The List

8 Strange Anime Cuisines

Winter is closing in and one of the scariest days in the United States is only a few days away. The crazy 4 a.m. dash called "Black Friday" is looming ahead. For those of you who don't head to your major department stores in hopes of carrying out a 50" TV for $99; sleep in. Then, tune into your local news later in the day to see the inevitable reports of property destruction and injury over a delicious leftover turkey and cranberry sandwich.

The list entries this week countdown a different kind of comfort food then those found at your Thanksgiving table. No, these dishes are usually the type only appealing to its cook but that doesn't stop other cast members from being subjected to it.

8. Orihime Inoue's Food Combos (Bleach) It isn't that Orihime is a bad cook, it's just that her tastes run pretty strange, usually mixing in some kind of dessert ingredient. Over the course of the show she makes things like onigiri with custard filling, honey and wasabi in ramen, and red bean paste sandwiches. Certainly not traditional combos, but grounded enough that an adventurous eater might try it.

7. Toriko's Ingredients (Toriko) Toriko hunts down the rarest and most elusive ingredients to make delicious food. Rarely vegetarian-friendly, the queasy factor has less to do with meal's flavor and more to do with what went into it. Some of the stranger ingredients include Surprise Apples, Jewel Meat, and the guilt inducing Sealt and Pepper. I'm an adventurous eater, but I draw the line when my produce has human faces and screams.

6. Midgrats' Cat Dishes (Banner of the Stars) Samson, the chief engineer from Banner of the Stars, hails from the planet Midgrat where cat is a delicacy. Samson never bites down on feline in the series, but his Abh colleagues make it clear that it's not something they're very comfortable with. Back on planet Earth, eating cat is considered taboo in most countries while acceptable in others, albeit very small areas.

5. Sanae Furukawa's Breads (CLANNAD) Sanae Furukawa is Nagisa's mom and co-owner of a bakery with her husband, Akio. Her creativity cannot be contained by stereotypical ideas of what constitutes 'bread'. However, Sanae is very sensitive about her unique creations. Any kind of criticism turns her into a dramatically sobbing mess, with Akio eating some her breads just to make her feel better. Some of her creations' contents are questionable (squid) or completely indiscernible (Rainbow Bread?).

4. Keronian's Okinomiyaki (Sgt. Frog) It's one thing to partake in raw meat, but quite another when the creature is still alive. The "Special Mixed Life-form Space Okinomiyaki" is a favorite on Keroro's home planet and it has the disturbing habit of attempting to escape after its been cooked, although that may have more to do with Keroro failing to kill it properly beforehand.

3. Nyarko's Alien Meals (Nyarko-san: Another Crawling Chaos)I would take Keroro's questionable space food over Nyarko's nefarious bento any day of the week. One lunch serving featured meat from "The Black Goat of the Woods", also known as Shub-Niggurath from Lovecraft mythos. Other creepy choices include the eggs of shantak birds, byakhee, lloigor, and Tsathoggua.

2. Sadaharu Inui's Juice (Prince of Tennis) Inui's Penal-Tea and other vegetable based juices strike fear into the hearts of teammates and rivals alike. I was able to find a recipe list that imitates some of his famous concoctions. Inui himself is pretty calculating, sometimes sneaking his drinks into player's water bottles. He isn't perfect, however, and a slight miscalculation in his recipe causes a match forfeit when Inui's unable to leave the bathroom.

1. Professor Itsuki's Kiviak/Hongeohoe (Moyashimon) Moyashimon's Professor Itsuki prefers his food fermented, but his choices are more exotic than the typical natto. It might surprise you that kaviak wasn't created to gross out viewers of Moyshimon. It's a delicacy originating in Greenland where 400 indigenous birds are sealed into the carcass of seal and buried for several months. In the winter months, the carcass is dug up and the fermented birds are eaten raw. The other food he's shown to enjoy is hongeohoe, a Korean dish made from fermented skate (a fish with an appearance similar to a manta ray) which is wrapped and buried in dung for several weeks. The stuff smells like ammonia.

The new poll: Children Who Chase Lost Voices got its North American release earlier this week. Director Makoto Shinkai is proving himself a director to watch with a handful of feature length and short films. So, readers, which of his works is your favorite?

The old poll: Last week's poll asked what traditional Japanese artform you'd like to study. Here's the full results!

1. Shamisen (Japanese three-stringed instrument) 23.0%
2. Calligraphy 17.1%
3. Origami 14.7%
4. Tea Ceremony 10.7%
5. Bonsai 10.3%
6. Yamato-e (traditional Japanese painting) 8.0%
7. Ikebana (Flower Arrangement) 6.4%
8. Waka (Japanese short poetry, such as haiku) 5.1%
9. Ukiyo-e (woodblock prints) 4.7%