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Chūka Ichiban!/Cooking Master Boy Manga Gets New Anime
posted on by Crystalyn Hodgkins
Production I.G and NAS announced on Monday that Etsushi Ogawa's Shin Chūka Ichiban! sequel manga series is getting an anime adaptation. The staff revealed a visual and a character design visual for Meili, Mao, and Shirou (from left to right in second image below).
Ogawa also drew a commemoration image for the announcement.
Itsuro Kawasaki (The Legend of the Legendary Heroes, Arc the Lad, Chrome Shelled Regios, Shining Hearts) is directing the anime and overseeing the series scripts, and Saki Hasegawa (animation director for Flip Flappers, Seraph of the End: Battle in Nagoya, A.I.C.O. -Incarnation-) is designing the characters. NAS is producing the anime with animation cooperation by Production I.G.
The manga is set during a fictitious 19th century China, where chefs from all over China competed in culinary tests of ability, and being a master chef granted one respect and authority. The story centers on Liu Mao Xing, a young chef from Szechuan province who learns cooking from his mother. After saving his mother's restaurant, Mao goes on a journey to become a Super Chef, battling other chefs with other cooking styles along the way, and contending with the conspiracies of the Dark Cooking Society.
The Chūka Ichiban! manga ran in Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine for five volumes from 1995 to 1997, and the Shin Chūka Ichiban! sequel manga ran for 12 volumes from 1997 to 1999. The manga inspired a 52-episode television anime in 1997-1998. A Chinese live-action drama adaptation aired in 2005.
Ogawa launched the Chūka Ichiban! Kiwami manga on Kodansha's Magazine Pocket app in November 2017. Kodansha published the manga's third volume on December 7.
Sources: Shin Chūka Ichiban! anime's Twitter account, Comic Natalie
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