Another pair of charming vignettes from the world of Japanese izakaya food served to beings that belong to a fantasy world.
Isekai Izakaya Nobu Episodes 7-8
What They Say:
Episode 7: “The Burglar”
Upon hearing that Nobu’s been robbed, Deacon Edwin pays a visit to the pub with Nikolaus. Much to their shock, the place is open for business as usual. Nikolaus begins to ask Shinobu questions, and she tells the tale of a small thief that showed up during the day. Just who is this criminal…?
Episode 8: “After Work Tonjiru”
It’s a freezing winter night… Only a handful of customers have swung by Nobu, and there’s an abundance of tonjiru left in the kitchen. As Nobuyuki and Shinobu are about to call it quits, they find Nikolaus passed out in front of the pub. They quickly bring him inside and tend to him as he starts telling them about the disaster he faced and the hardships that followed. Just what kinds of painful things has this man been through? What’s his secret to overcoming it all?
The Review:
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
The cast makes a modest new acquisition in the form of an ultra cute teenage girl (who looks younger, but then 1) this is anime and 2) in a pre-modern society such as Aitheria, nutrition is not as good as it is in the modern world and one can actually to some degree buy into the idea of a poor 14-year-old girl who might look closer to 11-12) named Eva. She was discovered by Shinobu attempting to steal the faucet while the Master was out and had left the door open. Yes, all of us know that stealing a faucet isn’t going to get you a seemingly magical (to the people of this fantasy world) and endless supply of water you can drink, but the people of the medieval fantasy world know no better. It is also why Shinobu and the Master are extremely lenient towards Eva, whom they decide to take on as a dishwasher as their increased business has made it harder for just the two of them to run Nobu.
Mystery solved
The report of a burglar, however, brings Nikolaus of the Palace Guards and Edwin the Deacon to investigate. Which means sitting down to eat, of course, and we have yet more good izakaya food brought before us, including some bonito (a very common food fish in the tuna/mackerel family) dishes. The upshot of the investigation is that Edwin, even though a man of the cloth who is supposed to follow a simple life including simple food, is actually a regular of Nobu, often coming in early before any of the Palace Guards do.
In the first Nobu Plus, Ryuuta Kijima offers a fried rare bonito dish (fried on outside, still raw inside).
In the second of our usual bi-weekly pairs of episodes, it’s a cold day so no customers are coming. Nikolaus does appear late, collapsed in front of the restaurant. He had to deal with some ruffians the day before, but what has him looking near death was what happened the next day. After getting the worst of it from the ruffians, he is chewed out by his boss (Berthold) and forced to stay for extra training. He survives it by thinking about food from Nobu. His reward is tonjiru, a pork soup. What is notable about this episode is that Eva is now a regular and here we hear the most talking by the owner in the series’ entire run.
As usual, the second Nobu Plus finds Kenichi Nagira going in search of the food from the episode and he goes to Tameikesanou to find a place that specializes in tonjiru. He declares it impossible, but there is one, a tonkatsu (pork cutlet) restaurant.
Isekai Izakaya Nobu continues to adhere to its staple formula of quick little vignettes focused around common izakaya dishes. We get a small infusion of cute with the addition of Eva into the cast but it doesn’t mean that the focus, tone, or aims of the show will change at all. The Japanese, after all, simply like cuteness. The food continues to be delicious looking and what I really wish is that I could taste some of these things for myself.
In Summary:
Isekai Izakaya just keeps doing what it does: introduce us to yet more common Japanese pub dishes. They make a small addition to the recurring cast with Eva, a young girl who looks pretty much abandoned in the much harsher world of a pseudo-medieval society, desperate enough to try to steal the faucet from the restaurant (not knowing that won’t be enough to have drinking water all the time). But the focus of the show doesn’t change. It’s all about the food.
Grade: B+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Apple iMac with 12GB RAM, Mac OS 10.13 High Sierra