Reviews for What Did You Eat Yesterday?

There's Boys' Love, which is manga focusing on gay male relationships written by women, for women. There's Bara, which is manga focusing on gay male relationships written by gay men, for gay men. And then there's Kinō Nani Tabeta?, which a slice of life manga focusing on something else entirely written by a female author and currently being published in a seinen magazine featuring two people who merely happen to also be a gay couple. Lampshaded by the fact the title translates to "What did you eat yesterday?", Kinō Nani Tabeta? is essentially Food Porn: The Manga. This is achieved by the story being mostly centered on andaround the protagonist's proudly cherished specialty and hobby: cooking fancy meals for himself and his longtime live-in lover. The overwhelming majority of pages is dedicated to grocery shopping, comparing food store prices, philosophizing on how to match ingredients, preparing dinner, eating dinner, discussing dinner, pondering on what to do with leftovers, and other cooking-related activities. With its attention to detail and personal cooking tips by the mangaka placed at the end of every chapter, Kinō Nani Tabeta? has the potential to act as a substitute for a cookbook.

In comparison to the author's apparent enthusiasm, however, my interest in the art of cookery is rather limited. That, in addition to being a vegetarian with little knowledge of the Japanese cuisine, impacts my enjoyment of the manga to such a degree as parts of it downright bore me, which is why I can't give it the credit it probably deserves.

That is, as long as the cooking aspect is concerned. While Kinō Nani Tabeta? is being published in a conventional seinen magazine and therefore by definition not a Boys' Love manga, the thematic overlap is difficult to disregard. It is perhaps a bit of an unfair comparison, but having read my fair share of BL, the realistic fashion in which Yoshinaga Fumi chooses to portray gay male relationships needs to be praised. Likely out of consideration of the magazine's target audience, no physical affection is shown, which is, however, more than compensated for by the fact that the social issues which are so strangely non-existent in far too many manga are always present in the background, and on top of that dealt with in an oftentimes light-hearted and humorous rather than depressing way.

Other than both being in their forties and identifying as gay, Kakei Shirō and Yabuki Kenji may share a roof but few similarities. Kakei, the cooking enthusiast, lacks a sense of humor, but that doesn't mean he doesn't make the readers laugh. While his seriousness and economic sense are undeniably utile in his job as a lawyer, they become funny when he's in a pinch because he's torn between bulk purchasing food items that are on sale in order to save money and fearing the food might go bad before they manage to consume it. Unlike Yabuki, who's a flamboyantly gay hairdresser, Kakei goes to great lengths to avoid giving away any clues that he believes might cause people to notice he's gay, to the point where he contemplates on whether or not it is manly to eat a slice of water melon with a spoon. Of course, Yabuki has a difficult time keeping mum about their relationship, and Kakei is still forced to come out of the closet at a few occasions. As a couple, Kakei and Yabuki are just as unlikely as the niche this manga is trying to fill.

What surprised me and won me over was the brutal honesty Kakei displays when musing about their relationship. Upon being told he seems to act a little cold towards his lover, he downright admits that Yabuki likely loves him more than the other way round, and the reason he doesn't break up with Yabuki is that it would be troublesome having to start looking for a partner again at his age.

Maybe rather than the focus lying on food, and rather than the target demographic of the magazine it is published in, the most important difference between Kinō Nani Tabeta? and a bad Boys' Love title really is just the lack of any element of idealization.

I was pretty excited to read the first volume of this because I love manga about cooking and stories with gay characters. To sum it up: although the cooking scenes are decent, I don't feel the need to continue because I didn't connect with any characters or their relationships. This is a cooking slice of life that revolves around a middle-aged gay couple. The first volume is mainly focused on Shiro as he works as a lawyer, shops for groceries, and prepares elaborate meals for his live-in partner, Kenji. There are also scenes of Kenji working as a hairstylist. Chapters usually end with the couple eatingtogether.

The shopping/cooking scenes are by far the best parts, and there are some interesting meals and cooking tips. This reads like a healthy, practical Japanese cooking blog at times. It could be fun to try out some of the recipes, but to be honest there weren't many in the chapters I read that blew me away or inspired me (especially when compared to other, more creative cooking manga...but I realize this is also a matter of taste). To get an idea of the types of foods cooked, recipes include: strawberry jam, sardines simmered in pickled plums, stewed eggplant and tomatoes, oven-roasted chicken, chestnut rice, etc. etc.

