Alt Name: Cooking Master Boy
Author: Ogawa Etsushi
Volumes: 5 - Chapters: 36
Genres: Comedy, Shounen, Action, Adventure
A manga about food.... if you have to read this manga be sure to have something to eat XD
Story: in the 19th century many chefs in China tried their best to improve their skills. But that's not all! This China is one that has many famous chiefs that cooked for important persons. If you were to insul a high-grade chef you could land a person in hail but fopr chiefs it's not all that easy: they have to gain respect and power or else they can lose everything in a few minutes.
Our main character, Mao Hsing Liu, lost his mother at the age of 13 years old but it's not sad because he has a dream: take his mother's restaurant. He win in a "Battle of cuisine" but before becoming the chief at his mother restaurant, Mao needs to travel China in order to learn more of the many ways of cooking and to take the title of Ultimate Chief.
The story is really straightforward but in a few of chapters you can't stop reading. The main character Mao is a character really well made, you don't notice his development because it's the food he makes that is his development or how he solve some issues.
Tha manga is really old (1995!) but I enjoyed it a lot, same for the food battles and the story. I'm a little sad that the last chapters are more of a a collection of short stories than the main story but they are nice to read. The true problem with this series is that there's a sequel, Shin Chuuka Ichiban!, and for now there isn't any fan tranlsation so we can say that the series is incomplete.
The art of the characters sometimes is simple and the author at times use funny faces but all the pages are really good to look. There's some double pages and they are really detailed and really well made!
The strong point of this manga is the food. Yes. The food is drawn really well... that well that it seemd real! (It's not real... but I wanted to eat all the food in this manga XD)
My rating: 8/10
