Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - Why Do We Love Animated Food?
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Cho_Desu
 Posts: 242 |
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Cooking-focused shows have always been one of those things that never clicks with me, but I'm no food connoisseur. It seems every day there's a social media thread of gifs about how amazing Ghibli food looks, but I usually have a more "uncanny valley" reaction. Certain things like an overabundance of cheese, runny eggs, or uncooked meat make me kinda gag. (The latest Ghibli film had two scenes in particular that made me want to puke... One in which the boy has to eat a piece of bread with about five pounds of butter and jam on top, and one in which a giant gutted fish has an Akira-esque sequence of entrails flowing out and covering the boy.)
As for why all the focus on food... I always just think of this Dogen skit about flipping channels on Japanese TV. I think after the weather, the most common go-to for conversation in Japan is food (not an unusual thing in any culture, of course... but it may be argued Japanese cuisine stands out for its wide variety of dishes — there's a lot to talk about). |
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Oggers
 Posts: 379 Location: Ontario, Canada |
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I'm not hugely into cooking series myself, but there are food-focused anime that I enjoy. Laid-Back Camp is a standout example for its enjoyment of both the outdoors and the food you can enjoy while taking it in, and I also liked watching Today's Menu with the Emiya Family and Sweetness and Lightning while they aired.
While I've also enjoyed food as it's portrayed in Studio Ghibli movies as well (though I get why it might fall into the uncanny valley for some), I feel like screencaps and gifs of food from said movies have been circulated around the internet so often by now that it tends to be boiled down to an "aesthetic". Contrary to what some people might think, no, Ghibli films aren't just about eating good food and enjoying nice scenery. |
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Silver Kirin
Posts: 1254 |
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I think there's something hypnotizing about manga/anime food. I loved watching cooking shows, especially since I used to watch them with my grandpa during lunch when I was little, but if I had to mention which anime were the ones where I think I started to notice the subtle details that when into drawing food, especailly in comparsion to Western animation (though as a kid I always wanted to know how would a Krabby Paty would taste), I think those were Ranma ½ and Dragon Ball, I didn't know what were rice balls or ramen, and the dub didn't even call them that way, but I wanted to try them, but it took a long time for those kind of food to get popular here. I think anime played a key role into making Japanese, and some other Asian dishes, more popular. I also have some memories from shows like Pokémon and The Slayers, how Brock prepared those "jelly donuts" and how Lina wanted to eat dragon meat in one episode. Magical Girl and shojo shows had some very detailed shots of sweets and pastries
I have no idea why my Instagram shows me so many anime food posts, but some of them look good, I really like those clips from Shinkai movies, though I never got any uncanny valley vibes from Ghibli food, though I say the way the draw food fells more "abundant", though I prefer the way they draw food in their earlier works. Sidenote, if I had to mention at least one cartoon that made food look really good, that would be SpongeBob's first episode, I think that all of us who grew up with that show wanted to try a Krabby Patty |
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SaneSavantElla
 Posts: 255 Location: Philippines |
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There's just something about how anime inserts food any which way they can somewhere in the production. I know for a fact this is not much of a thing in my country's entertainment culture, outside of shameless brand advertising. But it's so blatant in anime (and recently, I heard, in K-dramas as well) that it made an impression on me throughout my time watching anime as a young kid.
In high school, I wrote a paper about food presentation in anime for a minor course (Yes, I was that classmate who will talk your ears off about anime and nothing else, and no I don't regret it  ) This was way before I was introduced to Studio Ghibli because back in the day, anime distribution outside of localized series was dismal where I live. And yet I got countless examples not only from food-focused anime, but from the most popular action shonen and romance shoujo titles to mecha, psychological, thriller, and the most mundane SoL genres. It's crazy how deep the rabbit hole is!
So casually, I've always thought it just started as the ones in charge of production injecting some of their interests/personality into the show, which through the years evolved to be a thing of its own. And then these drawings of food got more and more deliberate and elaborate until their depiction in anime became so hyper-realistic that it incites a pavlovian response in some viewers. |
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Yuvelir
 Posts: 1629 |
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What are the oldest shows specifically about cooking?
I remember watching Koufuku Graffiti with gusto (when food manga was already abundant) and after Shokugeki no Souma aired later that year suddenly you had food porn anime every season. There were a LOT of new series, both manga and anime, releasing around that time hyper-focusing on food. |
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