【Chuuka Ichiban】Cooking! An adventure filled story of a boy aspiring to become the greatest chef!!

Chuuka Ichiban! is a Japanese cooking manga series written and illustrated by Etsushi Ogawa.

The manga series was serialized in Kodansha’s Weekly Shounen Magazine from October 1995 to May 1999. It’s chapters were compiled and collected into 17 separate volumes. In November 2017, a sequel series named “Chuuka Ichiban! Kiwami”, started serialization. The sequel has collected over 11 separate volumes.

An anime television series produced by Nippon animation ran from April 1997 to September 1998, consisting of 52 episodes. Another anime adaptation based on the manga was released in 2019, which ran for two seasons, consisting of a collective of 24 episodes.

In the 19th century, the culinary world grew exponentially. Chinese food in particular was quite famous and spread to all over the world. This story is about a boy living in that era of delicacies.

We are introduced to Mao, the protagonist of this story, and his elder sister. Mao has been working hard to become a great chef. According to tradition, whenever a restaurant has to be passed on to another, there is a battle of cuisines held between the chef’s, and the winner gets to own the restaurant.

Sadly, Mao’s mother passed away about a month ago and it’s time for Mao to show his skills against another skilled chef. And if he loses, he and his sister will have to leave.

Mao and his sister walk up to the arena. His opponent is Shouan, a fellow skilled chef.

As soon as he sees Mao, Shouan makes sarcastic remarks about his skills and jokes about his mother’s death.

Infuriated, Mao tries to hit Shouan, but his sister stops him. It seems like the two have some bad blood between them.

In a verbal argument, Mao reveals how Shouan was his mother’s disciple, who worked under her for 10 years.

After learning under her for 10 years, Shouan became a highly skilled chef. But when Mao’s mother needed him, Shouan decided to leave. Mao’s mother didn’t want his beloved student to leave, she begged, “At least, tell me the reason”.

Shouan in anger yelled, “I can’t learn anything else here, old hag this is the reason”. And slapped her on the face. Mao’s mother fell to the ground. Mao, who saw all this happen, ran to hold his mother.

However, this wasn’t the only horrible thing Shouan did. Not only did he leave, he took three of the restaurants top chefs with him and stole all the money they had stored.

To repay all the debts, Mao’s mother then had to work really hard. So much so that she got ill and bed ridden. And just like that, she passed away.

Mao now blames Shouan for his mother’s death and hates him. He also thinks that because of him, all his mother died with was hate in her heart.

To avenge his mother, Mao tells Shouan that he is going to win the battle of cuisines. Hearing this makes Shouan angry and the two just start arguing. However, General Lee steps in (the incharge of imperial delicacies). Asking both of them to stop!, In his high and mighty stature.

The battle of cuisines shall now commence. Will Mao be able to avenge his mother by winning the battle or will Shouan go unpunished for his actions?