Crazy Food Truck

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TLDR; 90's action movies + road trips + good food = Great manga imo.

This was an extremely nice short manga you can read within a day and enjoy every minute of it. I love the simplicity of the writing where you can enjoy anything and everything with the beautiful backgrounds, the cool and cute characters and with what little information you are told, you can piece together things yourself.

There's a good amount of absurdity to keep you second-guessing, and asking "How will they get through this?!" throughout the chapters, and you know two things are constant;

-"I'm hungry".
-Great food.

So buckle up ... and fire up the grills. Crazy Food Truck is definitely worth your time.

Crazy Food Truck... Is probably one of the most American experiences in the medium (the most stereotypical way possible, resembling a 90s eastern European sitcom that got cancelled half-way through season 2, but that's not exactly a bad thing if you're into borderline campy stuff). It is a comedy, but I did not feel like laughing, instead I felt like smirking all along. As such, I'm trying to convince you, the potential reader, to give it a shot. You have guns, you have good looking food in industrial quantities, some over-the-top occurrences, tits and a manly man mc. Disgusting. If you're not sold, keep reading.


The ... character design is fine overall. I like Gordon's tbh, because despite being the most cliché middle-aged badass daddy character, the mangaka managed to create a very solid, recognizable and likeable one. He's basically the manga version of a Harley-owning dad.

The set-up could be summed up as Mad Max meets Gordon Ramsay's food truck (if this were a thing). It is a post-apocalyptic scenario, and the backgrounds depict that quite well. They are not very detailed, but the art, despite being a bit rough, is nice. Even though it's only 6 chapters long at the time of the preview, we've already got some nice panels and spreads. I still remember the 'Blue Lake City' one as it somehow managed to build upon the idea of desolation, despite its simplicity. Oh and there are also some good action panels and the coloured pages we get are a treat. Plus the food is looking fine too (especially that BLT.. It stuck with me).

Paneling is pretty good, it's a well-done series and I didn't manage to find any instance that'd disrupt my reading experience, but at the same time, it's nothing to write home about tbh.


What stood out for me first in this series: the worldbuilding as the way it's done is rather interesting, using all means available. We see some settlements and the life of those people, what professions are in demand, the fact that fish are meant to fly or swim through the sand and that there are carnivorous trees that use water as bait. It starts as an rather eccentric food-action manga and it keeps that up, more questions being asked each chapter. Who is 'I'm hungry'? Where did she come from? Why is she healing so fast? And then it slams in an Onsen episode. I'd say it's a really hectic series (in a good way). At times, it has some realist moments, but in the next few pages it 180s and we have people bringing spoons to a katana fight. Maybe I've exaggerated a bit, it's not that eccentric, but it is definitely a really fun experience.

Moreover, I really liked the pace this was going at. It's really easy to follow, it doesn't get boring and it's not too fast either. If it were to be faster-paced, there is a chance the world would fall apart and the plot would have to suffer. However, we haven't seen that much of the plot, besides collecting more and more questions with each chapter. I need to see more chapters of this to get a better grasp of the story, but so far I'd say it's been a solid start and it was at least an intriguing world and story that managed to pull me in.


When it comes to characters, we have Gordon, a runaway from the army in his 40s who's quite a man-of-action I'd say. Behaviour-wise... Everyone's making the Gordon Ramsay jokes for a reason. I mean even to 'I'm hungry' he behaves in a similar manner Gordon does with kids. Oh.. You precious little thing, are you hungry? I mean both being badass daddies that cook and named Gordon is already enough to make those jokes, right? Putting that aside, I really like his character. He's cool, collected, mysterious and I can't help, but wonder what his background is.

And then we have 'I'm hungry!' which Gordon picks up after almost running her over while she was sleeping in the middle of the road. She's a 19 year old gourmet, human or not as her origin is quite foggy at the moment. She's the main addresser of the ecchi, but I'd argue it's rather mild, well-done and tasteful. In case you're worried about the age gap, as he could be her father, at the moment Gordon doesn't even care that much about it and he's not flustered, but uncomfortable if she's naked, and I really liked this aspect.

Moreover, I loved the fact that the characters portrayed as antagonists actually try solving the problem peacefully, instead of taking a kill-on-sight approach. For an over-the-top premise and story as this, they actually are shockingly humane. We don't even know if they are the 'bad guys' in the first place and they don't feel like a mean to further the plot. It's just so early into the series, but we've even got some development for the characters. I didn't expect there to be any, as I feel like eccentric manga works without it quite well, but it was definitely a welcome surprise.


All in all, in case it wasn't obvious, I really like this manga and I think others would do too. It's not a convoluted story or anything among those lines, but it is pure entertainment at the moment. I'd say the first chapter's the only one with a bit more ecchi in it, so even if you dislike that, but like fiction that doesn't take itself too seriously and ends up being plain boring or a history book, go for it. I mean... I'd argue there are series that don't have the tag that have more fan service, but this doesn't shy away from displaying boobs so it's understandable why the tag's there. I'm starting to get the gist of manga and I'd call it unique. I haven't come across a similar one so far. Probably not being what I tend to read plays a part in that, but if someone who's not that big into this type of manga recommends it, I'd say it's worth a shot.

Crazy Food Truck is a manga that follows a food truck driver, Gordon, as he journeys around a post-apocalyptic desert with Arisa, a girl he found sleeping in the middle of the road. Arisa is being hunted by the military, but Gordon isn’t just a normal food truck driver and is more than capable of dealing with them.

The manga is pretty underdeveloped in a lot of ways. It provides the absolute minimum necessary in terms of world building and character background. There are character arcs but they’re very simple and not that important. And just overall there’s nothing too special or unique about the manga. ... Still, the protagonist is cool. The heroine is cute. And the manga is a good blend of action, adventure, comedy, romance and cooking that flows pretty well and at a pretty decent pace. Thus, it was pretty enjoyable most of the way through.

However, the ending I felt was pretty bad. People say that it was axed, and to be honest I don’t know whether it actually was or not, but it didn’t particularly feel like it. There’s a common set of issues with the endings to axed manga, and this didn’t have those. It had a completely different set of issues. Most of the manga is pretty much happy go lucky, but the end suddenly tried to be deep and go for a bittersweet ending. This doesn’t fit the rest of the manga tonally and is thus really disappointing. On top of that, the epilogue makes absolutely no sense plot wise, so it’s not like there was any point to it. It was just altogether unnecessary and unsatisfying.

The art isn’t all that unique, but it’s pretty good quality and the art style fits the story being told. There’s a good sense of flow to the paneling. Character design wise for the most part it’s pretty dull, outside of the main duo. Neither Gordon nor Arisa looks all that special at first glance, but they just work really well in context. The designs of the various post apocalyptic beasts is pretty good too.

tl;dr: A simple but enjoyable manga, other than the ending.