The art style is clean and simple with a pleasant softness. The cooking scenes look impressive sometimes. The characters look fine, but there's not much about their designs, facial expressions, wardrobes, posing/positioning etc. that really stands out. Backgrounds are sometimes detailed (e.g. in shopping and cooking scenes), but more often they're lackluster or blank. The physical copy is cute enough with good-sized pages and a comfortably flexible spine that made reading this volume easy and speedy.

So, for a cooking slice of life with serviceable-but-uninspired cooking scenes, pleasing-but-plain art, and little-to-no world-building, the characters and dialogue should be high quality to make up for it - but, here's where I was really disappointed.

The characters were a huge letdown. I didn't gravitate towards any of them. There were no exciting, funny, or alluring characters to keep the pages turning. I wasn't super enthusiastic about spending time with them. None of the secondary characters were memorable. There was hardly anything fun, compelling, charming, or intriguing about the conversations, interactions, and dynamics between the characters.

Apart from Shiro's cooking talents, he is so unlikeable. He's arrogant, cold, rude...and not much else. He's mean to Kenji and sometimes seems to loathe him.

Kenji is...? He's...more "flamboyant"? He's...into Shiro more than Shiro's into him? He's...a little jealous and possessive? He's...not a particularly well-rounded or developed character (not that Shiro is all that well-rounded but at least he's more developed since more time is spent with him).

There are a lot of homophobic assumptions and stereotypes woven into the storyline and dialogue, and they spill over into the ways the two leads interact with their friends/co-workers and with each other.

There is no love or affection shown *at all* between Shiro and Kenji. Other than living together and stating that they are in a relationship, there is no other indication that these two characters have any sort of chemistry or special bond. No hugs or hand-holding. No sweet words or phrases. No thoughtful or romantic gestures (other than Shiro cooking for Kenji and Kenji being grateful that he has a hot partner that cooks for him). No vulnerable moments together, no intimate conversations, no "weight" from their supposed shared history...

This is apparently a long-term romantic couple living together and there's just...nothing! They don't even seem like friends. They are more like bickering roommates who eat together but otherwise barely tolerate one another. Shiro shows more affection and kindness towards a married woman he met at the supermarket that he occasionally cooks with than his own partner.

I dunno, it kinda depressed me. I felt sad for them both. They seem unhappy, maybe even a little bitter. At the very least, they're in a rut. I think media can explore relationships like that in fascinating ways, but that kind of thing is really not the focus for this story...so, for a simple cooking slice of life manga to center a couple that acts like this towards one another? It was just odd and unpleasant. There were moments I felt like stopping but I wanted to finish the volume I purchased. In the end, I didn't care to learn more about these characters or the world they live in.

There's a lot of appeal for a slice of life about a middle-aged gay couple (bonus points for the culinary angle), so I understand why plenty of people seem to enjoy this. Stories like that are few and far between. Perhaps later chapters are better than the ones I read, so if it still piques someone's interest I say give it a shot. Maybe certain things about this will resonate with others in ways that simply didn't with me. But anyway, this was my underwhelming experience.

Story: Average (5/10)

Art: Fine (6/10)

Character: Very Bad (3/10)

Enjoyment: Bad (4/10)

Overall: Average (4.5/10 rounded up to 5/10)

Status: Dropped after one volume

First and foremost, one thing that I always like to remind people. Despite this story featuring a gay couple navigating life as a gay man in Japan, this is first and foremost a Seinen story, published in a Seinen magazine. As such, a lot of BL convention doesn't apply here. In fact, they are often defied. There is a reason why the smut and the romance are restricted to the doujins--because that is never the point of this particular story. In fact, I dare say they are distracting like a porn video, a scenario that reflects our dirty desire more than reality. First and foremost, it isa slice of life cooking manga.

And it shows. This is a really good source of Japanese home cooking, the kind of practical recipes that goes beyond sushi and ramen and curry; don't get me wrong, they DO make these menus, but even then it's done in a more pragmatic, homely way. With local ingredients and simple shortcuts, you get a clear sense that Everyday Japanese Cooking =/= Basic Japanese Cooking.

They are visually appealing, I drool everytime I read it, and GHTRHRHAHAHAHAGH ME WANT. And the thing is, this story offers a lot of varieties. Because the story manages to beautifully wed each character's cooking style with their personality.

