Campfire Cooking in Another World With My Absurd Skill Books 1 – 3 Review: Like Reading a Cooking Journal With Some Adventuring Thrown In

Campfire Cooking in Another World With My Absurd Skill Books 1 - 3 Review

Campfire Cooking in Another World With My Absurd Skill is one of those titles where you suspect it only came into existence because someone wanted to know what would happen if instead of the twenty something year-old becoming a teenage hero after being isekai’d, what would happen if his only skill was shopping online and he just happened to know how to cook. There’s really not a lot more to this particular story than that, though I will admit the third book starts to hint that we’ll learn at least a little bit about what is going on in the kingdom that actually summoned the heroes in the first place.

Campfire Cooking in Another World With My Absurd Skill is an incredibly relaxed take on adventuring.

Did you ever wonder what Lord of the Rings would be like if Frodo, Sam, Pippin and Merry hadn’t had to leave the Shire because of the ring and being chased by the ring wraiths but because they just really wanted to find out what ocean fish tasted like and decided to eat their way across the continent?

Personally I hadn’t, but I kind of feel that Campfire Cooking in Another World With My Absurd Skill more or less answers the question anyway.

Mukohda, our ordinary Japanese salaryman who is summoned to another world is a likeable enough protagonist. He’s the get along with everyone kind of person and nicely give away your magic potion to save the sick mother guy and realistically other than being nice to people and startled by signs of danger or weird fantasy revelations he really doesn’t have a lot more personality going. But that’s okay because everyone loves him anyway.

Literally everyone.

Guild masters, other adventurers, random kids, merchants, the merchant’s wife… I don’t think Mukohda has yet encountered anyone who has actually taken any kind of issue with him after realising who he is.

That kind of makes every encounter Mukohda have much the same. Here’s a new guild hall or town. Walk in, talk to someone and offer to sell some monster bits or whatever, take them out of your item box and have them react (usually with a gasp or spit-take) before they fall over trying to praise you and then offer you a lot of money.

I’d be lying if I didn’t call out Campfire Cooking in Another World With My Absurd Skill for being a little on the repetitive side even three books in.

Likewise, the travelling between towns is punctuated by Mukohda getting all scared or mad at Fel (his legendary familiar and we’ll talk about that in a moment) for running too fast, being all excited because Sui (his slime familiar) is really cute, or taken up by pretty linear explanations of preparing various dishes. Seriously, I think this actually was a recipe book at some point in time and then someone had the bright idea of stringing the meals together with weak adventure plots.

Campfire Cooking in Another World With My Absurd Skill walks you through deciding what Mukohda is going to cook, has him find the ingredients in his item box or buying them from his online store, and then literally preparing the food step by step. Every single meal.

But, clearly I’m not too down on these books having read three (actually nearly four) of them now. They are very relaxing to read and the central group of Mukohda and his familiar companions Fel and Sui (joined by Dora-Chan the pixie dragon later on) are pleasant enough to spend time with even if they aren’t all that exciting.

Besides, the initial set-up where Mukohda actually reads between the lines after being summoned to a kingdom that wanted heroes was something I quite liked and as book three, and now the early part of book four show us, the heroes who stayed are going to have to do something so it wasn’t like that plot line was just abandoned after getting Mukohda into the world.

I did prefer it when Mukohda was really ordinary other than his shopping skill because there was the potential that when his familiar wasn’t with him he might actually be in danger. However, Campfire Cooking in Another World did backtrack and decided that leaving the main character vulnerable made the risk of actual tension too high and so dropped multiple divine blessings on his head in exchange for chocolate.

Not even joking. Though I do like that Mukohda nick-named one of the Goddesses a ‘divine disappointment’. I actually had a bit of a laugh at that.

Still, the basic idea here is fine with Mukohda not being a hero but rather just getting caught up in the summoning and so deciding to go his own way in the world leaves the plot free of a lot of the usual fantasy trappings. The familiars who’ve gathered around him have done so because they were lured in by the smell of his food and decided it was worth contracting with this human in exchange for food. That they are all stupidly overpowered and Mukohda’s food makes them even stronger is just kind of funny.

Basically though, Campfire Cooking in Another World With My Absurd Skill isn’t a must read. It’s a read while watching something else and when you want something that isn’t super taxing on your brain. The story is pretty forgettable and the characters don’t offer a lot but there’s a decent enough flow to the narrative and some genuine thought put into a couple of the plot points.

