege, Ichigenme wa Yaruki no Minpou (First Class is Civil Law)

Fumi at her Foodie Best: Antique Bakery, Not love but Delicious Food, Kinou Nani Tabeta

Fumi at her Best: Flower of Life, Garden of Dreams, All my Darling Daughters, Ooku

About my favorite panel

I believe it was Melinda who asked me what was my favorite BL panel ever and I told her that it had come from a Yoshinaga Fumi manga. As I have lost my copy of the Japanese version, this panel does not capture the exact amazing of the Japanese hence I modified this English copy to mimic that scene in Japanese.

This was taken from my favorite Yoshinaga BL story, Ichigenme wa Yaruki no Minpou volume 2, and as you guys can see Tamiya’s panting “haa… haa…” before screaming “hazukashii!!” which means “it’s so embarrassing!” It just sounds a lot better in Japanese because you’re not exactly sure if he was panting or he was soooo embarrassed that it was it was a mixture of both. It’s gold and I think it led to one of the hottest BL scenes I’ve read.

That said, I want to ask, what are your favorite Yoshinaga Fumi moments and why do you love her work?

Note: This spotlight was intended for February so this counts as the February Spotlight.

The post Spotlight: Yoshinaga Fumi appeared first on Otaku Champloo.

All this Yoshinaga talk around mangadom through this month’s Manga Moveable Feast has honestly left me hungry. We all know how much Yoshinaga Fumi loves her food and many of us often suffer from all the lovely food that she features in her manga. If you read Antique Bakery, I’m quite sure you’ll be craving for cakes. If you read Not Love But Food, you’d wish you were in Japan to try out all the fun restaurants they ate in. What’s frustrating is how the food she features in her manga is inaccessible unless you’re a genius baker like Ono.

Well, not any more. At least if you can read Kinou Nani Tabeta. 

My favorite non-BL Yoshinaga is her domestic story between a lawyer and a hairdresser and their laidback dinners. They’re an odd couple of sorts but they share a passion for food and love for sharing meals. While some would think that reading into their dinners can get one hungry, the ease they show in preparing the dishes make you think that maybe… just maybe… you can cook it at home.

Starving for some Yoshinaga dishes, I thought I’d share with you two easy meals I learned from Kinou Nani Tabeta. These ingredients can be easily found in a Japanese grocery. I’ll also point in some alternatives just in case you want a taste of these dishes but can’t find the ingredients.

Tuna and tomato soumen (ツナとトマトのぶっかけそうめん)

This is a relatively easy dish featured in volume 1 after Shiro-san meets a lady in a grocery who seems to share his knack for making a bargain. It was a hilarious chapter that involves Shiro’s need to confess his homosexuality. Needless to say, all’s well end’s well and they had this dish to cap the night.

Instructions:
Prepare the sauce
1. Mix the mentsuyu, water, and ginger together

Prepare the tuna
1. Drain the can of tuna.
2. Add the mayonnaise and mix it to a desired consistency. By this I mean that you place enough for the tuna to stick together but not too much at that the tuna’s dripping in mayonnaise.
3. Salt and pepper to taste.

Prepare the soumen
1. Cook the soumen as instructed in the packet. This is a cold soba so please drain the noodles as soon as it’s cooked and wash it with cold water.
2. Lay the noodles down on a shallow dish and start assembling the cucumber, tomato, shiso, and tuna on top of the noodle.
3. “Splash” the sauce over the dish and serve cold.

I personally loved this because it’s a fairly light yet filling dish. It’s very easy to do too! I recommend adding the shiso in this dish because it gives a very refreshing taste to this soumen.

Miso Butter Ankake Ramen

This was a hilarious recipe that Kenji managed to do only when Shiro-san went home for the New Year. Shiro is an advocate of eating healthy hence eating instant ramen or any junk food was totally out of the question. Somehow, Kenji managed to make a compromise with this ramen.

Instructions:
1. Cut up all the vegetables and set aside
2. In a hot pan, add salad oil and once that’s hot, add the pork
3. Stir fry the pork until cooked and then add the cabbage and carrot. Stir fry until it has changed color then add butter.
4. Add 500cc (250 ml) of water into the hot pan and cover the vegetables and wait for it to boil.
5. Once the water’s boiling, add the noodles and let it steep in the broth for 2 minutes. ONLY FOR TWO MINUTES. Sapporo Ichiban can get soggy really fast so this two minute count is important.
6. Crack an egg in a microwave dish and cover it. Poke the yolk once just so steam can cook it a little. Then microwave it for 20 secs. or until the white area is cooked. Make sure that the yolk part is not overly cooked unless that’s how you like your eggs. Kenji and I like it runny so I made sure my yolk wasn’t fully cooked.
7. In a bowl, add the seasonings of the miso ramen.
8. Once the 2 minutes is over, take the noodles off the heat and add the moyashi. Mix it for a bit to heat the moyashi.
9. Carefully pour the ingredients into the bowl with the miso seasonings and top it off with a sprinkle of sesame seeds, spring onions, and the microwaved egg.

