by Today, when many comics are being adapted into films and TV dramas are made into comics, ” The Television Manga Club” brings you the hottest manga information you’ll want to check out as an entertainment fan.
This time, we’ll be picking up “Beef Bowl Restaurant,” a story that’s been getting a lot of attention for its gripping tale of a young man who is asked by his senior at work at a beef bowl restaurant to explain the plot of ” Evangelion ” in three minutes without using any proper nouns.
The author, Akiko Okuda, posted this on X (formerly Twitter) on February 12, 2025, and it received over 30,000 likes. The author also commented, “I was drawn in by the word Eva and read it. It’s a good manga with a lot of flavor.” “The explanation is so good, it’s amazing!” “I think it’s amazing that otaku can explain the fun of it without using technical terms.” “I want to learn from her talking skills.” “It’s amazing that she doesn’t use proper nouns but just picks out the main points and explains them in an easy-to-understand way.” In this article, we interviewed Okuda and asked her what inspired her to create the work and her particular preferences.
When asked by her senior if there was an anime title that even she knew, the protagonist answered “Evangelion,” but… The senior at work and the protagonist’s junior are at a beef bowl restaurant. When the senior asks the protagonist, “What do you do on your days off?” he answers, “I watch anime.”
However, the senior has no interest in anime, and when asked if there is any title he knows, the protagonist answers that he likes “Evangelion.” The senior knows the title but makes an unreasonable request: “Tell me the plot in three minutes.” The protagonist talks about how, in Evangelion, the father never comes home.
The senior then asks, “What does your father do for a living?” When the protagonist answers, “He is the commander-in-chief of an armed group,” the senior retorts, “You should have said that first!” The protagonist hurriedly apologizes, but.
The difficult task of telling the plot of “Evangelion” to someone who has never watched anime in three minutes, and the comedy where the main character summarizes it by compressing it into the relationship between “father” and “son” without using any proper nouns or technical terms, telling it like a fairy tale, have caused a stir, with many comments such as “The skill of conveying the plot concisely at the beginning without using any anime technical terms. His Japanese language skills are excellent,” “He gets to the essence of Eva,” and “I thought the challenge of telling the plot of Eva in three minutes was quite difficult.”
“The way the otaku guy talks is like telling a fairy tale like Momotaro, using simple vocabulary, and I found it interesting to contrast it with the complex story of Eva, so I drew it.” Author Akiko Okuda talks about the behind-the-scenes of her creation and her commitment to it. How did the motif of the “beef bowl restaurant” come about? I found the conversation I heard from someone at a beef bowl restaurant interesting, so I made it into a manga.
In this work, you have the difficult task of telling the plot of Evangelion to someone who does not generally watch anime in three minutes. What creative ideas did you use in terms of expression? I drew the story exactly as I heard it.
In this work, the explanations are given without using technical terms or proper nouns used by the so-called “otaku.” Please tell us if there was anything that you paid particular attention to when drawing the entire scene. If anything, the otaku man speaks like a fairy tale narrator using simple vocabulary, such as Momotaro, and I found it interesting to draw it in contrast to the complex story of Eva. So, I realized that the otaku did not use proper nouns in the explanations due to the readers’ reactions.
Please let us know if you like this episode’s lines or scenes, especially the line that says, “You, stop messing around.” Finally, please send a message to the readers and fans looking forward to the work. Thank you for reading!
