Comic craze captures Superman’s latest battle - what to have for lunch

In Superman Vs Meshi, Lex Luthor isn’t a planet-destroying villain, but an annoying online food influencer who uses too many hashtags (which may actually be worse).

This appetite-focused manga (Japanese comic) by Satoshi Miyagawa and Kai Kitago is less about defeating evil and more about Superman’s fanboy affection for the food he finds in Japan: from the burger-flavoured option he enjoys at sushi train (even if Aquaman menu-shames him for ordering it) to the noodles in Nagasaki champon (even if they get soggy because he had to fight demons before he could finish the bowl).

Superman vs Meshi: the Man of Steel has a weakness for burger-flavoured sushi.

First released by Tokyo-based publisher Kodansha, DC Comics is translating the series into English: the latest volume dropped this month. Superman Vs Meshi is part of a growing number of food manga that Australians can savour and Superman joining its roster proves the genre is “crossing borders” says Kei Tokawa.

The Sydney restaurateur based his acclaimed Darlinghurst bar, Amuro, on the tiny Tokyo eatery in Yarō Abe’s manga Shinya Shokudo (which inspired the popular Netflix series Midnight Diner) and instead of turning to trends and top chefs, “we should be getting our ideas from these mangas,” Tokiwa told his staff. “[They’re] rich sources of recipes.”

He hopes to stage special events featuring Shinya Shokudo’s dishes, like the akai wiener from the first book: sausages cut into endearing octopus shapes and pan-fried, as preferred by a yakuza regular at the fictional diner. “I’m influenced by [the manga authors getting] their recipes from how they grew up,” says the restaurateur.

Shinya Shokudo has sold more than 5.5 million copies since its 2006 debut, but the OG food manga is Oishinbo. Tetsuya Kariya’s series ran from 1983-2014 and readers have bought over 135 million copies worldwide: it’s ranked as the 10th highest-selling manga in history and was influential enough to raise the ire of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Amuro: this Sydney restaurant is inspired by manga.Credit: Jennifer Soo

Oishinbo chronicles journalist Yamaoka Shirō’s attempt to assemble the Ultimate Menu of Japanese dishes, but it also intermittently showcased Australian cuisine. That’s because its author permanently relocated to Sydney in 1988.

“He lives in Australia and writes about Japanese food,” Kariya imagines people saying about him and laughs. “So many people think I’m a very strange man.” Oishinbo presents entertaining, well-informed and cranky lessons about everything from sake to sashimi as well as snackable footnotes on hamabofu, peony mochi and other lesser-known Japanese foods.

The author also celebrated Indigenous cuisine when it was still rare to do so. Kariya placed a honey ant from the Northern Territory on Oishinbo’s cover in 1993, nearly three decades before Ben Shewry, one of Australia’s best-regarded chefs, received acclaim for showcasing the ingredient at Melbourne’s Attica.

When Kariya visited the Northern Territory with Aboriginal communities for Oishinbo, he savoured the “beautiful taste” of the honey ant he picked from the ground. It was something the writer had wanted to do since age 10, after reading about the insect in Dr. Tiger’s Strange Journey by Osamu Tezuka, the godfather of manga (and creator of Astro Boy).

He credits Tezuka for showing how limitless manga can be: its pages can encompass everything from science fiction to history. Comics are stereotyped as being just for kids in the west; in Japan, its appeal extends to everyone: he still reads them at age 82.

“Manga supported me, my life and my mental situation. I love manga very much.” It’s also a curfew-less part of the cultural landscape: bar owner Tokiwa recalls renting a room in a manga cafe when he once missed the last train in Japan. “You just read away until you sleep, until the first train comes in,” he says.

The Solitary Gourmet is another influential food manga title: it ran from 1994–2015 and finally will be printed in English in mid-2024. Its Melbourne-based translator, Kumar Sivasubramanian, thinks this format is perfect for learning about Japanese cuisine.

The Solitary Gourmet

“The inclusion of a narrative in manga encourages engagement, so it’s not like reading a food blog or a cookbook. This is a special medium. And I think when you are talking about food from another culture, the presentation in a TV series goes by too fast. Manga lets you stop and look and have a story.”

While The Solitary Gourmet features humble dishes, like potato miso soup or oden stew from a hospital, manga can also offer an all-areas-pass into glitzy settings. Kami no Shizuku (Drops of God) was so successful at exploring the elite world of wine that high-end South Korean businesses used it to school workers about top vineyards and vintages. Drops of God’s massive influence meant that simply the rumour that d’Arenberg’s The Laughing Magpie shiraz viognier would appear in its panels was enough for the McLaren Vale’s winery to sell out of its 2006 vintage.

“Everyone said, ‘this is a really big thing,’” d’Arenberg’s fourth-generation winemaker Chester Osborn recalls. Especially as Drops of God had previously heralded Domaine de la Romanée-Conti in its pages: this Burgundy from France is so “legendary” that it’s “worth thousands of dollars a bottle”, says Osborn.

The Laughing Magpie was a $30 screw-top wine, but still impressed the manga’s protagonist, Shizuku Kanzaki. “It’s spicy and overflowing with energetic life,” he declared. “It’s both exotic and made for normal people at the same time.” Drops of God can convey wine in a fun, no-prior-knowledge-necessary way: it literally illustrates how a whiff of DRC Richebourg will knock you out like a field of perfuming flowers.

The recent TV adaptation of Drops of God reflects the international hunger for food manga (with key characters switching nationalities: Japanese protagonist Shizuku Kanzaki became the French Camille Léger), while The Makanai: Cooking for the Maiko House (made by Palme d’Or winner Hirokazu Kore-eda for Netflix) led to recipes for summery somen noodles, Kyoto-style kitsune udon and Japanese milk bread pudding surfacing across the web.

In addition to this year’s Superman Vs Meshi and Drops of God sequel publications, The Solitary Gourmet release is something readers should relish. Originally slated for April 2022, it finally hits shelves on June 25.

Sivasubramanian’s case for The Solitary Gourmet is as resonant for all kinds of food manga. “This can be read by anyone without any need for prior familiarity. There’s no reason for it not to be enjoyed by everyone. I hope it finds the wide audience it deserves.”

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