#gourmet manga

[littleeyesofpallas]

Soba-ya Genan[そば屋幻庵]: Soba-Shop Genan

[mugiloves]

DELICIOUS IN DUNGEON (DUNGEON MESHI) • ダンジョン飯 (2024)

[blowingoffsteam2]

I’m in pain over this again

[lilium-dragomir]

[usagi-best-boy]

The good boys: Tsukiyama, Uta, & Yomo

Tokyo Ghoul

[bobauthorman]

Toriko, you greedy hog

[aconite-scanlation]

Spice & Wolf Gourmet Expedition | Chapter 1.1 [EN TL] MangaDex link | All Gourmet Expedition updates

❧ Join Discord for information and updates. ❧ See any mistakes? Let me know so I can fix it.

[incorrect-toriko-quotes]

Takimaru: Name a more iconic duo than my crippling fear of abandonment and me. I'll wait.

Aimaru: You and me!

Takimaru, tearing up: Okay.

[animangabwedit]

Fermat no Ryouri by Kobayashi Yuugo

[monthlymanga]

January 2024 reads!

The Gourmet Gamer

A chef who lost his sense of taste and smell begins to embrace life again after playing a virtual reality game

Afterlife Diner

A young broke university student suddenly inherits a building with a diner he has to run under a suspicious contract for all kinds of customers

Pairing names

Two childhood rivals somehow ends up switching bodies on alternating days.

Beloved by the male leads nephew

After reincarnating into a stalker villain's body and saving the male lead's nephew by accident, a young lady has to accept the plot she ruined and deal with various schemes to save her beloved ones and herself

The monstrous duke's adopted daughter

Young girl seeks to escape her tragic fate by asking the monstrous duchy to adopt her into the family. (A very satisfying revenge and family story)

Tiktok recommended this, and they misled me from guessing who the Duke was so hard.

[littleeyesofpallas]

Kodoku no Gourmet[孤独のグルメ]: The Lonely Gourmet

[redsamuraiii]

Gourmet Detective Goro Akechi Drama (2020) & Manga (2015)

A gourmet food connoisseur and private detective whose life change for better or worse after meeting two women, a chef running her own food business and a housewife with a dark secret.

Koshiba Fuka stars in another amazing manga adaptation, a year after her previous one in Tokusatsu Gagaga (2019). This time with the cool headed Tomoya Nakamura and the mysterious Koike Eiko.

Like Tokusatsu Gagaga (2019), this too deserves a second season!

[resetmyfeelings]

[lilium-dragomir]

[usagi-best-boy]

Chapter 87 [Rumor]

Tokyo Ghoul

[abybweisse]

What makes a soul more delicious for a demon?

⚠️ I end up going off on a tangent! ⚠️

Tasty souls for perverted gourmets

It might differ from demon to demon, but Sebastian seems to like putting his master through painful experiences. Not so much the physically painful kind but the emotionally painful kind. But he's seeking out flavors he's never tasted before -- or are at least still considered somewhat novel to him -- so perhaps his previous masters, who were all much older, lacked such experiences in their lives. Or perhaps they were just more superficial and didn't let things get to them, while our earl has very deep emotions. Judging by what the demon cultists asked for, like money and fame, those might be the more typical wishes people make. Not revenge for the sacrifice of his brother, the torture they endured, and the deaths of their parents and household.

Generally speaking, I'd say that demons who have given up on "messily sampling" souls have developed a palette of sorts and start to seek out the flavors they love best. And, like Sebastian, they might pick up the idea to manipulate the experiences of their masters, so that they can create flavor combinations that are new to them.

Young masters are best for this, because they are still learning about themselves and the world. Demons can therefore manipulate the souls of masters, especially younger masters, and create the souls they find particularly tasty.

Tangential information under the cut, including Undertaker's goals, as well as references to Jujutsu Kaisen and The Promised Neverland.

It reminds me of Mahito from Jujutsu Kaisen because that Curse can manipulate souls, changing the actual shapes of those souls and the bodies they inhabit.

