Eric Henwood-Greer says:

Nice job hosting, Chip!

This is another of those manga that I’d read if it was part of an anthology I was already reading, but I can’t see taking any of my manga-buying money otherwise. However, the episode and talk of “comfort manga” made me realize that… I watched all of the anime of this about 5 years ago. It never exactly thrilled me, but it completely *was* a comfort watch–every so often I go through an anime series that I just enjoy putting on when I’m tired at the end of the day, and don’t really care if I miss some parts of it. Obviously, since I had forgotten I even watched it while a TV anime like Kids on the Slope have stuck with me ten years later, I can’t say I thought it was great by any means. But pleasant… And nothing wrong with that. (It would have been more pleasant for me with some homoerotic fanservice but I guess that’s why I watched Antique Bakery around the same time.)

I’m not sure I agree with Chris though that aspects of this would be confusing to people who don’t know current Japanese culture. It’s hard for me to say, because I’ve spent enough time with Japanese pop culture (pretty much 30 years to the year) that I like to think I at least have some sense of it, but…

I mean I live in Victoria, BC, which is known to have the highest number of restaurants per capita in North America after San Francisco. So we have a number of really high end restaurants here, focusing on (local) celebrity chefs. I can think of at least three that are only open two or three days a week. I also know one that you have to check online to see if the chef is even in the mood to open that day. And these chefs do come as guests on local morning breakfast shows (as do better nationally known chefs on cheap Canadian daytime infotainment shows like CityLine). Sure, often it’s to do a cooking demo, but increasingly it’s also just to be a “personality” and chat with the panel about… whatever. (In fact a number of times The Social, Canada’s gentler, nicer answer to The View, has had chefs as part of their guest panel, and not there to discuss food. I know because a few times I’ve tuned in and had to google who this “celebrity guest” was…)

Don’t get me wrong, I know those aspects, especially with TV talk shows (I can’t believe I used that infotainment term) are amplified times 1000 in Japan and it’s still pretty different. But I also don’t think it’s something that would seem all that foreign to N American (at least Canadian?) readers…