Merry Month of Manga: RESTAURANT TO ANOTHER WORLD

 When it comes to fantasy manga these days, it seems that the only thing more popular than sending random Japanese people to alternate worlds is having fantasy people (or creatures) rave about Japanese food.  Today's review is an example of the latter, but can it manage to find an unique flavor of its own?

RESTAURANT TO ANOTHER WORLD (Isekai Shokudo), based on the light novel series written by Junpei Inuzuka and illustrated by Katsumi Enami, with art by Takaaki Kugatsu.  First published in 2016 and first published in North America in 2020.

PLOT:

Once a week, a mysterious door opens in the Western Restaurant Nekoya.  Through it comes a strange assortment of characters: wandering explorers, stately elves, lonely demon girls, haughty dragon queens, and so many more.  All of them are after one thing: the strangest yet tastiest food they have ever had, served to them by a talented, tolerant chef.

STORY:

It was hard to not think of Otherworldly Izakaya Nobu while reading this.  The premises are incredibly similar: a real-world restaurant specializing in basic Western and Japanese dishes ends up by chance with an entrance to another world and attracts strange new clientele who are dazzled by all the modern dining conveniences and dishes that most take for granted.  So what can this series add to that otherwise bland formula?  I'd say it's a greater focus on character.

While the many dishes of Nekoya are prominently featured, the focus of each chapter is more on the character coming to eat it.  They're all basically little self-contained short-stories that so happen to revolve around this restaurant, and that's a solid story structure.  Interestingly, this series makes more effort than usual to make the restaurant staff characters onto themselves.  It's not just about the demon girl waitress Aletta, but the chef himself is much more of a presence.  He interacts more regularly with his customers and you get hints of a history behind the restaurant itself.  Even if it's populated with fairly stock fantasy character types, you truly get the feeling of a cozy restaurant with loyal, regular clientele, and that atmosphere goes a long way toward distinguishing this series from the rest.

ART:

Once again, the art here is a bit of step down from the original light novel illustrations.  That artwork isn't necessarily brilliant, but the characters there look a little older and more elegant; these characters are flatter, rounder, and more moe in comparison.  I'm also not please that more effort is put into the fanservice than it is into the food.  There's a lot of awkward top-down shots of the ladies as they eat that's clearly done to better focus on their chests (or stare down their tops), a few bath scenes, and a dragon queen that doesn't always remember things like 'clothes.'  It's not enough to be a total distraction, but it's a crutch that a lot of these light-novel adaptation mangaka tend to lean on.

RATING:

Restaurant To Another World has a charming atmosphere and a stronger emphasis on character than your average food series.  If the art were stronger, this would be an easy green light.  As it is, it's a fun twist on the formula that will appeal to seasoned food manga fans but not good enough to appeal beyond that crowd.

This series is published by Yen Press.  This series is complete with 4 volumes available.  All 4 have been published and are currently in print.