"anime" news and stories

For your lunchtime pleasure, I'm presenting a series of my favorite bento boxes. Bento are Japanese home-prepared meals served in special boxes, usually eaten for lunch at work or school. These days, bento enthusiasts from all over the world share their creations on Flickr.

Japanese anime enthusiasts tend to go in for elaborate bentos in a major way. Big surprise, right? This lil' guy (ten points for whoever can name the character), from Narurto Gallery, is rendered in nori, cheese, lunch meat and surrounded by various vegetables and a skewer of edamame.

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Anime, Japanese-style animation, has become increasingly popular over the years. I remember watching bootleg copies of Dragon Ball Z movies with my friends in high school. A couple years later I was delighted to see whole (albeit small) sections of anime at video stores like Suncoast. I was pleasantly surprised, and very amused, to find this list of the top eight foods in anime from Cosplay Classes.

1 Number one is ramen. I guess it's iconic to show characters slurping up the noodles.
2. Sushi, the quintessntial Japanese food.
3. Dessert is probably more prevalent in shows geared toward women.
4. Curry sure has made it's mark.
5. I had no idea pasta was so popular.
6. Apparently hamburgers are getting a lot of screen time.
7. The Japanese hot pot is a derivation of a Chinese dish.
8. Onigiri are simple to make and all kinds of anime characters put it in their bento boxes.

Long before Iron Chef morphed into Iron Chef America, I enjoyed the grandaddy of televised culinary throwdowns in its original format. No, that doesn't mean Food Network's dubbed Japanese version. I watched Iron Chef sans dubbing on UHF. Back then I was hardly a gourmand and my knowledge of Japanese was gleaned from watching Godzilla. Nevertheless, I was fascinated by the show's fierce competitive spirit and exotic ingredients. Those episodes and the film Tampopo convinced me that Japanese people are crazy about food.

I hadn't given too much thought to the role of food in Japanese popular culture, until yesterday. Not that I hadn't seen such snacks such as Calbee Pea Crisps with its happy cartoon legume, dancing across the package before. What shocked me out of my cocoon of hipster-foodie complacency was a friend telling me of a manga hero whose feats revolve around baking bread. That's right, bread. I'm no student of manga, but the last time I checked these Japanese comics featured darker plots often involving sex and gore.

The Nintendo DS Lite is a redesign of a new Nintendo gaming system that is scheduled to have a US release date of June 11th, though it is already available in Japan. Speaking of already available in Japan, there is a game called "Cooking Mama" that has some appeal to us at Slashfood. Unlike Diner Dash, which is a computer game set in a diner, Cooking Mama actually involves cooking. A cute anime-type girl monitors your progress as you slice, dice and prepare over 70 different recipes - all virtually, of course. The recipes can be saved and shared wirelessly with other DS owners. One of the coolest features, though? The game isn't controlled solely with the keypad. When "Mama" asks you to cool something down, you have to blow into the DS's microphone to do it! The game will be released this fall and is expected to retail for under $20.

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