Manga Mania: Isekai Omotenashi Gohan

Clarification of Terms:

Isekai

The word Isekai (異世界, lit. ‘Another World’) is the Japanese word for the storytelling trope in which the main character(s) from Earth are inexplicably sent to a world totally different from their home, usually some variant of medieval fantasy Europe but it can vary. In Isekai stories the main character is often endowed with some kind of special power or grand destiny that will help them on some grand quest or another while they gather friends and allies from the natives of the fantasy world. Mix in something about defeating a demon lord and a minimum of two love interests competing for the affection of the hero and you got yourself Isekai in a nutshell.

Light Novels

A style of pulp fiction writing with releases typically being 150 pages or less, mostly targeted at middle and high school students. It’s a popular format in Japan, and releases are often accompanied by anime-style illustrations. Isekai Omotenashi Gohan was originally released as a small collection of Light Novels, and was adapted to the Manga that I review here.

Official Summary

Akane, an ordinary office lady, gets summoned to a different world along with her younger sister and pet dog. There, she ends up treating rare guests one after another with hospitality through meals!! Can she satisfy the citizens of a different world with home cooking…?!

Summary According to Me

In Isekai Omotenashi Gohan, 16 year old Hiyori Takanashi is summoned to [unnamed medieval fantasy Europe country] because she is the fated Priestess that will ‘cleanse the land of demonic miasma that threatens to extinguish human kind there. Sounds exciting, right?

Except, the story isn’t about Hiyori, it’s about her 24 year old sister and caretaker Akane. And what does Akane do while her sister is preparing for this dangerous video game-esque quest? Well, she cooks. And cooks. And cooks some more. That’s really all she does, and the story is about her using food to charm her way through fantasy royalty, elves, fairy queens, dwarven warriors, and the miscellaneous deity. Naturally, hijinks ensue.

Review

I picked this one out because I recently finished watching the cooking themed anime ‘Today’s menu for the Emiya Family’ and was in the mood for more content based around the magic of a good cooked meal. Also, to get some ideas for more dishes to try making while trapped inside this fine quarantine.

There were a lot of individual elements that I really loved: the overall wholesomeness, the relationship between the sisters Akane and Hiyori, learning more about all the different Japanese home cooking dishes I had never even heard of before, and so on.

I find its most refreshing aspect is how it turns the Isekai trope on its head by providing an uncommon perspective. (Not to say that the traditional Isekai is bad, but many of them can be boiled down to the same repetitive plot elements.) It’s a nice change of pace to see a main character solving problems in some way that doesn’t involve attacking it with a sword. Additionally the story touches on many themes that are handled in a mostly satisfying matter, such as dealing with homesickness, self discovery, and becoming independent from both the caretaker and cared for point of view.

The first of my two main complaints stems from how rushed the ending was, more specifically how the ‘confession scene’ between Akane and her love interest was handled. Without actually saying how it happens, it just felt poorly portrayed and disjointed while reading it. If I’m being generous this can be explained somewhat by the fact that the Manga version was not the original format this story was told in. Isekai Omotenashi Gohan was originally released as a series of Light Novels. The Manga I read came later and had to deal with different page and chapter constraints, meaning that author and artist had to cut out a lot of the content from the original series. Understandable, but still somewhat disappointing in the end because it was such a flat, unsatisfying conclusion for the cute slow burn I had been enjoying.

My second complaint contains a significant spoiler, so I will push that to it to the last paragraph of this review after the rating.

Isekai Omotenashi Gohan is a cute story, but looking at it holistically I have to give it a 3 out of 5. Don’t come if you want realism, action, or significant drama, but if you want a happy, quick read that won’t stress you out much, this will probably do. Artwise, since this is a Manga and why else are you here if not for the pretty pictures, the illustrations are fairly well done and fitting for the tone of the work, if not a bit generic. 4 out of 5.

**This is where the spoilers begin, and will continue to the end. Okay? Okay!**

So: About three fourths of the way through the series one of the characters reveals that she can send people back and forth between Earth and the Fantasyland at will, and by doing so reveals that no time passes on Earth while the Takanashi sisters are in Fantasyland. This was a disappointing reveal for me, because it feels like it undermines a lot of the struggles that the sisters had to go through and come to terms with in the first part of the story. I understand that this is supposed to be a light hearted, happy story, but to me this only served to weaken the narrative arc. This feeling is exacerbated by the ‘true’ ending depicted in the Light Novel version, which is even more blatant with flaunting the ‘you can’t go home until the lands have been purified–sike! Yes you can!’ paradox. The story wants to have its cake and eat it too, and that just doesn’t fly for me.