Title: Eat For Your Life (Kuishinbou!)
Genre: Comedy, Food
Publisher: Nihon Bungeisha (JP), Digital Manga (US)
Artist: Shigeru Tsuchiyama
Serialized in: Manga Goraku
Translation: Himawari Natsuno
Original Release Date: July 30, 2013
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When I first saw Eat For Your Life!, immediately I thought it looked familiar to a title I saw on JManga. As it turned out, I was correct. The creator of this particular manga, Shigeru Tsuchiyama, also created that prison manga series Gokudou Meshi. I only read a chapter of that, but for what it was worth, seeing prisoners have the ability to taste good food was ok in of itself. I read nine chapters of this one and was not immediately amused at anything here, aside from one literal translation that actually made me chuckle. Serialized in Manga Goraku since 2005, still ongoing now, and it won the 36th Nihon Mangaka Kyokai Awards, maybe it gets supremely better as it goes on. But this first volume involving a businessman suddenly getting embroiled into the world of competitive eating was pretty forgettable.
Competitive eating is something that has slowly grown over time, or at least something we’ve become aware of thanks to the Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contests at Coney Island every 4th of July. You then realize that there are competitive eating tournaments in various regions and locations, and it can be serious business. I’ve always wanted to read a manga that embraced this side of it, but Eat For Your Life! isn’t selling me right now. Mantarou Ohara works in general administration, and he loves to eat. On his way back to work he notices a crowd of people at a shop watching a judo student trying to eat 10 katsudon in 30 minutes. The judo student fails, and he walks away. Ohara then tries his luck at the competition, and despite the lesser challenge (he had to eat 5 katsudon in 15 minutes), he could barely eat 2 bowls of katsudon. When he fails, a man at the shop viewing the competition says he’ll take on the challenge the next day; intrigued, Ohara comes back, and sees this person actually beat the challenge. After being chosen to compete against a fellow judo student in a katsudon contest and winning, Ohara learns the man who won the challenge and chose him happened to be a professional competitive eater. This is where Ohara becomes involved in the world of competitive eating…
…But at best, Ohara is at the mere basics of competitive eating. He doesn’t even want to become one right now. But considering his drive for eating (and learning how long this series has been going on in Japan), he’s going to become a competitive eater. The only question is how is the journey going to be before we get there, and I’ve already said that this manga is not off to a good start. Here’s why: it’s entirely impossible to care about where everything is going right now. We don’t know nearly enough about Ohara to really be interested in him becoming a competitive eater, especially with as bland and unmemorable a personality as he has. The actual competitions in this volume were really wacky. The shop having a competition was ok, but later in the manga, we have two businessmen (though one was outed as a professional eater) have to eat Nikuman for no particular reason. Generally when I read a food manga (Think Iron Wok Jan on the crazy side, Oishinbo on the more normal side), I’d get hungry and want to actually eat the food, but that’s not what I want to do here — I guess that’s because instead of showing how the food gets made and all the varieties, it’s just one standard dish.
Still, as I kept reading the manga I kept hoping something would get me excited and give me a reaction.
That OMG
Overall, this is pretty mediocre right now. The art is the one thing that is consistent (if not all that creative, but overall it’s fine). Everything else needs major refinement. As in, give these characters stronger motivations…actually have a creative competition (or one that makes sense)…just give me something entertaining as well. At this point, I don’t have much faith in that.
