Food is a glorious thing and the Japanese take pride in it. So today's list is part one of a double list which showcases the best and worst cooks of Anime starting with the best cooks.
Honorable Mentions to the cast members of Yakitate & Yumeiro Patisserie which only missed this list due to only covering bakery, along with Ranma 1/2 whose great cooks only cook specialty dishes and nothing else.
Extra: Honorable Mention to Blue Exorcist's Rin Okumura whose cooking is his only talent.
10. Hayate from Hayate the Combat Butler & Sebastian from Black Butler
Tied for 10th but only because they're both on this list for the same reasons. As butlers both Hayate & Sebastian need to be proficient in cooking as well as all their other household tasks. Although it makes me laugh as to why they need a team of servants when both butlers can do all the tasks alone.
9. France from Hetalia Axis Powers
Comes with the stereotype believing the French are the best in the world at cooking, as an Englishman I disagree.
8. Miss Howmei from Nadesico
Despite the fact that Akito is the main character, it's Miss Howmei who steals the show when you hear her backstory in wanting to give soldiers their last meal and has an encyclopedia of spices at her disposal to make sure it's possible.
7. Shinji Ikari from Evangelion
Not so much the original but the rebuild movies show off his great cooking skills in more detail showing that there is more to him than just a whiny emo little snot rag.
6. Makoto Kino from Sailor Moon
Pretty much her best trait outside her tough outer appearance, here's hoping this is still the case come reboot.
5. Sasami Jurai from Tenchi Muyo
Turns cooking into such an art form that she slips into the role without even being asked to, and considering that this is a harem series it's often the one who cooks the best that would get the first kiss. Ryoko & Ayeka beware.
4. Sunako Nakahara from Wallflower
Considering she's being trained as an elegant lady and she's really a crazed girl into the occult and morbid horror who'd be more at home with the Addams Family than a mansion of pretty boys, she's the best cook in the entire series.
3. Satsuki Yotsuba from Negima
At a school of over 3000, she's the best cook to all students and staff alike and commands total respect from even the most abrasive of characters such as Evangeline.
2. Sanji from One Piece
Luffy can pick good crew members, a showcase in how good Sanji really is, is shown in the filler arc G-8 in which Sanji defeats a team of top level navy chefs using the leftovers of the food they just cooked.
1. Pretty much the Entire cast of Toriko
The only thing that makes the plot of having to hunt down the rarest food ingredients is to have them owned by the greatest chefs alive, and like everything else in Shonen Jump it's blown up to epic proportions.
Previously on this review channel, I lost faith in anime following Magic Kyun Renaissance and I wanted to find an anime to restore my faith, to test it, I chose Blue Exorcist.
One night during an exorcism, blue flames consumed the many priests during the ceremony, this was the work of Satan himself. 15 years pass and Rin Okumura, a delinquent discovers he is the son of Satan following a tragic night that sees his adoptive father Fujimoto die in the same blue flames of Satan.
After calling on a charismatic demon named Mephisto, Rin declares that he will kick Satan's ass; amused, Mephisto agrees to take in the spawn of Satan but a thorny path awaits Rin on his journey in becoming an Exorcist, especially when his younger twin brother is his teacher.
So having gone into this series blind I wasn't sure what to expect but what I saw was actually quite enjoyable, the pacing was good, the comedy was refreshing, it's really good at tugging at the heart strings and rather than make Rin a complete delinquent they gave him a good skill to not make him look like every other character of his type. Mephisto is the most intriguing character since Xellos Metallium, Shura comes in completely left field but the show benefits from it, heck Yukio despite being a killjoy is a lot more welcoming than other characters of his type.
But there's a glaring elephant in the room and quite a large one, it can't seem to stray from it's most basic premise, which of course is Rin is the spawn of Satan, line up to try and kill him and it took 26 episodes to break free of it, which is lazy writing when you leave so many unanswered questions from so many other characters.
What is Mephisto's real goal?
Why does Shiemi's power come so easy to her?
What's the deal with Izumo's past?
Who is the kid with the Puppet?
Is Shura human or demon?
While most of these questions are simple to answer and I dare say the Kyoto arc currently airing will help but the big one of course is Mephisto himself and his goal, I want to know but it keeps getting slapped away by the story reminding me that Rin is the Spawn of Satan someone wants to kill him. YES I KNOW!!!!! Give me a proper story damn it.
Dub is comfortable but can be a little weak in places
So has this restored my faith in anime? Yes, a little bit but the jury is still out on the subject for now and at the very least I want to continue watching this series to see if it gets better.
Final Verdict: If Blue Exorcist can resolve it's overly basic plot then it can achieve a much higher standing among other anime and with season 2 airing, there's time to improve.
Welcome back to a week where cartoons are beating anime tenfold and another one of these who conquered last year was Zootopia.
Judy Hopps is a bunny with big ambitions, she wants to become a cop but the job is dominated by big animals mostly predators, undeterred she graduates from the Police Academy as best student and gets a position in Zootopia's Police Force but is dismayed when she gets stuck in a Meter Maid post. Later she meets Nick Wilde, a fox with a knack for schemes and hustling, while initially helping Nick with a hustle without realizing she later drags him into a city wide Police case as mammals have gone missing throughout the city, Judy does this by essentially blackmailing Nick and will let him walk free in return for information as he has been in contact with at least one of the missing mammals.
