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Akihabara Activists Raising Awareness About Environment, Food Issues
CulturalCreative
Environmental issues take center stage in famous culinary comic
Jan 20th, 2010
Photo by coniferconifer. Creative Commons. Some Rights Reserved.
With a 26 year history, and 103 volumes published, the pages of comic ‘Oishinbo’ (‘The Gourmet’) have long been a battleground for two culinary journalists, Yuzan Kaibara and Shiro Yamaoka. However, from the September 26 issue, the long battle for culinary supremacy is taking an environmental twist! Let’s take a look at how these two will approach ‘cooking’ these ‘greens’.
The change began (according to the comic) with Kaibara’s anguish at the diminishing Nakatajima sand dunes at the mouth of the Tenryu River, and Yamaoka receiving a letter from an organic rice farmer near Rokkasho (famous for an ongoing struggle over the nuclear reprocessing station in the area). The common realization: Environmental damage is threatening our diet.
Kaibara suggests a visit to the Awase tidal flats in Okinawa where reclamation will most likely affect collection of Aasa sea lettuce, a local specialty, and also threaten other endangered species. Moreover, there are still no plans for how to use the artificial island that will be built there. Even so, the work goes ahead, highlighting one of the major flaws in the Japanese public works system.
This same issue is said to be manifest in the Tenryu River, Rokkasho, Tsukiji, and Nagara River as well. My impression after reading the first few episodes is that there is quite a lot of technical information along with a general introduction to the environmental issues at stake. There’s no doubt this environmental shift in theme in such a famous comic as ‘Oishinbo’ will give a boost to awareness of these issues. However, being so famous, care must also be taken over what to write, and how to go about it. With the help of environmental specialists, it looks as though this ‘environmental challenge’ will keep us entertained with the most up-to-date information.
Yu Tanaka, a renowned environmental and peace activist with numerous books to his name, is one specialist who has accompanied the research teams, and has even written about Oishinbo in his personal blog. Tanaka is also a passionate anti-nuclear power activist, so the episode featuring Rokkasho is one to look out for. Nuclear power issues are far more complicated than tidal flats, or dams, so don’t miss out on how Yamaoka ‘cooks’ this issue!
- This article was translated by Ken from the original Japanese post by Kenji Ishimura (Oct 26, 2009)
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