Which is why I wonder if Undertaker got the idea of "aptitudes" for F. O. L. Orphanage from his dealings with demons like Sebastian. Perhaps specifically from watching Sebastian and our earl... and then taking real Ciel along to witness as much of his twin's doings as possible. This makes the twins' souls as alike as they can be. Similarly, forcing all these orphans to fall strictly into four categories that match their star lords -- Pomeranians to real Ciel, Corgis to Doll, Mastiffs to Polaris, and Collies to Layla/Al -- and seeing how well they match their "aptitudes", Undertaker will see which kid from each class ends up matching their respective star lord best. The top student from each class is likely to be used in experiments to see if their souls are the right shapes to be transplanted into their respective star lords. All the "failures" in each class are likely just the blood supplies... until each top student is deemed ready for harvest... when they will likely be bled out just before their soul is harvested.

Even Undertaker has vaguely hinted that his approach might be similar to Sebastian's -- that only their goals are different. At Weston, in ch84, Undertaker says:

And in ch141, Undertaker explains that he's been taking real Ciel to see what our earl has been doing. Real Ciel had a blank stare at Kelvin's Manor, was a bit mindless on the ship, and seems to have been a quiet viewer at Weston, but you can see how he was being "improved" over time. Real Ciel could only take in a limited view of the activities, but he retained them and committed them to memory. And it makes him claim to have been by his brother's side the whole time.

In ch155, Jane talks about the shapes of souls, but she apparently doesn't really understand it and thinks that Heathfield is talking nonsense. Unless she's lying about it not making sense to her....

In Jujutsu Kaisen, Mahito explains that souls are tangible to him, as if they are any other body part. And when he changes a soul's shape, the body changes to match it. We get this scene:

In s2 of the anime, Claude uses various techniques to deepen and emphasize the similarities between "Ciel" and Alois/Jim before putting Alois' soul into "Ciel's" body, despite the fact that "Ciel" still had his own soul. And I'm half expecting Yana-san to eventually let Undertaker give us a scene where he explains how he's been manipulating those children's souls to prepare them for transplant. Maybe she'll even let us have an in-story explanation for why Sebastian looks a bit like Vincent (or more like grown-up Ciel?). Though I'd be happy if she even just got down to the truth of it in a tweet or a future Artworks book.... I figure it's much as Mahito says: the body conforms to the shape of the soul. This could also be used to explain why reapers look the same as when they were human... if they are reborn, as I theorize.

Ch200 has The Promised Neverland vibes all over it, as does the entire F. O. L. Orphanage assignment. In TPN, some children are kept in orphanages until they are fed to demons. In Black Butler, these kids are possibly being kept in an orphanage until their souls are ready for a reaper to transplant them (instead of getting eaten by demons). But the concept is very similar. Sebastian would possibly applaud the basic idea in TPN, as if the orphanage could be used as a demonic culinary institution... or something. (I've also just realized the kids in TPN have tattooed or branded numbers on the fronts of their necks, much like Finny's "S-012" on the back of his.)

In ch200, Theo even says that some "pervert" is "manipulating" the children.

He might actually be talking about Undertaker and not even know it. It's quite possible that none of the kids have met him or even seen him, since orders are being sent by telegram. But they have to assume the person running the place is a pervert of some kind.

And we know that Sebastian and Undertaker are being depicted as foils for each other. Ch111 vs ch200:

So, if Sebastian is a "perverted gourmet", as Yana-san calls him, perhaps Undertaker is a perverted... physician? Perverted surgeon? It takes me right back to the parallels to Dr. Andonuts in the Mother game series... and Josef Mengele, the Nazi "Angel of Death" who had a particular interest in (obsession with) studying transplant technology on twins.

Though Undertaker might actually leave the medical side of it all to the Viscount of Druitt -- and we know how big a perv he is! -- or to someone else, now that Stoker is dead, the transplantation of souls would have to be attempted by a reaper.

Yeah, I definitely think Undertaker is using oddly similar methods to shape young souls -- by the experiences they are allowed/forced to have -- but just with different goals in mind.