A while back I reviewed the anime adaptation of the manga Today’s Menu for the Emiya Family. At that time the video review went out, the first volume of the manga had come out, and I’d read it and enjoyed it, and since then two more volumes of the manga have come out since then, so it’s time to give this a proper review.
Like the earlier review mentions, Today’s Menu for the Emiya Family is a work that basically kicks all the dark, gloomy bloodshed from the original Fate/ Franchise to the curb in favor of having everyone hang out, cook, and eat delicious meals together. Where things shift with the manga is the general flavor (no pun intended) of the humor.
Basically, each chapter of the manga is generally shorter than the episodes of the anime are, and they aren’t as densely packed. We get some cute narrative beats in the early parts of each chapter, leading into the recipe, which is depicted with a level of detail comparable to what we got in the show, leading into a reaction to the dish.
What this means is that in the anime, we get a lot of more involved beats in the story. For example, in the Christmas episode, we didn’t just get Berserker bringing in a full-size Christmas Tree (that he uprooted), we got Sella driving Rin, Sakura, and Rider to the mansion, losing control of the car, and having them be saved by Rider’s S-Rank riding skill. In the manga, we just get Berserker and the tree. That doesn’t mean the manga is bad, it’s just tonally more chill.
What the manga has over the anime, is a lot more time for some of the other characters. We get chapters about Rin’s circle of friends as well, with a tea-party on the rooftop, and one about one of her friends from the Track team making something for False Assassin, because she’s spiritually active and can see him. We see Caster’s progression as a chef. It’s a level of character growth and progression that the anime sort of got, but not quite.
That, combined with complete recipes for each dish in the manga, definitely means that I’m giving this my full recommendation, and I will be picking each volume of this up as the manga goes on.
Today’s Menu for the Emiya Family is, available from Amazon & RightStuf. Buying anything through those links helps to support the site. Yes, those are the links I used before, to the first volume, they’re still fine.