After a tip off from the local mob boss, Judy and Nick arrive in the jungle where they get attacked by the mammal they wanted to question. After more investigation they discover that all the missing mammals have reverted back to their predator instincts with no reason why which suddenly creates a divide between prey and predator, something that the two leads know all too well so it's up to Judy to find the cause of these sudden devolutions back into animals. (Irony)
What I like about this film is that despite all the internet buzz, trailers and society's penchat for spoilers I went in not knowing what the end result was going to be and that's quite a number of months after the original release so I was kept on the edge of my seat the whole film.
But I think what Zootopia really did right was that it understood the real world better than real life humans which is both fascinating and a little sad. There's talk in the news all the time of racism and prejudice just for being different or being part of a group with a bad history or even tainted image from terrible people but what really hits the nail on the head is that the supposed innocent party are just as terrible as the people they paint as being terrible. It even felt heartbreaking watching Clawhauser packing his things away after the whole Predator reveal and he's the nicest guy in the whole film. I even felt sympathy for Nick, who was only pushed into hustling because of some bad people in his youth. Yeah kind of makes you think this movie and it's probably the best Disney have done in a long time.
Don't really have anything bad to say about this movie.
Now to follow on from my previous review this is what anime is like at the moment.
Kohana gets enrolled in Magic Arts school to follow in her legendary mother's footsteps as she aims to create magic art from her flower arranging, but before she can even show what she can do she gets selected to help arrange the Hoshinomori Summer Festival, the school's magnum opus that sees the crowning of the Artisan Prince and Princess, a title Kohana's mother had; but first she must retrieve all the other committee members which consists of six smexy men. They are.
Teika: A singing major who comes across as a jerk but acts so to win family approval, seems to be a reject from Clamp.
Aoi: A Calligrapher who can't seem to get his words out on paper, pretends to be L from Death Note considering how he always sits.
Rintaro: A Sculptor who later takes a major in baking, wants to be like his grandfather, wouldn't feel lost in a Final Fantasy team.
Louis: A very smexy dancer who lost his mother's approval because he was enjoying dancing too much, probably the only one with a half decent backstory, feels like a lost student from Utena.
Monet: A Monochrome artist who is impossible to work out, has a pet hedgehog, may have be obtained from another magic school given his looks. *cough* Negima.
And Kanato: A cellist who is kind to everyone that the protagonist will likely not end up with despite being the best male, may have been overlooked for a career in Kuroko's Basketball.
Along with the fact that Kohana feels and acts like a typical reverse harem protagonist you got yourselves an unoriginal unspectacular copy of Ouran High School Host Club.
*Clap, Clap, Clap*
Sarcasm was intended as the story does little to stand out amongst better anime and while the concept and anime looks really nice, the lead and story that centers around her comes off as Mary Sue in her own self indulgent fantasy surrounded by men who worship her. Don't believe me, watch the awful ending.
No dub, although a dub might improve it a bit.
If this is the best anime can do with a new frachise I'm not sure I'm going to like future anime.
Final Verdict: It had every intention of being good but the audience it's aimed at have all seen better examples of this genre and I can't really give a passing review to a protagonist as cringeworthy as Kohana.
I think we've reached a point in animation where American cartoons is beating Anime and this review will tell us why.
If you must blink, do it now.
Kubo is a young boy with a story to tell and a unique gift for bringing origami to life with his Shamisen, a Japanese instrument used for telling such stories in old Japan. Kubo has to watch over his mother who barely escaped with their lives from the Moon Kingdom running away from the mother's sisters and father who wants Kubo's eyes but upon escaping the mother gets badly injured and Kubo is without his eye.
When the local village puts on a festival of remembrance, Kubo making a makeshift grave for his fallen father ends up staying out past dark and gets chased down by his cruel aunts. In effort to save Kubo, his mother sacrifices herself to save him leaving behind a Monkey guardian who helps Kubo locate a set of magic armor that can protect him from his grandfather, they are later joined by a samurai beetle with no memory as they set out to find the armor.
No more story otherwise spoilers.
Kubo and the Two Strings is incredible, the design that went into it really gives a mystical feel and is not afraid to take risks to aid the story and leaves you wanting more, it never feels rushed, it doesn't play on cliches and the ending while confusing gives you the sense that there's more to the enemy's motives than it seems and that were not finished with Kubo's adventure, it feels like a crime that not many people saw it.
To reiterate my opening statement, I've noticed the decline in my anime reviewing and moving more towards cartoons recently, this is because two to one, cartoons have been doing way better than anime is at this point in time.
Cartoons have become the serious groundbreaking epics that draws everyone to watch like Game of Thrones is to live tv while anime is having a serious identity crisis as it doesn't seem to know what it wants to be now and is trying to revived older anime to cover the short fall, the next anime review will serve as a warning while this movie shines a positive light on animation in the west.
