IRON CHEF TEMPEST
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Sho Okagiri
Original Story: Fuse
Character Designs: Mitz Vah
Translation/Adaptation: Kevin Gifford
Lettering: Barri Shrager
What They Say
With Part 1 of the Tempest Guidebook done, it’s time to attract visitors, and a cooking contest in the coliseum is sure to do the trick! With Framea hosting the proceedings, it’s a culinary clash of cultures as judges and chefs from different races and countries assemble for a display of delectable desserts! Who will come out on top? Either way, it’s sure to make Tempest’s tasty treats the talk of the town!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Framea has almost enough information to begin to release her Tempest tourist guidebook. Nevermind the fact that she’s having ominous dreams and is currently being tasked by not one but two demon lords to host a new event in the coliseum. That new event happens to be a cooking competition featuring sweet treats because Milim has just flown in because… Milim. You don’t tell the most powerful demon lord in the world no.
The competitors for the cooking competition are Shuna, a bigoted chef from Englesia, the bakery chef Yoshida, and Shion. Yes, Shion is cooking in this sweets competition. Judging the competition is Duke Grimwald (Elen’s father), a duke from Englesia, Benimaru, and Milim. Framea MC’s the whole competition despite her bunny-person flight response.
Between Shion cooking and Milim being involved you just know this is going to be a disaster. It very nearly is as the Englesia representing chef and the judge almost scuttle the entire thing. However, everyone’s dishes are met with approval and because of some last-minute guilting by Framea it remains an honest competition. (Plus, I love Shuna and Shion’s desserts. Shion making a water cake is genius.)
The competition is the clear highlight of the volume as Framea is then tasked with helping out an orc find a job that suits him. That’s where she learns Tempest has a college where anyone can enroll to better themselves down a career path. A monster school could be a spinoff all unto itself, but Framea isn’t there to learn so much as she’s there to observe. The volume ends with a new, minor situation needing to be resolved. I’m not sure how that helps play into her guidebook but oh well.
One of the largest problems with this spinoff is identifying some of the characters who show up. Two in this volume took me a good amount of time to realize who they were, yet the book assumes the reader has an encyclopedic knowledge of the entire cast of Slime. The problem is the novels only have the occasional drawing and so many of the characters look similar that it becomes a guessing game. Readers not only have to be up-to-date on the light novels to understand everything happening but recall minor character appearance details!
As an extra, this volume ends with what is supposed to be the Guidebook Part 1. I say “supposed to be” but I think that they might have actually released a Slime guidebook in Japan, and this ain’t it. If this was the grand total of what Framea had put together for all the winning and dining they’re giving her, she needs to be fired. As a neat little extra for the manga volume though, it’s all right.
In Summary
Who doesn’t love a cooking competition? While the idea of such a thing is confusing to the guest judges, the whole town is soon won over at the prospect of more tasty food creations to eat. Framea may have completed her first portion of the Tempest guidebook, but there’s still a lot of territories that she hasn’t covered. She’s covered the play portion of the guide, but what about the work? The stakes remain low for this side-story series, and there’s not a lot of meat on these bones, but the cooking contest is good fun. The problem remains that there isn’t much here for casual Slime fans, and there’s not much here for the megafans who want something a bit juicier.
Content Grade: B –
Art Grade: B
Packaging Grade: B
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: Teen
Released By: Yen Press
Release Date: January 5, 2021
MSRP: $13.00 US / $17.00 CAN
