Welcome, Please Make Yourself at Home

I know your journey to my countryside manor must have been a long and arduous one, but now that you are here please make yourself comfortable as we prepare for tonight’s meal. We’ll have a full seven course meal paired with only the finest vintage previously unavailable to the public for some time. Sit back, relax, and enjoy tonight’s festivities.

Hors D’oeuvres – Tonari no Seki-kun

We begin tonight’s dinner with a small, but powerful, bite of Tonari no Seki-kun. This dish is a light affair with layered complexity that doesn’t overwhelm one’s palate. Like all good hors d’oeuvres, this dish may be enjoyed in even the smallest of quantities while still providing a full experience to wet the apatite. Tonari no Seki-kun is the the perfect way to start one’s meal as it does not overpower any of the other dishes while conveying the high quality of the ingredients that will go into tonight’s meal.

Soup – Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom

As we continue to enjoy the company gathered here today, I thought it appropriate to convey some of myself to you through this next dish: Phantom: Requiem for the Phantom. This soup fully encapsulates everything I look for with a near-perfect blend of flavors that creates a unique experience that evolves as eaten. This recipe has been worked and reworked for several years to the point where it has finally achieved its best result.

While some may criticize this dish of being overly ambitious, there is no better way to fully realize just what I look for when it comes to my meals of anime, even if this is not my favorite dish. Phantom soup plays nicely with the previous hors d’oeuvres by sharply contrasting the lighter taste with a sharper, more bitter experience with some kick at the end.

Fish Dish – Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju

Next in our extravagant meal we move to the marinated fish dish known colloquially as Rakugo. While this third course could easily be mistaken for a long-standing traditional recipe, it has actually been incepted more recently during a brisk winter in 2016. However, this is not to say that Rakugo owes nothing to dishes that came before it and the long-standing history it is fundamentally built upon.

Severed with earthy vegetables coated in an herbal blend, you will find that this creates a grounded and mature combination. You’ll certainly find that this course provides plenty to contemplate with each bite. Beyond the base components, you will find that this has been spared no expenses when it comes to its presentation, coming together to create a truly unforgettable experience.

Meat Dish – K-On!

It has come time in this meal to present a tender cut of some of the finest beef that the slice of life genre has to offer. K-On! takes on a honeyed flavor thanks to the glazing techniques utilized by our chefs this evening. However, peering beyond the surface you will find this meat to have an almost bittersweet aftertaste to it as you proceed through each bite. This provides depth and hidden complexity from this deceptively simple course.

From the outside perspective, it is easy to consider K-On! a shallow dish that is reminiscent of so many others. However, it stands out thanks to its careful preparation and alteration of key ingredients that imitators simply fail to capture.

Main Dish – Penguindrum

Finally we move to the main event of our fine cuisine extravaganza! A fiery curry known as Penguindrum. The secret to this dish is the soothing chunks of apple that provide brief moments of relief from the more relenting heat of the dish. Symbolically, it also represents the destined combination of flavors on full display.

Penguindrum is a true journey that takes on further meaning with each compounding spoonful. Despite its more juvenile impression, this dish explores a delicate, yet full-bodied experience that only a master chef can create.

For those that know me, the inclusion of Penguindrum on tonight’s menu should hardly be a surprise. After all, this is my favorite of all of tonight’s courses. Words alone are insufficient in expressing the full breadth of what Penguindrum has to offer, so I simply ask that you enjoy and judge for yourself.

Salad – Millennium Actress

Following the main course we have a small Millennium Actress salad. Allowing this portion of the meal to standout is the zesty dressing that has been generously applied. In turn, this takes a relatively simple salad and presents it in a way that is fairly unique.

Though the late chef Satoshi Kon did not create many recipes in his lifetime, the ones he did manage to grace this world with are beyond compare. A harsh reminder of the fragility of life, but also a celebration therein.

