Dark Horse Comics brings you to a cute high school girl who is obsessed with ramen in Koizumi loves Ramen Noodles on its first issue, and she loves ramen as much more as I do.
So, another food manga which makes me hungry, if Souma wasn’t enough, Japan just bring much more of the food-related themed manga all the way. This manga is created by a real-life ramen lover Naru Narumi and translated by a Japanese cook, Ayumi Kato Blystone. Naru, also created a TV live-action of Koizumi, and somehow this is a real hidden gem in manga and ramen history because most of the ramen culture in Japan became so popular these days, she introduced this manga as an inspiration to everyday life. This manga considered as definitive as its field, enduring interest, the highest comforting value of food, it’s connected with heaven and it’s an all-time most readable food manga you’ll ever read……. and it’s all about eating ramen, and it’s addicting as it gets.
For those who remember the taste of this comforting food, there’s nothing more to explain, but for the younger readers and the non-anime fans today, you’re probably scratching your heads… maybe not. But if so, I’ll clear it up. Japanese ramen is comforting food filled with thin curly noodles and soup flavored chicken broth and a filled with soy sauce and some special texture of the soup and toppings that you can think of, like boiled eggs, meat, chopped scallion, veggies, etc. and it’s popular for all over the world, IT WAS CRAZY AND PEOPLE ARE OBSESSED OVER IT. Yes… Japan can make ramen and even the manga artists still create or make a story about some people eating ramen, but that’s debatable. Anyway, there’s an anime adaptation on Crunchyroll, but I haven’t seen it yet, however, if you haven’t heard of it, go start watching the anime before you come here to read this review because I’m going to SPOIL the crap of this comic.
The front cover shows a typical ramen restaurant while everyone else is minding their own business as in everyday life, but for me, I’ve seen any typical ramen restaurant whenever I go to. And here’s Koizumi on the middle, looking happy while eating her ramen, I wonder what she’s eating as she’s feeling so satisfied though. And from the look of it, the ramen on the middle right shows a lot of toppings around it, I can see the pork, the veggies or whatever you call it, and the noodles are under the soup. AT LEAST BRING ME SOME LUNCH YA RAMEN OBSESSED GREEDY SON OF A B-. Ok, from the second cover page of the manga shows the whole set of the ramen filled with so much pork and veggies as Koizumi finds the noodles under the soup as she is going to eat it. Oh and by the way, this manga is a work of fiction, so don’t even imagine if one of these ramens you ate are real, or if you want to invent something, go ahead, be my guest.
The idea of this comic is that the author is sharing her experience of each ramens that she saw and ate, so she creates a comic about a girl who loves to eat ramen which is based on the same author who happens to be a girl who also loves to eat ramen, and REVIEWED by an illustrator, comic book artist and reviewer/critic who happens to be your handsome boy who also loves to eat ramen. Thankfully, you don’t have to remember the recipes, the whole comic indicates that Koizumi was explanatory about her knowledge of the ramen’s taste, but not by inventing those in real life… that would make too much sense, the ramens that she ate, ITS ART!!
Well if you know about Japanese ramen and old and new anime and manga series, let’s continue. So, the story starts when a girl named Yu Osawa saw Koizumi standing on the line for the ramen shop to open, however she realized her likes and tastes, but Koizumi is anti-social who cares nothing less than eating ramen. Even so, Yu is trying so hard to make friends with her for sharing her love for ramen. The first ramen that they ate is the Double Pork Ramen, it’s an oversized noodle soup surrounded by pork and more veggies and onions filled with some sauce. As a ramen lover, I have never seen such ramen filled with meaty grease, I mean ever Yu is surprised with that shit, and then Koizumi puts her gear on and starts devouring the soup. And whenever she finishes, she shows off such a charming face that she is so satisfied with eating the ramen, I don’t know if it’s erotic or emotionally happy at some point, but to me, she’s is so happy that she enjoyed it. After that, Yu would start persuading Koizumi to communicate with each other even more.
