Oishinbo - Vol. 28 Ch. 258 - The Food for Longevity Showdown!! (Part 3)

[MangaDex]

 

[Mugiwara325]

So like, I get that this chapter reveals how Kariya isn't the best scientist.

But I still enjoy how Kariya seems to put a lot of trust in his sources. It actually makes his series a valuable window into the culture and beliefs of the various communities he covers.
The part about shisa for example. It feels like Kariya just wanted an excuse to share something not food-related but which he found interesting due to its intrinsic ethnological value. If he weren't writing Oishinbo, I think he could write a pretty good globe-trotting series that visits and shares cultures from around the world.
Assuming he has enough money to fund those travels, of course.

 

[Babymech2]

So like, I get that this chapter reveals how Kariya isn't the best scientist.

To be honest I'd say that that was revealed quite a while back... He seems to be the kind of conservative that I can't help but like, but I can easily imagine him growing up decades later in the US and recommending raw milk and ivermectin...

 

[d_a_renoir]

So the kanten description is translucent/transparent, while the recreator made it opaque. It seems to me that the person had used too much juice. Still, I doubt thinning out or straining the goji juice would make it pink, because despite the red berries the juice is actually more of a deep orange (which you can actually see in the recreation video too). Watering it down would just make it yellowish.
Personal experience, we actually make goji jelly often in our house. The way we do it is "infusing" the goji in it and it's yellow-gold, kind of like the colour of ice tea. Again, I'm not convinced using the actual juice would make the colour that much different.

I could be wrong, but it kind of looks like the only way to make a pink goji berry juice is if they had used the black goji, which makes a purple juice and can be thinned out pink. The berries are not drawn black in the manga, so either the artist/author was misinformed about the food somehow, or they got the food right but didn't know black goji was used when asking about how it was made.

So like, I get that this chapter reveals how Kariya isn't the best scientist.

But I still enjoy how Kariya seems to put a lot of trust in his sources. It actually makes his series a valuable window into the culture and beliefs of the various communities he covers.
The part about shisa for example. It feels like Kariya just wanted an excuse to share something not food-related but which he found interesting due to its intrinsic ethnological value. If he weren't writing Oishinbo, I think he could write a pretty good globe-trotting series that visits and shares cultures from around the world.
Assuming he has enough money to fund those travels, of course.

If science were just whack back in the day and it's not his fault the info was faulty, it's fine, like the idea of "sealing in juices" by searing the outside of steak. It's when there's so many other things that the author was so arrogantly yapping on and on about and it's literally wrong and the info should have been out there in his time that reaaaaally piss me off. Not your fault obviously, but yeah, I still stay for the cooking and food stuff, since there's not that many cooking manga around.

Like one thing that really stuck was how he keeps saying that Chablis was bad for raw oysters and sake is better, because he's an idiot who didn't know there's more than one kind of Chablis and not all of them pair well with raw oysters. Plus the hypocrisy of not acknowledging the issue of personal taste, even though he should have known about it. As shown in the series having multiple chapters of people having conflict because their food tastes clash due to upbringing/culture (the "stinky food" chapter, Kanto vs Kansai tastes chapter, etc)

 

[Doedoel]

So it was the sea snake mentioned earlier, and not a turtle leg... oops

 

[Mugiwara325]

So the kanten description is translucent/transparent, while the recreator made it opaque. It seems to me that the person had used too much juice. Still, I doubt thinning out or straining the goji juice would make it pink, because despite the red berries the juice is actually more of a deep orange (which you can actually see in the recreation video too). Watering it down would just make it yellowish.
Personal experience, we actually make goji jelly often in our house. The way we do it is "infusing" the goji in it and it's yellow-gold, kind of like the colour of ice tea. Again, I'm not convinced using the actual juice would make the colour that much different.

I could be wrong, but it kind of looks like the only way to make a pink goji berry juice is if they had used the black goji, which makes a purple juice and can be thinned out pink. The berries are not drawn black in the manga, so either the artist/author was misinformed about the food somehow, or they got the food right but didn't know black goji was used when asking about how it was made.