We got simple cooking, random cooking, meticulous cooking, 'whatever I want' cooking, 'let's cut corners because ain't nobody got time for that' kind of cooking. So many things.

The second element is the slice of life. We get to see the characters' life--not only as gay people, but also as individuals, as workers, as friends. And the story takes a good care of balancing all elements of these. We see everyone portrayed with nuance; not just the protagonists, and definitely not just the gay men.

The story directly tackles issues that married couples, be that straight or gay, are experiencing in real life. Some of them are endearing. Some of them are frustrating. Some of them are embodied in a single person.

The romance that existed in this story is very subdued, very grounded, the kind of mixture between consideration and understanding and care that you'd see in a long-married couple. This story focuses more on life, and how it reflects on the food they make. And the storytelling also reflects on it.

A moment of heartfelt acceptance is immediately undercut by a vicious show of homophobia. The parents' acceptance of their son's homosexuality is not only flawed, and based on outdated stereotypes, but it is also proven to be so taxing that one of the parents got sick. Progress happen gradually in the span of 160+ chapters.

But aside from that, the archetypes that BL readers are familiar with are also flipped upside down, deconstructed outside the reality of a BL story.

Let's take the protagonist, Shiro. Played by Hidetoshi Nishijima in the live action series, he is a smart-dressing guy who wears his suit like a model. He looks young and sharp, cooks a lot and is considerate to others. A man who wouldn't be out of place in your typical Salaryman BL. And true to that, a lot of women likes him...at first. But for those who truly know him, even the women, they see him as who he is; meddlesome, nitpicking, boring, very image-conscious to a fault. And to other gay men, he is NOT a hot commodity you'd expect from reading BL. Neither a full twink nor a full hunk, he is basically an alien, a direct victim of biphobia; too straight-passing to be comfortable for gay people, but too dandy for straight people.

He's not the only one.

There's the other MC, Kenji. Shiro's partner, a purehearted man; a stylish old man with the heart of a maiden in love. The one who is more open about being gay. In a typical BL, he'd be the moral compass, the one that guides Shiro towards true love and acceptance. In here It's...complicated. Kenji is as sincere as he is hysterical. He is as devoted as he is jealous. His expressions of love are as heartwarming as it is overbearing. As much as Shiro is being influenced by Kenji, so is Kenji slowly being influenced by Shiro.

Kenji's maiden heart more often ends up as a punchline, or an obstacle.

And then there's the Beta Couple, Kohinata and Wataru; a pair of Age Gap Devoted Golden Retriever x Selfish Black Cat. A very familiar dynamic in BL. But this manga strips the dynamic from its rose-tinted glasses and presents it as the dysfunctional couple it actually is. For all his outside competence and success, Kohinata is dogged and spineless when it comes to Wataru. And Wataru is exactly what a selfish man would act in reality; petty, snarky, egoistical, a man who thinks only of himself and not about the problem he causes Kohinata and the others. You look at him, and you look at the age gap, and you start to realize that their relationship may be functional but is anything but romantic.

Also, the Golden Retriever gets exhausted and thinks of cheating.

Yes, another thing that sets this story apart from so many BL is the casual way it addresses infidelity.

The story doesn't treat the idea of cheating like what you'd see in many BLs. In fact, for everyone in this comic, infidelity is a fact of life. Even Shiro and Kenji has cheated and been cheated with in their past, albeit thankfully not with each other.

But that has shaped the tone of the comic so much. They react to talks about infidelity and cheating more as a pragmatic problem, and not a devastating act of evil. Heck, they gave more spotlight to finishing a damn baking powder more than an incident of almost cheating.

And yet, despite all this, everyone looks...normal. Mundane, even. The cheating boss, the gossip-loving young employer. The easygoing neighbor and her extroverted husband. The madam and her son. Shiro and Kenji's families. So many people, a lot of different personality, and yet everyone is portrayed fairly.

That's also another thing that sets this story apart from many BLs-- their sincere look on the female characters. The female characters here are more than side characters; in so many ways they are as fleshed and nuanced as the men, and we get to know characters like Shino and Kayoko as much as we know Kenji and Shiro.

Now I yap so much about all the ways they're different, but they are still very relatable and very approachable for both BL readers and non-BL readers.

And ultimately, this is a perfect, balanced, healthy meal that also manages to be indulgent.

It's a good story, whether if you're looking for BL or for a Seinen story.