Plus, if you even wanted to learn how to cook certain dishes you might just learn a technique or two.

Campfire Cooking in Another World With My Absurd Skill is available from Amazon.


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Karandi James


Girls’ Last Tour Episode 7: Two Types of People

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Review:

It is always a bit of a risk having such a small cast but Girls’ Last Tour has managed to craft two characters that despite their moe like appearances really give the audience plenty to like and to relate to throughout their travels. Their contrasting views on a number of things lend themselves to numerous discussions that border on philosophical but don’t become preachy because both girls fairly readily admit that they don’t really know what is right in the end.

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This week begins with a hunt for the ration factory that Ishii mentioned in the previous episode and it sees Chito facing her fear of heights once again. This gives Yuuri some very good moments as it isn’t often that she gets to be the voice of reason and the calm and collected one of the pair. We also see why this partnership remains in-tact because sometimes it is difficult to see what Yuuri brings to the party but scenes like this one remind us that Chito would pretty much curl up into a ball and never move without Yuuri’s reassuring and fairly strong presence.

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However it is the discussion about the arrows that really brings their personalities into sharp relief. Chito believes it would be easy if life had arrows pointing the way but Yuuri disagrees pointing out it would be boring and wouldn’t it be more fun to see if you could get there a different way. She points to a hole on the other side of the pipe and suggests it would be better to see if they could go that way instead. I found Chito’s question of who wouldn’t follow the arrows quite amusing because I could relate so well to it. I like clear pathways and processes and when I have a marked path I’m not going to stray off of it, so I’ve found myself asking the same question of people. Why wouldn’t you follow the arrows? Yuuri however simply points out she’s a person who wouldn’t follow the arrows. The show doesn’t cast judgement on either side so regardless of whether you like marked paths or prefer to find your own way (or even if you sit on the fence) there’s something in this scene for you to relate to and to contemplate.

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All of this is wrapped up by the cooking sequence where the girls essentially make biscuits and their contented expressions here kind of says it all. They still don’t know where they are going next and they have to first find their way back to their transport. They can’t stay here because the food is almost gone but they have managed to get some supplies. Still, for the time being there is food covered in sugar so these girls are pretty happy with life. Honestly, it is impossible to watch this show and not feel better about things.


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Karandi James.

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Food Wars Season 2 Series Review

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Overview:

Yukihira Souma is back in the kitchen and battling it out to win the Autumn elections while blowing people’s clothes off with great tasting food.

I reviewed this week to week so if you are interested in individual episode thoughts click here. I’ve also reviewed season 1.

Review:

Season 2’s always have a bit of trouble. Season 1 has usually used all of the real mind-blowing ideas and the fun of getting to know the characters has passed. So how do you make a good season 2? Very few shows really succeed.

That said, Food Wars Season 2 (or the second plate) really does work hard. They continue on with a competition set up in season 1, they introduce new and zany characters to try to compensate for the fact that a large number of the original cast aren’t actually involved in the competition, they ensure there is actually some sense of challenge for our protagonist so he isn’t just zooming through the competition. All of these things really should help season 2 out.

Yet, the whole way through I just found this season lacking. It was at its best when they weren’t in the kitchen and we got to see the characters interacting, but far too much time was spent in the competition. The comedy that really sold season 1 of what is essentially a cooking show was toned down and even the visuals while tasting the food seemed subdued (or at times just so bizarre that they lacked the impact they could have had).

If you are watching this show for Yukihira, then you will get a lot of him. His character growth this season is significant compared to season 1 where he only made minimal gains as a person. However, this focus comes at the expense of every other character and to be honest, Yukihira is not one of my favourite anime characters. I find him pretty obnoxious. While it was nice to see him growing up, I just wanted something to break up his screen time and there just wasn’t anything else happening this season.

There isn’t a lot more to say because if you haven’t watched season 1, this is all kind of irrelevant, and if you have you more or less know what to expect going in.

My recommendation: Can’t help you. If you watched season 1 and want to find out who wins the competition, you have to continue watching. If you don’t care who wins, then maybe give season 2 a miss because it isn’t bringing anything really new to the table and it isn’t as interesting as season 1 was.