There are more dishes in Kinou Nani Tabeta but some of them can get complicated. I have managed to make these two dishes, a strawberry jam, some crepes, and some of their awesome nimono and stir fries. While all of us dream of expensive dishes, somehow Shiro’s stinginess and his creativity in mixing ingredients based on what’s available makes Fumi’s dishes quite accessible.

If you have a chance to read Kinou Nani Tabeta, then go right ahead and try some of the dishes featured in her manga. If not, then these are two of the recipes that I can share. I can’t cook all of them at the same time, since these two were more than enough to fill me up yesterday.

So what did you eat yesterday? Maybe you can have these dishes for tomorrow.

The post MMF: What did I eat yesterday? appeared first on Otaku Champloo.

This was a difficult set to write because it was difficult to whittle down the list to seven. This week/month, I’ve been reading various food manga and here are the seven titles that I enjoyed… right now. I have a feeling that if I read the other stories, I’d probably go to my wits and them here. But right now, these are the titles that we’ll all probably enjoy, regardless if we love manga or food a little more than the other.

1. Shinya Shokudo (Midnight Diner)

Open from 12:00 AM to 7:AM, this late night diner is a safe haven for late night stragglers who want a good meal after a tiring day. This is one of my favorite food comics as it draws on people’s memories and its relationship with food. The food served in this series is simple and heartwarming, with little fuss over ingredients and more into the care in making the dishes. I love how this diner invites the oddest of people who all find solace in this place. It’s still running but it’s a relatively short series that is feasible as a license abroad. As said in our podcast, Ed Chavez even suggested that if Drawn and Quarterly wanted a food manga, this would be the perfect food title for them. And I couldn’t agree more. It’s quite popular in China because of the drama and the comic. The featured image on top is from the Chinese edition of the comic.

2. Addicted to Curry

After travelling all over the world, searching for the diverse flavor of curry, Makito Koenji returns to give respects to his curry master. Disappointed that his master’s restaurant was going down, Makito helps the daughter to resuscitate this curry joint. This series is an epic shounen title that involves a lot of curry battles. What I particularly enjoy about this title is its dedication in showing tons of awesome curry dishes. And I’m talking about a mix of authentic curry dishes from India and Southeast Asia, as well as new dishes created for the series. I have nothing but love for this story and while it’s a long title, I’m thinking that we’ll have a chance to appreciate this title and see it running in Jmanga.

3. Cheese no Jikan (Age of Cheese)

Les Fromage is a new cheese restaurant owned by a Japanese girl who couldn’t forget her love for cheese after going to France. This series is enjoyable because of its endless love for cheese. It discusses mostly flavor notes, food and wine matching, some recipes, and history of cheese. It’s a lovely title that I truly adore and definitely a must read for many cheese lovers out there.

4. Kuitan (The Case Files of the Gourmand Detective)

This is an old series but I still have nothing but love and devotion for this title! When the police district gets in a pinch, sometimes they call on Seiya Takano as their consultant. A private detective by trade, this guy solves a mystery by discovering how men lose their crumble. He investigates what the person last ate, the food he has been eating, and other circumstantial evidences that are related to food. While you might think that this might just revolve around poisoned folks and their meals, this fun title also explores the history and meaning of food to various people and cultures. A fantastic title that would be worth reading for mystery and food nuts like me.

5. Shitsuren Chocolatier (The Lovelorn Chocolatier)

A nominee for the 2011 Manga Taisho award, this heartbreaking tale of a man’s broken affections from the love of his life is must read for all chocolate lovers. His chocolate captures the tumultuous emotions that he encounters from chapter to chapter and while the art might be questionable to many, if the Manga Taisho nomination doesn’t convince you, then perhaps your love for bittersweet chocolates can convince you how this story is just as bitter sweet. This title frustrates me and makes me happy in a way that any good josei should do. I hear this series is quite popular in France as well.

6. Cooking Papa

This is probably too long for licensing, but there is a Cooking Papa Selection that contains quite a great number of stories from the series. Cooking Papa is as much an institution in food manga as Oishinbo is. However, unlike Oishinbo, Cooking Papa is a more episodic, slice of life tale that focuses more on domestic cooking rather than high-class food fare. And this makes it a better casual read than Oishinbo. The manga in itself is a slice of life tale where the father takes charge of the kitchen rather than the mother (more to help the family and not because the wife can’t cook!) While it’s fun to see his family grow, it’s a lot lovelier seeing the awesome food they manage to cook and eat. The dishes are also very easy to cook, but some of them can be quite ambitious, like that dorayaki wedding cake. OTL.

7. Kinou Nani Tabeta (What Did You Eat Yesterday)

I think I’m not alone in featuring this comic, and while there are still some mixed emotions on getting this title on board, to this day, this is one of my favorite titles which religiously follow. Forget the whole idea of the homosexual couples or the gender issues in this tale. What I appreciate about this is how the act of sharing food builds relationships between people. I’d love to see this title in English someday so that more people will see Yoshinaga Fumi at her best.

In writing this feature, other titles pop in my head to the point that I have to hold myself and remind myself that someday, I might just be able to write them. For now, these are my favorites which I continue to look at when I feel hungry. Hopefully, these titles get licensed and will become your favorites as well.

The post Oishinbo MMF: 7 Unlicensed Food Manga Worth Looking At appeared first on Otaku Champloo.