This Week in Anime

Why Do We Love Animated Food?

Nick
Nah, this seems like a pretty direct line from our hunter/gatherer ancestors. If anything they'd have a way easier time understanding this than any of those farming-based isekai shows from last year.

It only makes sense. While the rise of "Foodie" subculture in the mainstream is relatively modern, food itself is quite literally inextricable from human history. It's a thing all of us need in some form or another, and is a topic of fascination and creativity in every culture out there. So of course we'd get some anime and manga entries in there eventually, like with Diners, Dungeons, and Di- er, Delicious in Dungeon here.

It's a tough sell in certain ways, which makes it doubly impressive that D in D has managed to make it work with completely fake food made from conceptually impossible ingredients. It's one thing to draw a good-looking meal. It's another to come up with one made out of stuff that looks like this:

You should be a little afraid to admit that.

While most of the other shows we're going to talk about in this subgenre are focused solely on meal prep, this show tickles the same part of my brain that loves learning where fantasy cultures go to the bathroom. It's fully dedicated to interrogating not just the sourcing and processing of food, but of the shape it takes before and the political implications of who gets it after. It rules if you're a specific kind of nerd.

We'll have to wait for an adaptation of Soara and the House of Monsters for that. Seriously though, the politics and logistics of food are fascinating. Eating is so universal that, for people who don't have to worry about hunger, it can easily be taken for granted. Yet the question of what food is available to what people—and for what reasons—is endlessly complicated. So seeing that topic brought up here was cool.

It rules. While sharing a meal doesn't suddenly fix all the history and bloodshed between the Orcs and their opponents, here it allows them to socialize in a way that puts them on an equal level over a universal experience. Probably helps that this one didn't involve any screaming vegetables or newly discovered invertebrates. The worst way to blow international diplomacy is to serve somebody uncooked oysters.

Marcille's just gonna have to deal. There's no "Sweet & Sour Chicken" copout option at the restaurant—so learn to enjoy the spice of life, hold your nose, and eat your bad omelets, lady.

Ah right, I've seen that on every one of the thousands of "Anime Aesthetic" Twitter accounts that were devastated to find out about the pink tint on Sailor Moon being an accident last week.

That's certainly a key part of it. For a lot of viewers who aren't nerds begging to know more about the agricultural laws of RPG Town, the appeal of Foodie anime is to just look at some deliciously-illustrated cuisine, and those Ghibli posts that go viral every few months certainly satisfy that hunger. Though honestly, I'm more of a turkey bacon guy, myself. Sorry, Calcifer.

That looks like a dish best kept exclusive on Instagram feeds, honestly.

I'm always telling people, "Don't eat food offered by strange fae creatures at festivals." But they just keep stuffing their faces. Most of the time those places don't even have grades from the health inspector.

Thankfully there are other filmic foodstuffs to feast upon out there. It's only a matter of time before Shinkai makes a big romance film about aspiring restauranteurs, but in the meantime, Comix Wave Film already has a production under their belt created to make your mouth water.

Now that's some good shit. Like, the Ghibli food might look tasty, but that stuff feels real. The bubbles in the oil. The ripples on the egg. That's the kind of stuff we should be stealing to make monetized Twitter accounts of.

That's another wrinkle to this subgenre. The sub-subgenre of food-based spin-offs. Like hey, Fate fans, are you tired of the fifty bajillion action shows and films this franchise has been pumping out for a decade? Well here's a low-stakes comedy about Shirou making dinner. And with how eagerly those fans ate it up, it feels like we're maybe two years from a Nasuverse crossover that's entirely about rival hotdog stands.

Even outside obvious fanservice, there's also just a lot of appeal to seeing characters who are usually in fantastical, larger-than-life, or just high-stakes scenarios settle down for something mundane. You can add or emphasize their personalities by highlighting what they like or dislike—or in Shirou's case, focus on the domestic angle of his character in a way that makes him way more endearing than his mainline counterpart.

It's not even limited to anime either. The first one of these I ever encountered was Shokugeki no Sanji, where the creators of Food Wars made official One Piece fanfic about everyone's 8th favorite Straw Hat pirate doing, well, Food Wars things.

It's unironically the coolest Sanji has looked in years.

Though now that I've mentioned it, Food Wars is probably the example folks are most likely to be familiar with, thanks to its dedication to satiating hunger and thirst.

Honestly, despite the hook of seeing people stripped by the power of spice, Food Wars does have a decent amount to say about the first half of its title. While it's all filtered through the lens of a sports anime, there's a lot of focus on how to make food that is appealing, unique, or even an expression of the chef's personality. It seems to believe that cooking is as much an art as painting or music.

I never got that far into it myself, but I do rather like the angle of the main character trying to make a distinctly Japanese kind of bread. Food was historically highly specific to the culture it was created in but the globalization of resources means different places can create their spin on even the most staple foods. It begs for a deeper look into what forces and circumstances might lead to something feeling nationalistically distinct while still being the same kinda food you could find in any grocery store on the planet.

Guess that means we can include Glitter Force in here to teach us about Japanese Pizza.

That's pretty neat too. As fun as it is to see shows come up with wild new recipes or fancy takes on familiar dishes, there's also something relatable in just seeing what food people wolf down when they need something comforting or familiar. All we need now is an anime about somebody drunkenly buying and eating $50 worth of Taco Bell.

I'm seeing a disturbing lack of marshmallows or graham crackers in those screenshots. Are you sure they know how to camp properly?

If food anime has taught me anything, it's that everything is possible with a Japanese convenience store.

That does seem like a rising trend. Even Western properties are getting in on it with the likes of Superman vs Meshi, which is about exactly what you'd think it is.

Now I'm thinking about a foodie anime, but all the characters just make those weird, gross recipes for people on TikTok to react to.

Our artistic relationship with food could stand to be as wide and varied as our gestational one. I don't just want food anime about cooking good stuff. I want a comedy about somebody destroying their kitchen by trying to make 50s-era novelty gelatin meals. Or trying to create the spiciest hot sauce to ever scorch a human tongue. Give me an anime adaptation of The Bear while we're at it.

The biggest surprise is that it didn't turn into 12 episodes of making chicken nuggets shaped like dinosaurs, honestly.

But seriously, that's a good angle to take. Anime about raising kids often glosses over the more troublesome parts of caring for a toddler, including getting them to try new things and eat stuff they really should, lest they grow up to be somebody who won't even have lettuce on their burgers. It highlights how much our tastes are determined by what we're raised on, and how integral what we eat is to our personalities. We are, in fact, what we eat.

It's the circle of life. One way or another we all turn to food eventually, whether we're meat in an animal's gullet or our bones are fertilizing plants. So next time you sit down for a meal or just sneak a midnight snack, try to think about your place in the universal food chain. And remember: