Ever since Eagle ended, I've been looking for a manga with an equally unusual genre that piques my interest, preferably something more long-running, and in Iron Wok Jan! I think I've finally found it. I picked this one up largely out of curiosity and a fondness for Iron Chef, but as it turns out, Iron Wok Jan! has very little in common with Iron Chef. While it is about competition and cooking, it has more in common with martial arts and magic manga, except that at the heart of the magic and skill and tests that the protagonists face are recipes and cooking skills. And that may sound boring to those who aren't culinary experts, but in Saijyo's hands, these battles of chef skill are white-knuckle tension, high-speed action scenes, and I find that I can't wait to see more.
The formula of Iron Wok Jan! is pretty easy to spot, as it's one that is fairly common in sports manga and even some of the martial arts manga. The desire to be the best drives the lead character, who has an arrogance about him that is at times intolerable but he sports a core of humanity that makes him, if not sympathetic, at least interesting. In addition, the same questions about what drives someone to perfection in sports, martial arts, magic or whatever else manga is generally about is here, visible in the more kind-hearted and almost equally talented Kiriko and in chef's assistant Okonogi, who serves both as comic relief and as a sympathetic normal onlooker whose skill with cooking is not as godlike as those of the protagonists.
What really makes the book work is the speed and style that Saijyo gives the cooking. His references to unusual ingredients and cooking techniques are fascinating even from the viewpoint of someone who can barely put ingredients together in a simple recipe, and he uses speed lines and blur effects to make the cooking seem like martial arts katas. He doesn't just tell the readers that Jan is a fantastic cook, he displays it in the speed and intensity that Jan puts into his cooking.
Surprisingly, the formula doesn't even begin to grow old in this first volume. The conflicts between Jan and Kiriko are set up early, and most of the book is a constant game of one-upmanship between the two, but each contest reveals something about one character or the other or the culture in which they exist. I was particularly taken with the sequence where the two of them must unite to defeat a pompous and shady food critic, as it steers clear of the cliche of the two of them working together to defeat a common foe; even as they are trying to impress the critic for the good of the restaurant, they are still competing with one another. And the revelations about Jan's very difficult training and upbringing lend a sympathetic tone to his quest, and a humanity that had been missing as he had been set up largely as a foil for Kiriko.
Honestly, I had expected Iron Wok Jan! to be kind of a goofy and fun read, but not something that would really grab me. As it turns out, Saijyo is able to make a manga about cooking a gripping and enjoyable read with character development and an interesting over-arcing plot. While the culture and subculture that these characters live in is completely foreign to me, Saijyo creates a story that makes the characters sympathetic and their goals easily understood, and I can definitely see revisiting the world of Iron Wok Jan!
