Skip to main content

RESTAURANT TO ANOTHER WORLD by Urizon

 

   BOY, AM I SLACKING LATELY!

 

   There are so many topics I could be going into. Arcane, The Batman, Jujutsu Kaisen 0, It takes Two, Hawkeye. A countless number of movies, games and shows have been released that I just haven’t covered. It is a shame honestly how much I have missed out on. I'd argue it isn’t too late, especially with something like the Jujutsu Kaisen movie, but it is what it is. I have made my choice. No going back. I have committed so instead I’m going to discuss what I think is an underrated gem, the anime Restaurant to Another World.

   Restaurant to Another World, or Isekai Shokudou, is a 2017 anime based off from a series of light novels by Junpei Inuzuka. Recently season 2 of the anime finished airing, bringing it up to 24 episodes total, with five light novels having been released since 2015. As the name suggests, it is an Isekai cooking anime that deals with a business called “The Western Restaurant Nekoya”. During the week, the restaurant operates on normal business hours as an ordinary eatery, but secretly every Saturday it creates doorways to another world. This fantasy world is inhabited by all sorts of creatures such as dragons, lizardmen, elves, vampires and all sorts of other fantastical creatures. As these creatures and humans find the doorways, they end up becoming regular patrons of the restaurant, loving not only the food but also the bonds that form between them all.

   While the plot for Restaurant to Another World is nothing amazing or spectacular, I think that is part of what makes it special. I love anime with superb stories, along with ones that can be really deep and make you think. Yet every once in a while it is just nice to have a nice, low stakes, wholesome show. I don’t have to worry about people dying. I don’t have to worry about two people getting together. I can just sit down after a long day, turn on the show and just watch people talk about their love of food. It is just such a feel-good show. You can’t help but smile as you watch people from this different world try these different foods for the first time while getting to know and grow close to the other patrons.

   On a similar note, the characters in this show are really interesting. Every episode is usually divided into two segments, each based on a certain menu item and a different character. You don’t get a whole lot of the characters’ stories in that maybe 12-minute period, but you do get enough to get truly invested. The great thing is, as the season continues, you get to see the characters come back and see the growth in them, despite only getting around a quarter of each episode showing each character’s life outside them eating at the restaurant. Most of the characters you don’t even get a name for, with them only going by what their regular order is, but it still becomes so easy to get attached to them.

   One thing about the show though is to not watch it when you are hungry. I think that applies to a lot of anime that have food in them, but this one is certainly a step above some of the others when it comes to anime food. Besides the fact that all of the food looks absolutely delicious, the characters also go into so much detail about the flavors and textures of the food that you can’t help but want what they are having. It really becomes clear that the writer of the series must have really loved food because the characters talk about it all with such passion. They go and break down the different ingredients and how they complement each other or what they bring to the dish while also getting into the scents, textures and flavors. You can’t help but smile as they go into all of the details.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

DEATH NOTE by Urizen

   Oh how I have waited for this day! Finally the stars have aligned in such a way that I can do this review! I always wished for this but never thought it would actually come to be. I don’t even know how to handle myself. I have so much to say! So, let’s just dive right in and talk about the world famous Death Note!    Written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by Takeshi Obata, the Death Note manga started being released in Weekly Shonen Jump in 2003. It told the story of Light Yagami, a very intelligent high school student who is sick of the failures of the justice system. One day he stumbles across this black notebook labeled “Death Note.” Inside it is a list of rules that tells him if he writes anyone’s name in it, that person will die. It is found out that the notebook belongs to a Shinigami, a god of death, named Ryuk. Ryuk dropped his notebook in the human world because he was bored and wanted to see what would happen. Light decides to use the Death Note to get

MEN IN BLACK INTERNATIONAL by Urizen

   Here come the Men in Black! I have gone back and forth on this franchise’s future for years now. Rumors and plans have been thrown around for a while, including a weird 21 Jump Street crossover (dodged a bullet there), yet nothing had really came to fruition until recently when we got the announcement for Men In Black International. My hope continued to grow more and more as it was announced that Tessa Thompson and Chris Hemsworth would be starring in it. The two worked great together in Thor Ragnarok and both are great at acting, so it had to be good. As the trailer came out, it seemed like an interesting twist, but also kept the same feel of the original series. As usual though, the reviews came, and I grew worried. I didn’t know what I was getting into.    Men In Black: International deals with Thompson's Agent M, who as a child rescued an alien that had broken into her house while being chased by the MIB. While her parents got neuralized and forgot the incident, eve

AVENGER ENDGAME - Spoiler Free by Urizen

AVENGER ENDGAME SPOILER FREE By Urizen 11 years ago Marvel released Iron Man and with that started one of the greatest cinematic universes of all time. With now 22 movies, the MCU has helped shape the super hero movie genre and has created not only what would be considered amazing super hero movies, but just great movies in general. Since the release of the first Avengers movie, we have been building up to this movie. Ever since that tease of Thanos, we all knew something big was coming. By the end of Infinity War, we got it. The stakes were higher than they had ever been. Naturally after all of this, expectations for Avengers Endgame were so high. I was a bit worried. I had a feeling it would be great, but I worried that everyone’s expectations were almost too high. Boy was I wrong. This movie absolutely exceeded all of that. Avengers Endgame may be the best Avengers movie and maybe the best MCU movie so far. It was to the point that even for a three hour long