Because the boy and girl leads are sixteen when the story opens (as is a third character, Okonogi, an inept trainee who mainly serves to ask, "What's goin' on?" for the reader), we know that both still need to grow to become true chefs. As a complete series, Iron Wok Jan! spans some twenty-seven volumes, so clearly this isn't something that's gonna happen overnight. Midway into the first volume, we learn part of Jan's history: that his training as a cook was accompanied with much not-so-grandfatherly abuse, that the dying man's sent Jan to the restaurant as "an assassin to destroy" Kiriko's grandfather, the owner of Gobancha and himself a master of Chinese cooking. In addition to the two young cooks, then, the series also contrasts two different mentoring styles. In the last chapter of volume one, Mutsuju Gobancha comes down to the kitchen to demonstrate teaching by example. The older, harsher ways of teaching are no good, he says, since they only serve to drive students away from cooking.

In addition to the conflict between elder teachers, Iron Wok Jan! can also be viewed as a battle between two types of creators: the amateur (one who does something first for the love of it) and the pro (one who does it because it's what they've been trained to do). We don't see Jan sit back and eat any of his creations, but maybe that's not expected in this culinary community. What really matters is the approbation of those you serve.

Saijyo's art in the first volume is devoted to plenty of panels of characters facing each other down, zestfully tossing food around and talking with their mouths full. We get many loving graphics of unprepared, then finished food, sometimes with text explaining cooking techniques or recipes alongside. (I have no idea how true to Chinese cooking these are, but for the story, I'm willing to believe they'll work.) Occasionally, the artist seems to fall back on the same character poses - barely a page featuring her goes by without Kiriko crossing her arms under her breasts, for instance - but at least the sweaty foreheads make sense. We're in a kitchen, damn it, so of course it's hot.

Iron Wok Jan! is packaged as a teen-focused series with a suggested of age 13 and up, which seems apt. Can't quite picture the profile of the average American reader for this series (aside from me, of course), but whoever they are, I suspect they need an active sense of whimsy. That or a burning desire to look at black-and-white renderings of veal intestines.

(Originally posted in Pop Culture Gadabout.)