Gensou Gourmet
Gourmet in Different World.

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Despite being a food-focused series, the attention on its dishes and the preparation of said food is lacking. It's a beautiful world that has amazing potential but feels like it's going nowhere. The unique ingredients are refreshing to see, since it is a fantasy world after all, but if you were expecting a dedicated explanation of preparation, origin, cooking, and eating; yeah, it's a little lackluster. There are plenty of emotional and beautiful parts in the series, but those moments seem to diminish quickly.

The only pros that kept me going is the foundation of the world building. The plot and characters (especially MC) were ... boring me, personally.

The general synopsis of this story is about our protagonist Shunichirou being transported to another world, seeing, touching, and consuming unknown foods as his reason for living in this world. He travels the world with his beastmaid Sylphin, where they try out all sorts of different foods.

Conceptually, this manga has a really interesting world which allows for an interesting read when it comes to the food and how it's appreciated by different races. However, one of the biggest problems I had was the lack of focus as the story continues to progress. Initially, the manga shows both the foods that are consumed with quite ... a lot of details while simultaneously building the relationship between Sylphin and Shunichirou. It sets itself up to be a manga about the two enjoying themselves on food and slowly building interest in each other over a long period of interactions with each other. However the story then shifts its attention towards both politics and business and then further pushes more grandiose ideas. It no longer retains a feeling of comfort, but one that tries to tell a deep (but shallow) story.

Another problem I had with this manga was how a lot of relationships formed around both Sylphin and Shunichirou. While I understand the premise of them talking with others for business related aspects or even politics (And I'm not fond of the focus on these two aspects), I don't understand how they can become super close friends with these figures. Most of these relations you see are so shallow and forgettable for several reasons. The pacing is so quick that the progression doesn't feel natural, it feels forced to move the plot forward. Secondly, most of these characters don't have any forms of commonality with each other, becoming friends for the sake of just being friends.

To further express my gripes with this manga, I have to talk about Shunichirou. The protagonist slowly becomes far more annoying to me due to his actions. The premise of the manga is about enjoying foods, and in particular, exotic foods. Disliking certain foods is honestly fine for me as it doesn't just do a blanket statement of "This is delicious!" It helps create variation which is something I like, but my biggest gripe is his reaction and responses to certain characters and foods in this show. The few actions he happens to do are hypocritical and contradictory, and while it happens only a few times, it genuinely becomes annoying to me. While they were minor things he did, to me it says pretty loudly what kind of personality and character the protagonist has.

Overall, I genuinely had high hopes for this manga, but it has been fairly disappointing to me. I personally don't recommend this manga.