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New Volume of Kodoku no Gourmet Manga Planned After 18-Year Hiatus
posted on by Rafael Antonio Pineda
Manga creator Masayuku Kusumi reported in an interview published on Monday that he will publish the second collected volume of his Kodoku no Gourmet (The Solitary Gourmet) manga this year, 18 years after he published the first volume in 1997. The second volume will collect the chapters of the manga that were published intermittently in Fusosha's Weekly Spa! magazine over the last 18 years.
According to Kusumi, the manga's artist, Jiro Taniguchi, takes an entire day to draw one panel, so it will require some time before the volume is ready.
Kodoku no Gourmet was first serialized from 1994-1996 in Fusosha's Monthly Panja magazine (now defunct). Kusumi handled the story, and Taniguchi drew the art. The story follows a solitary salesman named Goro Inagashira as he travels all over Japan and samples the local cuisine found on street corners.
Fusosha published the first collected volume in 1997, and it ran for three print runs. Fusosha published a paperback print run in 2000, and in 2008, issued a reprint with new cover art. The first compiled volume has now sold over 200,000 copies.
The manga inspired a live-action television adaptation starring Yutaka Matsushige, and ran for four seasons.
Kodoku no Gourmet has been translated in eight languages. The now-defunct online manga site JManga once licensed the manga for North America and published a portion of it in English.
Source: Mainichi Shimbun
