The beer hall where I meet Masayuki Qusumi, in the old-fashioned Kichijoji neighborhood of Tokyo on a summer day, looks familiar. I think I’ve seen its gleaming taps and the afternoon sun streaming in through big windows on an episode of “Sunshine Sento-Sake” (Amazon). The main character, Takayuki Utsumi, a socially awkward ad salesman, cuts work to visit an irresistible public bath (he finds them all irresistible), and then after soaking and steaming feels compelled to drink a refreshing beer, which he enjoys guiltily and with the heightened pleasure of doing something illicit. That is the plot of every episode — built around slightly fictionalized real places — yet somehow it doesn’t get old.
In another of Qusumi’s creations, “Samurai Gourmet” (Netflix), a recently retired executive named Takeshi Kasumi indulges (hesitantly, at first) in a midday drink with lunch, encouraged by a Samurai alter-ego to enjoy his freedom from the prescribed routine of office work. Each show follows him searching for a meal, battling some inner conflict and usually finding satisfaction. These characters aren’t lushes, but their day drinking expresses pure abandon.
This is a different kind of food porn than suggestively dripping egg yolks and greased-up sky-high burgers shot from flattering angles; it’s about experiencing someone else’s pleasure vicariously. The effect is calming, and at times poignant, when the stories touch on the way food connects to adventure, personal agency and memory.
Today, Qusumi has come from his studio nearby to indulge my request — via Twitter — for an interview over a daytime drink at a location that inspired one of his shows. Though, it turns out, he doesn’t often make time for afternoon beers himself. “I don't drink when I’m working,” he says. From his prolific output as a comics and TV writer/producer, as well as a professional musician — he composes all the music for his shows — it’s clear that he is usually working. Qusumi’s open and easy-going manner (in spite of his fame) puts me immediately at ease, and his kind expression reminds me of the shy protagonist in "Samurai Gourmet" (the character who, it turns out, he relates to most).
READ MORE: The “Boys’ Night In” pork taco recipe
“Sunshine Sento-Sake” and “Samurai Gourmet” are just two of many food-related works — in many media — that Qusumi is known for in Japan. The most famous is “Kodoku no Gurume” (“Solitary Gourmet”), about a traveling businessman named Goro Inoshigara who eats alone. The original comic, with emotive naturalistic illustrations by Jiro Taniguchi, has been translated into 11 languages (sadly, not English), and made into a TV show that just finished its seventh season. It’s been jokingly called food terrorism because it airs late at night, making people hungry at an hour when most places to get a meal are closed.
“Hana no Zubora Meshi” (meaning Hannah’s lazy meals) — about the slapdash cooking of a bored housewife whose husband is always traveling on business — has also been transformed from a comic to a TV show. And “Samurai Gourmet” ("Nobushi no Gurume" in Japanese) started as a collection of essays about Qusumi’s own dining adventures, and had a second life as a popular comic before being made into a TV show.
Qusumi’s American fans, like me, usually come by his work through a geeky interest in Japanese culinary culture, but food and drink are only superficially what these shows are about. They have none of the extreme drama or bravado of American food TV, nor are they instructive. They are mundane and repetitive fictions, propelled by the characters’ internal monologue and expertly acted facial expressions. Somehow, I find myself transfixed.
To Qusumi, his work is hardly about food at all; “they are dramas.” Broadcasting the triumph of a good meal on social media may be a new phenomenon, but the daily hunt for something satisfying to eat is as old as humanity. “It’s a drama everyone can relate to. Rich or poor, you have to eat.” He likes blues music for the same reason — it’s about everyday problems. “It’s interesting to think about what’s inside a person’s head when they get hungry and go look for something to eat, try to make a decision, and then eat and feel better.”
Though he sometimes posts his own simple meals on social media — an ordinary dish of cold summer noodles, Japanese breakfast from a rustic hotspring, a plate of sashimi at an Izakaya — Qusumi finds them the old-fashioned way. “I don’t consult reviews,” he says. The real and fictional restaurants and bars in his stories come from his own long walks around the city, which he deliberately plans into his day. (He’s written about walking, too, in a collection of essays.) “If I read reviews, I’ll want to eat what other people ate there. I don’t want to have any preconception.”
It’s like picking out a good record (before the internet), he explains. After a while you get better at guessing by the jacket. To choose a restaurant, he investigates the exterior and imagines what it’s like inside. “There’s better tension that way.” Once he sits down, he can infer more about the history of the place by the menu — not what’s listed, but the physical object. If he chooses to use it for a story, his staff will visit a place as many as 10 times to gather details.
Qusumi searches for places that are worth preserving — like mom-and-pop diners and old-fashioned public baths — even if they’re not cool. He doesn’t care about trends or fancy food; he’s looking for character and heart. There’s a delightful scene in "Samurai Gourmet" where the roof of the bar starts leaking, and the owner hands out umbrellas so everyone can keep eating and drinking. This, says Qusumi, was based on something that really happened to him.
All the locations in the TV version of “Kodoku no Gurume” are real (occupied by actors for the filming of the show), while the ones in “Sunshine Sento-Sake” and “Samurai Gourmet” are slightly fictionalized. I’ve looked at maps of public baths and drinking spots from “Sunshine Sento-Sake” created by its fans, but following them is not really in the spirit of Qusumi’s approach. “It’s important to use your own senses and imagination, and you hone that by practice,” he gently advises, “develop your own sense of what you like and don’t like.”
“But don’t you think people are afraid to end up with a bad meal?” I ask. “Even if I have a bad meal,” says Qusumi, “it’s good material for my work.” I’m reminded of some of my own worst meals, which have become favorite funny stories to tell. There’s an uncomfortable scene in “Samurai Gourmet” when the protagonist can’t muster the courage to tell the intimidating proprietress of a Chinese restaurant that the heartless bowl of noodles she served him is bad. He leaves feeling morally offended, and ashamed of his own cowardice. “That happened to me,” says Qusumi, looking physically pained by the memory.
Mostly, his characters are delighted by what they eat. I ask if the shows have drawn too much attention for any of the small businesses that they made famous. “A lot of people go to the restaurants in “Kodoku no Gurume,” but they tend to be quiet and polite like the character,” he says with a gentle chuckle. “They usually come alone, and ask for permission to take pictures.”
Anecdotally, “Kodoku no Gurume” has inspired a growing number of people (like these mild-mannered fans) to break the taboo of eating alone in public. It’s something you hardly saw in Japan a decade ago that’s now becoming socially acceptable. “It’s good to eat alone and appreciate the food,” says Qusumi.
Because of his work’s fame in other Asian countries and in Europe, Qusumi travels often. “Eating your neighboring countries’ food is good for world peace,” he says with a grin; “you can’t drop a bomb on such a good restaurant!” If the same goes for consuming it vicariously through a TV show, Qusumi is doing his part to save us all.
We finish our beers and say a warm goodbye, and I go off to look for early dinner by wandering the shopping arcades near the station. As I go about the daily drama of finding something to eat, Qusumi has reminded me to put down my phone and pay attention, and risk a bad meal or two for the thrill of finding a great one all on my own.
Shares