A work environment so bad that even the trashy employee Yamaoka can’t help but sympathize with it. The manga “Oishinbo” (original story by Kariya Tetsu, art by Hanasaki Akira), which has been serialized in “Big Comic Spirits” (Shogakukan) since 1983, is known as a representative gourmet manga, and is so popular that it was made into an anime series on Nippon Television in 1988. The main character, Shiro Yamaoka, is a genius at cooking, but at the Tozai Newspaper Company where he works, he also has a bad side to him, drinking too much and staying overnight at the office, and getting into fights with restaurant owners. However, if we look at his superiors at Tozai Newspaper Company, we find that there are other people besides Yamaoka who are out of touch with the current times. For example, one such person is Tomio Tomii, deputy director of the culture department at Tozai Newspaper Company, where Yamaoka works. He serves as deputy department head from the start of the series, and is promoted to acting department head midway through, but there are many episodes that make you think how well he was promoted. One of these is depicted in volume 10 of the comics, “The Spirit of Kimchi.” Tomii acted as the host at a reception for people visiting Japan from Daehan Books, a Korean company that will be co-publishing the book. However, he made the blunder of getting the other party’s company name wrong, and when the other party’s president expressed dissatisfaction with the kimchi served at the dinner, he made a rude remark, “That’s what kimchi is like,” infuriating the other party. Tomii continues to make numerous other blunders, including making abusive remarks about Thai rice in front of Thai newspaper reporter Sakuntala, and getting drunk and assaulting his superior, Director Koizumi. Given that people can still get promoted despite this, I wonder if Tozai Newspapers has an adequate awareness of compliance. However, the editor-in-chief, Koizumi Kyoichi, against whom Tomii used violence, was by no means a man worthy of praise. Koizumi returns to work at the beginning of the new year in the 21st volume of the comics, “A Gentle Treat.” Worried about him not feeling well due to catching a cold at the end of the year, the club members tell him, “You’ll be absent from the New Year’s party.” However, Koizumi suddenly became angry at them and yelled at them, “Whether to attend or not is up to me!” However, his anger still did not subside, and he began lecturing the team members for being slack. No matter how unwell he may be, it must be unbearable for the other team members to have their emotions vented on him as if they were someone else. There are other scenes of Koizumi yelling as well, such as in Volume 81 of the manga, “Sweet Medicine,” which makes one worry that “one day he might be sued for power harassment.” The lack of awareness of compliance may be due to problems with Ohara Okura, the head and owner of Tozai Newspaper Company. He also sometimes behaves in an overbearing manner towards his employees, and in volume 52 of the manga, “The Salmon’s Lesson (Part 1),” there is a scene in which, when Yamaoka replies to Ohara without making eye contact, he says, “You’re still as rude as ever.” There are problems with Yamaoka’s attitude, but calling Yamaoka, who is in charge of the ultimate menu that is putting the company’s future on the line, a “rude guy” makes you question the character of the company president. Readers of the book have been posting complaints on social media expressing their concern about the working environment at Tozai Newspapers, such as, “Looking at the executives, directors, and middle managers, Tozai Newspapers seems to lack compliance,” and “It’s an environment where people at Tozai Newspapers have no qualms about saying things like, ‘Go die and apologize!'” “Oishinbo,” often cited as a representative gourmet manga, is also a useful work to teach people about compliance awareness as a negative example. Perhaps the work environment at Tozai Newspapers was the reason why Yamaoka became a useless employee.
>>8 Tommy once got into trouble by treating a Vietnamese resident in Japan as a thief He brought a potted mint plant as an apology, and the matter was resolved He’s a prophet (´・ω・｀).
Rather than following the compliance rules in the manga, they featured famous people like Dojo Rokusaburo, and I wonder what the situation was with regards to recipes, portrait rights, copyrights, and usage fees.
>>17 Surely the person you interviewed would have asked permission to use their real name? It’s probably not okay to blatantly associate them with the person, like with Chou Futoku.
>>20 When a referee or someone collapsed and a nurse from the audience went onto the ring to help him, there was still an organization that said on the microphone, “Women are not allowed on the ring.”
>>35 Shogakukan apologizes → hiatus (the author says that the story ended there, so it wasn’t a hiatus)
→ some corrections and annotations added to the book → the original author publishes a book from another publisher (a company he created) refuting that it was true → currently there are no further stories
When they run out of material, they bring on someone from Kansai to make fun of Tokyo cuisine, and the vice-director gets angry, and Yamaoka scolds him. I’ve seen this pattern about 10 times.
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