Dessert – King’s Game

Lastly, we move to dessert. Indulgence is on full display here as I present to you King’s Game. This fruit crumble tart may seem to clash with the rest of the meal so far, but upon further reflection you should find that it is right at home.

While I admit that the quality of King’s Game is questionable for a high-class occasion, the rustic appeal provides a nice contrast that allows this dessert to still be welcomed alongside the other more complex dishes. Regardless, whether you view this as some ironic inclusion or see it for the genuine pick that it is, I’m sure that King’s Game will be a memorable way to top off tonight’s feast.

Drink – Paranoia Agent

Alongside each of this evening’s dishes, you have been provided a fine 2014 vintage that was previously thought lost beyond all but a few intense collectors. Paranoia Agent is a robust wine that transcends its time. The only wine, in fact, to be created by the previously mentioned Satoshi Kon.

This not only adds an allure of mystery and innate appeal, but is perfect for tonight’s pairing as it has recently resurfaced for public consumption. Forgive me for following a chic trend as opposed to diving more deeply for some secluded gem, though ultimately you should find yourself anything but disappointed.

Closing Speech

Thank you for joining me for tonight’s party. I hope you enjoyed yourself and take this meal to heart as it has my full endorsement. I’d love to attend one of your own parties sometime, so please consider hosting one of your own as well. Thank you once again, and please have a safe journey home.

Additional Information & Credits

If you’ve made it this far, you are probably wondering what all this was about. Don’t worry, I’m here to explain what this was, and ultimately, what I was trying to achieve with this article. Hopefully this will provide clarity on the project and allow you to appreciate what I was going for more fully.

Full Course Anime is originally a Twitter-based tag that I thank @RoninShounen for bringing to my attention. I took the format, which you can view below, and dressed it up to be presented with a bit more flair as you just experienced.

Obviously inspired by Toriko, this challenge is meant to reflect one’s “perfect” meal by translating that into reflecting one’s anime taste. However, lists like this are kind of boring and easily forgotten, so I tried to make this one more memorable by doing a few things:

The most obvious one is dressing it up.
- Creating whole new presentation styles for this. I made one advert (included below), the title card, and “menu” which is just the list with where you can watch each show I mention at the time of writing.
- This includes describing the anime as food, which was a challenge in and of itself.
My list is in a set watch order that takes what comes before and after into account. Meaning, if you were to watch each of the eight anime as they are listed, you would have a full and complete viewing experience.
My final goal with this was to encourage others to do the same. I’d genuinely be interested in other people doing this and then trying each of their suggested menus out. If you make one, please let me know.

If I had to criticize this format for anything, it would be that the dishes themselves are kind of in an unusual order. Though it does follow the format outlined in Toriko, an actual seven course meal like this would be slightly different. It would follow nearly the same format but would strike the “meat dish” in favor of a cheese course or mignardise.

I actually bothered to do research as to why each dish is served in the order that they are, and it essentially boils down to how dinner parties like this are usually handled. Plenty of talking and entertainment upfront which is why you have light servings that transition into a warm soup, as to prepare your appetite and make digestion easier.

Following that is the more substantial courses which are slowly enjoyed as the evening heats up. After that, salad is used as a type of palate cleanser that leads into dessert which allows everything to settle as people get ready to relax or go home for the evening. I’m sure you didn’t necessarily want to know this, but it was interesting so I wanted to include it.

Taking this information into account though, I tried my very best to assemble a list that followed more closely to the dining criteria. Obviously, I did take the stated list criteria into account, but I did reject certain shows from the list that I may otherwise would have included in favor for what I did in order to achieve a “dining quality” list. If anybody sits down and watches all the shows in the order presented above, I would be very interested in hearing about how well I did in providing a full and balanced experience.

Thanks for reading! Let me know your thoughts on this list, if you’ll be hosting your own party, and/or if you give my list a try. I’d love to hear what you think. If you enjoyed, please consider exploring my donation options by clicking either the Ko-fi or Patreon buttons below. Your support goes a long way and allows me to explore more interesting formats like this in the future.