My rating: 5 of 5 stars
This first volume of Sota's Knife compiles the first 11 chapters of the manga and it is about the 20-year old Sota Kitaoka from Hokkaido who became a kitchen-helper in Tomikyu, a fine dining restaurant in Tokyo. He was hired by Kyu Goro Tomita, one of the top 5 chefs in Tokyo and now he works for six months already in the said restaurant. Sota is eager to learn a lot so he trains alone after the store closed at night. His only dream is to get his family-owned restaurant back on track.
Kei Honjo beautifully illustrated each comic panel because how detailed his drawings are. So far, I consider this as the best-illustrated manga I've seen because I saw how elaborate and how much time Kei Honjo spent in drawing this — there are texture, shadows, and highlights and that shows how skillful he is in his craft. He didn't draw the illustrations hastily because anyone can see the huge effort he did especially in drawing those settings, and of the images of food.
I also learned a lot from how much the Japanese chefs exert a lot in order to prepare each dish — giving the best quality of food to the customers. Sota's humility and passion to learn is admirable also, and the camaraderie in Tomikyu will touch anyone. There are a lot of Japanese manga that turns into either anime or real live film or TV adaptation, and I wonder if there would future plans for this. Hopefully, producers would give this an opportunity but hopefully, Kei Honjo would still be part of the illustrators if it would be an anime adaptation.
