In recent years, there has been a shocking rise in anime where eating delicious food plays an important role. The most recent success story was that of Ryoko Kui Delicious in the dungeona story where a band of adventurers venture into the depths of a labyrinthine dungeon to rescue the leader’s sister. Along the way, they need to eat delicious and nutritious meals made from monsters to save time getting to their sister. Other successful anime include Food Wars, Restaurant for another worldand Cooking over the fire in another world with my absurd skill.
While these animes have managed to succeed and see their source material translated into English, a certain isekai anime restaurant hasn’t been so lucky. Sunrise Studio launched Isekai Izakaya “Nobu” in 2018. The anime only had one season, with twenty-four episodes divided between ten minutes of the anime and five minutes of real-world counterparts on the episode plate. Different Restaurant for another world or Delicious in the dungeon, Isekai Izakaya “Nobu” There was no second season. In fact, not all of the manga has been translated, to say nothing of the other forms of media in which Japan has released the series. Isekai Izakaya “Nobu” was forgotten by the anime community.
Welcome to this out-of-this-world Japanese restaurant
Nobuyuki Yazawa is a young man who left his old job to pursue his dream of cooking for other people, accompanied by waitress Shinobu Senke, who was escaping an arranged marriage. Nobuyuki planned to open an izakaya, a casual Japanese bar where friends could have fun while eating delicious food and great drinks, and Shinobu promised to help. Three months before the new izakaya “Nobu” opened its doors, Shinobu went to a shrine to pray for business success. Little did she know that her prayer would be answered in the strangest way.
On the first day the izakaya opened its doors to the public, Nobu’s front doors led to another world called Aitheria – an ancient Germanic city in a low-magic environment. Three months have passed since then, and Nobuyuki and Shinobu have slowly become accustomed to the unusual guests that frequent their restaurant. Sometimes they relieve tired knights with whatever beer they have that night. Other times, they resolve debates about whether eel is worth selling by serving delicious unagi.
Along the way, the izakaya faces some problems that its workers and customers do their best to solve. Nobu’s biggest threat was a greedy nobleman named Bachschouf who wanted to buy the izakaya for himself. Fortunately, with the help of customers Nobu workers befriended along the way, everything worked out and the izakaya was saved. If this sounds interesting, the anime is available to stream on Crunchyroll.
Nobu offers good anime as well as its competitors
At first sight, Isekai Izakaya “Nobu” shares many similarities with others in its genre. There are a wide variety of isekai cooking shows for anime fans to choose from, and one of them stands out with an incredibly similar plot to “Nobu”. Restaurant for another world is another anime where a restaurant from our world serves food to people from another world. However, although the series are similar in concept, they do have some differences.
Restaurant for another world‘s Western Cuisine Nekoya is a more formal restaurant where the Master maintains a formal distance from his customers, doing his best to cater to their specific tastes with his detailed menu. Their two supernatural waitresses help serve a wide variety of fantastical creatures and ordinary humans. The Master helps create a business empire selling noodles, feeding a merchant various types of noodles over the years. He meets the demands of a vegan elf by serving tofu steak. It has an ancient carnivorous dragon craving vegetables with its meat stew. The Master can satisfy almost any customer with his Western cuisine, but keeps the relationship professional, even if he is willing to relax with his two waitresses.
Isekai “Izakaya” Nobu is, as the name implies, an izakaya rather than a restaurant. Izakaya is a kind of casual Japanese bar that serves tasty snacks and thirst-quenching drinks, mainly alcoholic beverages. We could compare it to an English pub or a Spanish tapas bar. Nobuyuki and Shinobu are more than happy to get to know their customers – what they like, how they live and what they do for a living. They are also happy to help resolve disputes that their customers are unable to, such as the previously mentioned unagi incident. Along the way, they gain powerful allies among the people of Aitheria. The other world may contain some fantastic creatures, but its visitors are strictly human, further setting the izakaya apart from Western Nekoya cuisine.
Furthermore, because it is a food-centric anime, a good part of the Isekai Izakaya “Nobu”The beautiful visuals are centered around making your food look as delicious as possible. Similar anime do the same, albeit focusing on different cuisines. Delicious in the dungeon turns the monsters living in the dungeon into nutritious meals, while Restaurant for another world focuses on Western dishes. “Nobu” uses its identity as an izakaya to its advantage, preparing Japanese bar food like oden, karaage, and unagi to tantalize its viewers with delicious sights that will leave them hungry long after the show ends.
Others reject “Nobu” by the way its episodes are structured. Unlike how many animes use an average of 25 minutes to tell one or two stories, Isekai Izakaya “Nobu”Episodes average 15 minutes. The first 10 minutes are dedicated to telling a mini-story of that episode’s dish, while the remaining 5 minutes show viewers how to make that dish or where to find a real-life izakaya where they can enjoy the food in person. Although the anime shares similarities with others in the genre, Isekai Izakaya “Nobu” It would stand out from the crowd if anime fans would simply give it the same chance its fans in other forms of media do.
Nobu’s traditional charm deserves to be recognized
Although the anime was restricted to just 24 15-minute episodes, Isekai Izakaya “Nobu” thrives in other forms of media. With soap operas, light novels, manga and a live-action drama, “Nobu” has many other media for its Japanese fans to enjoy. Unfortunately, this same luxury is not offered to Western fans.
The manga is published by Kadokawa Shoten in Japan, while Udon Entertainment publishes it in North America. However, although there are eighteen volumes currently released in Japan and the manga is still ongoing, only seven volumes have been released in America. The last volume was published in September 2023, with apparently no plans to localize the rest of the manga.
The West was also not fortunate enough to have access to any of the other forms in the series. Isekai Izakaya “Nobu” has two different soap opera series – a regular soap series and a light novel series – both ongoing. There are currently seven light novel volumes released. There was also a live-action television drama with three seasons, each containing 10 episodes, for a total of 30 episodes. None of them have come west or are available for streaming.
In comparison, although neither Restaurant for another worldThe original 7 novels or second ongoing manga reached the west, they released a second season of the anime, 5 light novels with a sixth being localized and the first full manga was released. It is currently unknown whether they plan to release the novel series or the second manga series.
There are currently no known plans to locate any of the remaining Isekai Izakaya “Nobu” happy. Manga fans will have to content themselves with the cliffhanger of volume 7, although there is more than enough content to satisfy their curiosity. Instead, fans of the series are forced to turn to other culinary isekai to satisfy their delicious, otherworldly cravings. If there’s anything positive, cooking anime and manga have become popular in recent years with comparative titles like Restaurant for another world and Cooking over the fire in another world with my absurd skill.
It seems that while Japan loves its isekai izakaya content, the rest of the world doesn’t share that sentiment, which is certainly a shame. Isekai Izakaya “Nobu” has a lot to offer fans of all types, if only its content had a chance to be localized. Until then, fans can only hope, pray, and support this underrated isekai as best they can.
#culinary #Isekai #forgotten