If science were just whack back in the day and it's not his fault the info was faulty, it's fine, like the idea of "sealing in juices" by searing the outside of steak. It's when there's so many other things that the author was so arrogantly yapping on and on about and it's literally wrong and the info should have been out there in his time that reaaaaally piss me off. Not your fault obviously, but yeah, I still stay for the cooking and food stuff, since there's not that many cooking manga around.

Like one thing that really stuck was how he keeps saying that Chablis was bad for raw oysters and sake is better, because he's an idiot who didn't know there's more than one kind of Chablis and not all of them pair well with raw oysters. Plus the hypocrisy of not acknowledging the issue of personal taste, even though he should have known about it. As shown in the series having multiple chapters of people having conflict because their food tastes clash due to upbringing/culture (the "stinky food" chapter, Kanto vs Kansai tastes chapter, etc)

Kariya definitely had several issues with his writing. After translating so many volumes, my impression is that he prioritises 'story flow' over character consistency and factual accuracy.
That is to say, if he wants a specific conclusion, he will twist how characters act to achieve it. This is what leads to the feeling of hypocrisy that we sometimes get.

I can forgive the factual inaccuracies a bit more. Even if certain pieces of information are known to not be true, Kariya wrote his manga in an age where the Internet isn't widespread yet. His best method for scientific research would be to find and speak with experts on the topic, which would also be difficult for the time. This is why I think the best kind of information Oishinbo shares is the cultural exposure, things that Kariya can see with his own eyes and which are self-evident.

As for the Chablis oysters thing, I have some comments on that which involve chapters in the far future. If you don't want to be spoiled for stories up to Volume 78, feel free to skip this part.

Spoiler: Spoilers for chapters up to Volume 78

I feel like Kariya learned the Chablis thing as second-hand information. It takes a long, long while, but he starts to open up to the idea that some wines can pair with seafood, which I would attribute to him getting more and more familiar with different wines first-hand. It would even lead to a storyline in Volume 78, where the Tozai crew need to look for wines that pair well with Japanese cuisine.

That he would change his tune at all is honestly fascinating to me, since the early Oishinbo chapters give me the impression that Kariya is naturally obstinate. He would do something similar with his stance on Japanese rice, but I've rambled enough for now I think.

 

[d_a_renoir]

Kariya definitely had several issues with his writing. After translating so many volumes, my impression is that he prioritises 'story flow' over character consistency and factual accuracy.
That is to say, if he wants a specific conclusion, he will twist how characters act to achieve it. This is what leads to the feeling of hypocrisy that we sometimes get.

I can forgive the factual inaccuracies a bit more. Even if certain pieces of information are known to not be true, Kariya wrote his manga in an age where the Internet isn't widespread yet. His best method for scientific research would be to find and speak with experts on the topic, which would also be difficult for the time. This is why I think the best kind of information Oishinbo shares is the cultural exposure, things that Kariya can see with his own eyes and which are self-evident.

As for the Chablis oysters thing, I have some comments on that which involve chapters in the far future. If you don't want to be spoiled for stories up to Volume 78, feel free to skip this part.

Spoiler: Spoilers for chapters up to Volume 78

I feel like Kariya learned the Chablis thing as second-hand information. It takes a long, long while, but he starts to open up to the idea that some wines can pair with seafood, which I would attribute to him getting more and more familiar with different wines first-hand. It would even lead to a storyline in Volume 78, where the Tozai crew need to look for wines that pair well with Japanese cuisine.

That he would change his tune at all is honestly fascinating to me, since the early Oishinbo chapters give me the impression that Kariya is naturally obstinate. He would do something similar with his stance on Japanese rice, but I've rambled enough for now I think.

Oh, I am aware that manga can be a bit loose with facts, especially back when there's no internet yet. The mangaka of Chuuka Ichiban admitted to messing up something and then his editor just told him "It's ok, as long as the story's good". If you're cool with it, that's ok too. My patience with how he presents the "information" just has run thin. Like, for all I know the man himself maybe isn't actually that pompous with his opinions in real life, but his mouthpieces Yamaoka and Kaibara were drawn to have such obnoxiously arrogant attitudes about it.

Still reading, still mostly enjoying it, but I will probably still whinge about the food flubs whenever I see it.