So the second ramen that Koizumi ate happens to be a Kuramoto ramen made in the school cafeteria and added a special ingredient. And holy shit, she is giving the info about that ramen to the readers, and IT’S JUST LIKE SOUMA, Food Wars to be exact, but I’m still calling the manga title Souma because the translators couldn’t pronounce the title of the series. The idea is that the soup is made from burnt garlic and two different kinds of ramen are related to this one. So the thing is that the school cafeteria used to water down the garlic to give it more of the taste. However what got me stunned about the story is when Koizumi ate McDonald’s in Hawaii to eat, WHATFUKIN’ELSE? Cup Noodled Ramen. WOW, can you imagine going to McDonald’s to order some cup ramen in overseas? Next time, when you’re going to the international airport in Japan, you might get the option to go to McDonald’s and order some cup ramen. I might rather eat some cup noodles at a local convenience store right off a hot girl drinking some coffee while going- never mind, back to the story.
The third ramen that she ate is one of my personal favorites to fill up your belly during lunch which is thick ramen noodles which almost seem to absorb the whole soup with a plate of the fried chicken combo which is more comforting, but what is NOT comforting is that Yu keeps staring at her seeing her smile as if she’s looking a chimp’s face right at the zoo. The ingredients are just too difficult to figure out, but the idea is that the soup is mixed with chicken broth and sauce which seems to have a special seasoning to it, like putting some soy sauce, water or milk, heck even putting lemon juice would taste better. But the noodles absorb the soup after Yu won’t stop talking about shit. There’s a secret behind that recipe, yeah, absorbing the noodles, now I feel bad for Koizumi for going all the way, interrupted by some stupid girl talk and devoured it the noodles at the end, but seriously…. can eat ramen which contains self-absorbant noodles? I can’t say I’ve ever tried it in real life. Even if the soup was absorbed by the noodles, the taste would get better because unlike spaghetti, the taste of the noodles can be so addicting to the eaters.
The fourth ramen she ate is super spicy ramen that looked like a raw spicy pepper and jalapeño juice with noodles, boiled egg, and butter. With another classmate named Misa Nakamura who happened to find herself at a breakup with her boyfriend because of her popularity. But no seriously, I have never eaten such a spicy ramen soup, no other than eating that Indian curry at a restaurant in midtown that my sister took, or eating ceviche in Ecuador and Peru. I bet they just put too much miso on that soup, but no, the fact that the soup was so spicy, Koizumi and Misa were crying, apparently, there some onions that were mixed on that soup would make sense about it. I would like to try it one day, not a fan of spicy food, but I’ll go on level one.
The next ramen that Koizumi ate is the pineapple shrimp salt ramen. To be honest, I can’t even call that as a ramen soup, but putting pineapple on the soup is makes what the pineapple pizza shat out its offspring. JUST DON’T PUT PINEAPPLE ON THE FOOD! MAKE SOME JUICE OR SOMETHING!!! It was another classmate named Jun Takahashi, and for some reason, she hasn’t eaten some ramen for some time because her glasses get foggy. Anyway, moving on, the next ramen she ate is at a ramen restaurant that looked like the ICHIRAN restaurant in Brooklyn, I’ve been there, ate it, and not going to repeat. The interior is like a phone booth which is filled with some menus and buttons to interact. Oh, and don’t get me started with the pricing because it’s too expensive, to begin with. And the last ramen that she ate is one of the instant ramen noodles that you can make at home, Yu just bought a lot and helped Koizumi to eat some ramen back to health. So why does Yu won’t stop being so friendly to Koizumi as if she doesn’t want to be with her just to eat ramen, and why does Yu keep feeding Koizumi her homemade ramen? And why can’t I go one goddamn sentence without saying ramen?! Long story short, anyone can cook and finally Koizumi became friendly with her.
Alright, I’m gonna wrap this up, the characters interact so well and have a limitless reaction of them, especially Koizumi who shows her adorable smile after devouring her ramen noodles. Her knowledge of the ramen noodles is too much to get me hungry. And no, it’s not like Udon, it’s a different kind of noodles and that is a different story, but I’ll bring it up next time. But Koizumi was so obsessed with ramen and adorable, to begin with. She makes me want to eat some ramen, but wow that’s a lot of soup that she consumed, it bet her bowel movements are like tar and lack of water. I’ve been eating ramen for almost 10 years and the taste never ceases to amaze me, and the texture as always comes up with something special. The soup and the noodles are very twirly and the soup’s flavor is the chicken broth which can make the taste more delicious. But I guess that’s the actual tradition of Japanese food that spread across the globe, because every nowadays, everyone can eat ramen. In order words, that what makes this manga about ramen so interesting and addictive for foodie eaters out there.
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Brian Isaacs - Executive Editor / Publisher