One of the many important things I’ve learned from the entertainment industry is that Christmas is the time of year to make unreasonable demands of higher powers that they are obligated to fulfill if they want people to keep believing in them. We’ve basically got them in a corner, so why not go for the big ask? Why not say, “Hey, someone should throw caution and logic to the wind and publish a 100-plus-volume cooking manga”?
While working on this week’s letter of the Seinen Alphabet, I ran across a mangaka named Tochi Ueyama, who basically only has one title to his credit. This isn’t due to laziness, as he’s been working on it since 1984. 112 volumes have been published to date. It’s called Cooking Papa, and it runs in Kodansha’s Morning.
As near as I can tell, it’s about an average family where the father, a white-collar worker, does the cooking. (The mother, a journalist, isn’t very good at it.) Papa helps their son learn his way around the kitchen. Every chapter includes recipes.
Now, I can hear all the “buts” to the point that they sound like an outboard motor. But it’s way too long! But cooking manga doesn’t have a great commercial track record! But we should pester Viz to publish more Oishinbo instead! But Kodansha isn’t taking that many risks yet!
All of those things are true. But if we all adopt our best Cindy Lou Who miens, perhaps manga’s heart will grow several sizes. It’s Christmas. We’re entitled to expect miracles. TV said so.
What are some of your Christmas Miracle license requests?
The Manga Curmudgeon 
This is actually one of my favorite titles in morning. The recipes and the stories that come with it are heartwarming.
I’m with you for this license request and while it is quite a mammoth to publish, I think it’s worth every volume.
I’m glad to have this confirmed. The art looks really endearing, too.
With “miracle” I will equate impossible. Honoo no Mirage by Kuwabara Mizune. It’s 40 volumes, but I’ve have never stopped being fascinated by the scope of her project.
Ai No Kusabi, June left those of us reading it, “hung out to dry”. It had one volume left. It is one of the best novels I have ever read. It’s a shame they handled it that way.
Then, my prayer is that Takehiko Inoue fully recovers and can finish Vagabond, but more importantly to me, keeps Real coming out.
Finally, that some publisher, finishes all the unfinished publications cause by other publishers going out of business.
Yes, I’m asking for miracles.
I’ve heard it’s actually kind of terrible and way too long, but my secret heart keeps hoping that someone will publish Crest of the Royal Family, about an Egyptologist who gets thrown back into Ancient Egypt and is revered because she has blond hair and blue eyes.
Everyone knows mine by now. I want Gunjo in all its grim, violent, sexually charged bleakness. Want want want! It’s going to be three unsellable volumes – surely Viz can afford to throw away a mere few tens of thousands? Dear Santa, I’ve never believed in you, but you could *totally* prove me wrong by making this happen. Love, Erica.
I’ve never heard any rulings against grim, violent, sexually charged Christmas miracles.
I have no real license requests, but my idea of a Christmas Manga Miracle involves Dark Horse announcing that they’ll be publishing the rest of Eden: It’s an Endless World next year. It’s not the only title I’d like to see them bring back, but it is the one at the top of my list.
[…] Welsh’s latest license request is Cooking Papa, a long-running manga that sounds like it might be about cannibals but is actually about a family in […]