Posts Tagged ‘Yoshinaga Fumi’
All this Yoshinaga talk around mangadom through this month’s Manga Moveable Feast has honestly left me hungry. We all know how much Yoshinaga Fumi loves her food and many of us often suffer from all the lovely food that she features in her manga. If you read Antique Bakery, I’m quite sure you’ll be craving for cakes. If you read Not Love But Food, you’d wish you were in Japan to try out all the fun restaurants they ate in. What’s frustrating is how the food she features in her manga is inaccessible unless you’re a genius baker like Ono.
Well, not any more. At least if you can read Kinou Nani Tabeta.
My favorite non-BL Yoshinaga is her domestic story between a lawyer and a hairdresser and their laidback dinners. They’re an odd couple of sorts but they share a passion for food and love for sharing meals. While some would think that reading into their dinners can get one hungry, the ease they show in preparing the dishes make you think that maybe… just maybe… you can cook it at home.
Starving for some Yoshinaga dishes, I thought I’d share with you two easy meals I learned from Kinou Nani Tabeta. These ingredients can be easily found in a Japanese grocery. I’ll also point in some alternatives just in case you want a taste of these dishes but can’t find the ingredients.
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I believe I’ve been told by one of my advisers that I shouldn’t write something that I’m obsessed about. Bias, after all, is one of the greatest sins in historical writing. It’s like a painted picture where everything is all right or all wrong and it’s hard to tell whether it’s the truth or not because of all the biases people have on it. Is it pretty? Is it ugly? Does the picture really translate the heart of what it’s trying to represent? Or are we simply translating what the painter wishes to portray and nothing more?
It’s hard to get rid of biases but when images sway you to the point of obsession then maybe, just maybe, that picture has more truth that it should hold.
It is in this obsession that I cannot forget Nakamura Asumiko. She draws a gaze that convinces me more than ever that she deserves this spotlight.
I write this spotlight today with a mildly sore leg as March started with a big bump… in more ways than one.
I wonder if living life past a quarter of a century meant seeing your life in still panels with soft lines and endearing faces. Surely, my face was far from endearing, nor was the experience of being hit by a car in any way graceful. But strangely, all worries, anxieties, and fears disappeared as soon as I shared a meal with the lady who hit me with her car. And I can visibly remember the joy of eating food with someone, even if she kind of messed up my legs a little.
At that time, I felt that moment reminded me of a Yoshinaga Fumi panel, two people eating, healing pains and worries with a quiet but hearty meal and smiles on their faces.
Hence, in commemoration of being thankful for life, I put a spotlight on Fumi Yoshinaga.
The 6th volume of Ooku will be sold in Japan on August 28. According to Comic Natalie, along with the manga is a separate special volume which serves as a guidebook to the world of both the movie and the comic. It features interviews with the cast and Yoshinaga Fumi herself. I’m personally most intrigued by the Yoshinaga-sensei’s interview because I’ve always been fascinated at how she built the story for this one.
My interest for Japanese history is completely challenged by this series. While I do know it’s fiction, Yoshinaga showcases the emotions of real people. I do see the subtleties of Japanese court life in every page and also the passing reality of Japanese life at that period. It is surreal that it’s not real because for me, it would have passed off as something quite true if I read through my books. I hope in that interview, I get to see the wealth of research Yoshinaga-sensei does with every page. It’s really a brilliant series. I think the world would appreciate it more without its Fakespeare.
That aside, the guidebook also contains special illustrations and images for the movie. I’m excited for the movie as well and wish I could be in Japan on October just to catch. Oh well, we may not have that for now, but we can always just look at these lovely covers and hope it’ll get to our shores soon. The guidebook and volume 6 will be available in Japan on August 28.
きのうなに食べた？Kinou Nani Tabeta? (What did you eat yesterday) by Yoshinaga Fumi
Serialized in Morning
Published by Kodansha.
What did you eat for dinner last night?
Fish and chips? Chinese takeout? Pot Roast? How about a grilled fish, marinated in soy and miso, but not too long to save the sweetness of the fish, matched with a clear vegetable soup and red rice? And probably at the same price as your Chinese takeout. Yoshinaga Fumi returns to us with a very delectable treat, one that we have missed ever since Antique Bakery. We now have 2 guys in their 40s, sharing an apartment, and eating some of the yummiest dinners with ingredients bought in the best of seasons and on a budget. Yes, Fumi’s back in her element with a delightfully yummy manga serving where she asks us “Kinou, nani tabeta?”, what did you yesterday?
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