Samurai Chef - OGN
Mayamada LTD
Writer: Mayamada
Illustrator: Pinali
Reviewer: Derrick Crow
Summary: In an alternate fantasy setting where instead of humans, the world is populated by anthropomorphic animals. And in one corner of this world is a popular Chef face-off cooking show called the “Samurai Chef” where two kitchens compete to win the affection of the famed Samurai Chef through their wonderfully made dishes. This is a cutthroat competition and only the very best can survive, who will come out on top?
Review: Starting off with a fair warning: With 50 pages of content, this could have been a lot better. It isn’t downright awful, and there is stuff to like here but there’s a certain lack of substance that really drags the story down. If you still want to know my honest thoughts, keep reading.
Okay so I’m going to be as fair as possible here in this review.
I really dig story settings where the world is full of anthropomorphic animals rather than humans. That has never changed and probably never will, in that respect I really think this book shone brightly. In fact making the Samurai Chef a Monkey was an instant sell for me. I love monkeys, they’re my absolute favorite animal and a monkey with a katana is even cooler. I really dug the art style; it’s very kinetic and stylized. The action is great and the character designs are wonderful. The sort of sketchy unfinished tone the art boasts is actually quite nice to look at the entire way through and as a visual piece this was great.
As a story though, there was much left to be desired. There are 50 pages here, more than enough time and space to flesh out your plot, characters, add quite a bit of action, and tell an engaging story. This is an action flick. There’s zero in the way of characters having personality and there really isn’t a story here even. It’s very flat. All that happens is you get to watch different chefs take on one another in creating the best dishes and then a Monkey comes by and smashes them to pieces with his katana, and then depending on whichever of the food puts up the best 'fight', is awarded a high or low score.
I actually had to have that pointed out to me by my girlfriend who loves to watch cooking shows, is that the entire point of the show in this comic was to see which dish could ‘defend’ itself against the Samurai Chef’s katana and how long they could last before being smashed to pieces. I’m not a reader who needs stuff like this force fed to me in a comic but I do feel this actually needed explaining before the first swing is taken. Because the moment the Samurai Chef swings his sword I was completely confused from that point on about what I was reading.
Near the end the foods start turning into monsters and really putting up a fight with the Chef, but if that were the case wouldn’t the earlier chefs competing know this was what they were supposed to be trying to accomplish? In fact majority of the time the characters themselves look and feel just as confused as I did. I don’t watch a lot of cooking shows, but if the food wasn’t turning into monsters every single episode I probably would get bored with this show really quickly. There just isn’t any substance here, it’s very fast paced and there’s a lot of the Samurai Chef just ‘fighting’ food. It’s so fast paced that the ending comes to an abrupt stop completely halting the story. It feels as if the creators for this just wanted to tell an action story around their love for cooking, like one of the characters in the comic say “presentation isn’t always everything” but I think this story proves that it still plays an incredibly big part.
Story wise though, I did find a few things to like: I was confused on this at first, until again I had it pointed out to me, when the same kitchen shows up to battle on the show there’s new representatives for that kitchen every time. At first I found that odd, but when I was told to think of the kitchen like an army, you’re not going to fight the same soldier every time and I think that is pretty cool. It works thematically with the story and really fits the tone now that I understand. Regardless of substance problems, I did find the Chef ‘battling’ each food to be interesting. It was fun to see what weird ways each Chef was going to do to make sure they can defend against a friggin’ sword. The book was also funny with some of the characters being kind of zany and fun to listen to. It was really funny to see how any one of them reacted to their food being chopped to pieces without a care.
I’m really torn on this comic, but I think it does have its merits. I just wish it would have felt the need to explain and expound on some of them instead of just being another bodies on the floor kind of piece (in this case though, food on the floor).
Final Score: 2 Swings of the Samurai Chef’s katana out of 5
Mayamada LTD
Writer: Mayamada
Illustrator: Pinali
Reviewer: Derrick Crow
Summary: In an alternate fantasy setting where instead of humans, the world is populated by anthropomorphic animals. And in one corner of this world is a popular Chef face-off cooking show called the “Samurai Chef” where two kitchens compete to win the affection of the famed Samurai Chef through their wonderfully made dishes. This is a cutthroat competition and only the very best can survive, who will come out on top?
Review: Starting off with a fair warning: With 50 pages of content, this could have been a lot better. It isn’t downright awful, and there is stuff to like here but there’s a certain lack of substance that really drags the story down. If you still want to know my honest thoughts, keep reading.
Okay so I’m going to be as fair as possible here in this review.
I really dig story settings where the world is full of anthropomorphic animals rather than humans. That has never changed and probably never will, in that respect I really think this book shone brightly. In fact making the Samurai Chef a Monkey was an instant sell for me. I love monkeys, they’re my absolute favorite animal and a monkey with a katana is even cooler. I really dug the art style; it’s very kinetic and stylized. The action is great and the character designs are wonderful. The sort of sketchy unfinished tone the art boasts is actually quite nice to look at the entire way through and as a visual piece this was great.
As a story though, there was much left to be desired. There are 50 pages here, more than enough time and space to flesh out your plot, characters, add quite a bit of action, and tell an engaging story. This is an action flick. There’s zero in the way of characters having personality and there really isn’t a story here even. It’s very flat. All that happens is you get to watch different chefs take on one another in creating the best dishes and then a Monkey comes by and smashes them to pieces with his katana, and then depending on whichever of the food puts up the best 'fight', is awarded a high or low score.
