Iron Wok Jan - Random Comments

So there are a lot of series about cooking out there. Cooking Master Boy, Yakitate! Japan, Kitchen Princess, (Fighting Foodons?) to name a few. But I had never heard of this series until I stumbled upon it somewhat by accident. I also wound up with volume 5 or something (I don't really remember). Either way, Iron Wok Jan reads like a typical shonen series. The volume I stumbled upon involved a dessert tournament with some of the greatest chefs in the world doing all sorts of uh...chefy things. Except not really. Jan takes the attention of all the judges and the audience by making a dessert using pigeon's blood. He kills the pigeons in the arena (yes, they're cooking in an arena) and drains blood from their necks in front of everyone. Yes, it's a gruesome cooking manga. The art is a good match for a bloody series full of angry people and screaming. Characters have darkly outlined eyes, sharpy toothy grins, and small pupils. Female characters are clearly designed to appeal to a male audience.

It's hard to say much about the plot or the characters. Plotwise, it's a tournament. Hardly groundbreaking. Jan is an evil chef who seems he'd be better off as one of those psycho assassins who tend to show up in shonen manga. The only other character who leaves much of an impression is an angry food critic who tries to make things hard on Jan by withholding a vote during the judging process. The other judges and competitors are instantly forgettable.

Reading this volume was worth it because I like cooking, so a cooking series appeals to me. But this story is so little about cooking, and I learn so little actual cooking that it's really hard to say anything in that light. Otherwise, it's an average shonen fighting tournament. If you like shonen fighting tournaments, you can easily find something better. If you want to know about cooking, you can easily find something better.

--Ou-bento