The Manga Cookbook by the Manga University Culinary Institute

Readers of manga often see their favorite characters eating Japanese-style food. But unless you live near a Japanese restaurant (and they are nowhere near as prevalent as Chinese restaurants in America), you are rather out of luck when it comes to tasting or enjoying the same kind of food as your favorite characters.

Luckily, now there is a solution if you aren't lucky enough to live near a Japanese restaurant: you can make your own! The Manga cookbook will show you how. Not only does it tell you how to cook, but also how to set the table, and even how to eat with chopsticks. It even gives instructions on the kind of ingredients to buy and what you can substitute for them if you can't find that particular ingredient.


The dishes run the gamut from appetizers to deserts, and show how to make your food look authentically Japanese, from making apple "rabbits" and egg chicks and bunnies, to how to make Bento boxes look both authentic and appealing, even with Western-style ingredients.

The recipies themselves are clear and easy to follow, with directions that even teens can feel confident of making on their own. The book is enlivened with illustrations showing cooking girl Miyuki, her boyfriend and fellow cook Hiroshi and their cute mascot character and eating machine, Coo. Most of the recipies are illustrated with drawings showing both how to cook it and what the appearance will be like, but the front of the book has full-color pictures for many of the recpies, showing the end results. Many of them look delicious, and make you wish you could smell and taste the food as well!

This is a cute "first cookbook" of japanese food. Once teens or adults have tried the recipies in this book, they can move on to more complicated dishes in other Japanese cookbooks, knowing that they will be enjoying the same kind of food they read about in their favorite manga. My only complaint is that they don't offera recipie for what seems to be the most favorite Japanese food I see in manga: Mochi! Other than that, you can feel confident that you'll find the recipies easy to cook and easy to follow. Eating them, of course, is left to the reader!