This anime, in one word: wholesome.
My boyfriend loves all things Fate (massive anime franchise), and so in looking for more short anime to watch together, I knew as soon as I fell upon Today’s Menu for the Emiya Family that we had to watch it. It features early versions of Fate characters in a lighthearted, slice of life comedy that focuses on protagonist Shirou Emiya’s obsession with cooking.
Each episode bears the name of a different recipe, which is cooked in that episode. There is a storyline leading to the cooking of each. Once Shirou starts cooking, he narrates every ingredient, measurement, and step of the recipe so that watchers can follow along. For me, it was like watching a really heartwarming version of Shokugeki no Soma, sans the food porn.
There are plenty of interesting, comedic characters to help (or hinder) Shirou’s peaceful cooking adventures. I’ll give you a little backstory here to help things along. There are two kinds of characters in this show: Masters and Servants. Masters are humans, like Shirou, and Servants are non-humans, be they gods or historical figures, who form pacts with human masters. Each of the Servants in this show is known by their class, which is based on the format of their powers: Saber, Rider, Caster, Assassin, Lancer, etc.
Saber is bonded to Shirou and features heavily. Her comedic quirk is that she is always hungry, a nice foil to Shirou’s love of making food–Saber loves to eat it. Servants don’t technically have to eat, but that doesn’t stop Saber. She also has the classic anime “antenna hair” that moves about depending on her mood–she may sparkle on occasion too. Also joining their household are Shirou’s older sister-like neighbor, Fuji, and occasionally Illya, another Servant who sometimes chooses Shirou’s kotatsu over her castle.
In the Ryudou Temple live several servants and their masters. There is Assassin, who protects the temple. Also there is Caster, who is very much in love with her master, Souichirou. She can honestly be pretty terrifying, and Saber is not a big fan of her. Other local residents include Rider and her Master Sakura. Rider’s schtick is that she can expertly ride/drive any vehicle, which is useful when they almost get into a car accident in a later episode. Sakura is Rin’s younger sister: Rin is a bubbly, outgoing character who enjoys having fun, and is devoted to her sister and friends.
Then there is my favorite. I considered abandoning the review so I could just write about this character, but I shall not. Lancer works at the local grocery shop, and his brash, do what I want attitude adds to his doglike charm (they refer to him as a dog in the fandom/canon). He likes to poke fun at the other characters, and is constantly enrolling them in his schemes.
Archer also joined about mid-season, for the classic anime swimsuit episode. Fanservice, anyone? He reappears later on with his Master, Rin, and his character is developed a little bit more. Archer is just as avid a cook as Shirou is, and uber-competitive, particularly with Lancer. Finally, there is Berserker, another servant who lives with Illya. He is a massive creature that everyone is afraid of at first, but he is kind and sweet and he loves Illya above all.
Anyway, before I spend this entire post talking about Lancer, let me move on to some plot and animation review.
Great animation. Character lines are clean cut, and the illustrations of food–true to the focus of the show–are gorgeous.
As far as I can tell, there isn’t really an overall plot to this anime. It’s a series of one-shots that introduce situations entirely tailored to creating food that makes me salivate in real life.
Since there is no plot to discuss, let’s talk about the food! Like I mentioned, the illustrations of steaming, juicy food make me hungry. I am literally starving as I write this, thinking about the karaage fried chicken that Shirou made. I seriously want some chicken nuggets now. Since Shirou, unlike many of his counterparts, is a working-class high school student, all of his recipes are affordable and use common household foods. However, since food is his lifelong obsession, he does have a lot of gadgetry and things, like a fryer, that some people may not have. I loved the fact that they featured everyday foods, making them glorious and focusing on what normal people can afford instead of the fancy ingredients you see in most cooking shows.
This anime makes me smile, exactly what I need during this pandemic. I think it will make you smile (and salivate!) too, so I recommend it! The episodes are only twelve minutes long, so it won’t take you too much time to get engrossed and start Googling how to make karaage chicken.
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