I actually had to have that pointed out to me by my girlfriend who loves to watch cooking shows, is that the entire point of the show in this comic was to see which dish could ‘defend’ itself against the Samurai Chef’s katana and how long they could last before being smashed to pieces. I’m not a reader who needs stuff like this force fed to me in a comic but I do feel this actually needed explaining before the first swing is taken. Because the moment the Samurai Chef swings his sword I was completely confused from that point on about what I was reading.
Near the end the foods start turning into monsters and really putting up a fight with the Chef, but if that were the case wouldn’t the earlier chefs competing know this was what they were supposed to be trying to accomplish? In fact majority of the time the characters themselves look and feel just as confused as I did. I don’t watch a lot of cooking shows, but if the food wasn’t turning into monsters every single episode I probably would get bored with this show really quickly. There just isn’t any substance here, it’s very fast paced and there’s a lot of the Samurai Chef just ‘fighting’ food. It’s so fast paced that the ending comes to an abrupt stop completely halting the story. It feels as if the creators for this just wanted to tell an action story around their love for cooking, like one of the characters in the comic say “presentation isn’t always everything” but I think this story proves that it still plays an incredibly big part.
Story wise though, I did find a few things to like: I was confused on this at first, until again I had it pointed out to me, when the same kitchen shows up to battle on the show there’s new representatives for that kitchen every time. At first I found that odd, but when I was told to think of the kitchen like an army, you’re not going to fight the same soldier every time and I think that is pretty cool. It works thematically with the story and really fits the tone now that I understand. Regardless of substance problems, I did find the Chef ‘battling’ each food to be interesting. It was fun to see what weird ways each Chef was going to do to make sure they can defend against a friggin’ sword. The book was also funny with some of the characters being kind of zany and fun to listen to. It was really funny to see how any one of them reacted to their food being chopped to pieces without a care.
I’m really torn on this comic, but I think it does have its merits. I just wish it would have felt the need to explain and expound on some of them instead of just being another bodies on the floor kind of piece (in this case though, food on the floor).
Final Score: 2 Swings of the Samurai Chef’s katana out of 5
Samurai Chef Origins – One-Shot
Mayamada LTD
Writer: Mayamada & Michael Oliveras
Illustrator: Michael Oliveras
Reviewer: Derrick Crow
Summary: It’s the origins of the Samurai Chef, as we witness our Monkey friend build his skill with the sword and learn to be the master chef we met in Samurai Chef.
Review: This is a 16-page prequel story, so there won’t be much for me to say overall. I did feel this was considerably better than the Samurai Chef OGN. The creators are still very much going for a generic origin story, where the main character is sort of a destined champion. He’s a natural who just keeps getting better. So you won’t find anything new here, but I did like seeing more of a focus on the Samurai Chef, as in the OGN he’s kind of just there to wreck stuff up. And the idea of an impenetrable vegetable that’s said to be impossible to cut (but I hear is very tasty) is a genius idea for the story. It offers an obstacle for our hero to overcome that will one day land him infamous recognition.
The art is really good, much cleaner than in the OGN. There’s still a manga-inspired style to it which I enjoy. It isn’t as kinetic as the art in the OGN but for this prequel story I think it works. The inking is thick but clean and nice looking and overall this is another wonderful visual experience.
Like I said, there isn’t much I can say. It’s not very long but I will say much more happens in these 16 pages than in the 50 page OGN. I wish there was more substance to it story wise than just your everyday, run of the mill, training montage of our hero getting stronger to reach his destiny. I did enjoy the characters in this more. There are two main characters in this, the Dojo Master and the Samurai Chef, and the Dojo Master is quite likeable. This story is also successful in making me want to go read the OGN again, despite the fact that I did end up reading them out of order.
There is a vol. 2 coming to the OGN and I have to say I am curious how the story will finish up.
Final Score: 2.5 Cuts to the Adamanine Root out of 5
Editor's Note: To join in on the fun of slicing and dicing some food, head here!
Mayamada LTD
Writer: Mayamada & Michael Oliveras
Illustrator: Michael Oliveras
Reviewer: Derrick Crow
Summary: It’s the origins of the Samurai Chef, as we witness our Monkey friend build his skill with the sword and learn to be the master chef we met in Samurai Chef.
Review: This is a 16-page prequel story, so there won’t be much for me to say overall. I did feel this was considerably better than the Samurai Chef OGN. The creators are still very much going for a generic origin story, where the main character is sort of a destined champion. He’s a natural who just keeps getting better. So you won’t find anything new here, but I did like seeing more of a focus on the Samurai Chef, as in the OGN he’s kind of just there to wreck stuff up. And the idea of an impenetrable vegetable that’s said to be impossible to cut (but I hear is very tasty) is a genius idea for the story. It offers an obstacle for our hero to overcome that will one day land him infamous recognition.
The art is really good, much cleaner than in the OGN. There’s still a manga-inspired style to it which I enjoy. It isn’t as kinetic as the art in the OGN but for this prequel story I think it works. The inking is thick but clean and nice looking and overall this is another wonderful visual experience.
Like I said, there isn’t much I can say. It’s not very long but I will say much more happens in these 16 pages than in the 50 page OGN. I wish there was more substance to it story wise than just your everyday, run of the mill, training montage of our hero getting stronger to reach his destiny. I did enjoy the characters in this more. There are two main characters in this, the Dojo Master and the Samurai Chef, and the Dojo Master is quite likeable. This story is also successful in making me want to go read the OGN again, despite the fact that I did end up reading them out of order.
There is a vol. 2 coming to the OGN and I have to say I am curious how the story will finish up.
Final Score: 2.5 Cuts to the Adamanine Root out of 5
Editor's Note: To join in on the fun of slicing and dicing some food, head here!