Apr 6, 2019
Somewhere in kyushu , there is a special restaurant, a restaurant that leaves all its clients with a grin on their face. It is said that they all view the world differently and feel happier than they have ever been in their life. This restaurant is the restaurant of happiness.
Shiawase restaurant follows the life of kosuke, a young man who is a cook in the French restaurant of his father who has recently died. He tries to perpetuate his father recipes in the restaurant but it’s complicated since Japan is a country where restaurant have to be as affordable as possible in order to sustain
...
their business and French cuisine uses high class expensive ingredients. He gets often in conflicts with his father’s second wife, which has become in turn the owner of this restaurant. He doesn’t really feel any affection for her and also considers that she is ruining his father’s long-life work by twisting her way around and using ingredients in a cheap but efficient manner,denaturing true “French cuisine” that he holds dear to himself.
Kosuke is shown from the beginning to be quite the typical shonen character : brazen, hard-headed, doing whatever he wants, his tendancy to get constantly angry can be pretty unsufferable. The happiness of his clients is not his priority, he just want to make of the restaurant a remarkable French restaurant and follow the book of recipies his father left him and make the most refined food possible.
The manga is episodic in nature, as the genre wants it, each chapter being about a different client who wants a specific kind of food, kousuke and his mother will the enter into competition to see who can make the most suitable food, each clients having a different kind of backstory that will become important to the end result.
While being quite similar to other cooking manga and not really noticeable from the rest, it’s quite enjoyable to read, having distinct drawings, varied enough situations and some technical information on making food or interviews in-between chapters.
That would have been the case if it stayed consistent throughout, the problem is it makes some questionable decisions toward the plot and kosuke’s character. This change starts exactly halfway as from one chapter to the other, kosuke finds himself out in the country to train his skills without it ever be mentioned before. From there he becomes this pervert who tries to seduce girls while still cooking for them. He is obsessed with big breasts and makes his move on them even though he was being established as a simpleton that focused on preparing and wasn’t interested in girls. It feels like the manga was about to be axed leading to this complete change. What’s even more disturbing are the constant shots on breasts or him comparing women to prime quality beef which in this context I doubt was ironic. It also has a chapter where the woman he has his eyes on turns out to be his cousin and end up having casual sex with her without others having problems with that.
The last part of it is even starts a love triangle with his mother. He returns home and fightq against a chef from another restaurant who wants to marry her. I really hoped it would not go that way and the panels showing his mother in erotic ways was just for the reader, but it does go that way, having even slight touch of ntr along the way and ends up with kosuke interrupting his mother marriage to get her for himself. I feel at least this part could have been handled well if it was foreshadowed or had a different relation from the start but it is clearly shown that she took care of him when he was little and acted towards him like a mother would.
With this sudden shift of focus on the part of this series, I can’t decently give a positive score to it nor can I decently recommend it to anyone. It’s a shame because it started out well and was only asking to be improved, but ended up as another trainwreck similar to usagi drop's manga ending.
Reviewer’s Rating: 3
What did you think of this review?
Nice
0
Love it
0
Funny
0
Confusing
0
Well-written
0
Creative
0Show all
.png)
![Q4 2020 Anime & Manga Licenses [Update 12/14]](https://cdn.myanimelist.net/r/50x78/s/common/uploaded_files/1601318648-0dcefccf2da93900f744360ec79f0fb8.jpeg?s=73db6a1224da22bdbc025d2e8b50ae68)
