Isekai Shokudo Manga Heads Toward Finale, Teases Big Announcement

Anime already announced for original novel series

This year's 8th issues of Square Enix's Young Gangan magazine announced on Friday that Takaaki Kugatsu's Isekai Shokudō (Alternate-World Restaurant) manga based on Junpei Inuzuka's light novel series of the same name is headed toward its climax. (The word "climax" written in phonetic katakana often indicates a manga series' final chapter.) The magazine also announced that the manga will have an important announcement in the next issue on April 21.

The manga launched in November. Before the series launched, Inuzuka commented that the manga would share the same first chapter about menchikatsu (deep-fried ground meat cutlet) as his novel, but the second chapter would be different.

The novels have a television anime adaptation in the works.

The original story centers on a restaurant called "Yōshoku no Nekoya" (Western Cuisine Cat Restaurant), which is located on the first basement floor of a building at a corner of a shopping district near an office area. While it normally feeds salarymen, there is a secret in Nekoya. Every Saturday when the shop takes a day off, Nekoya is teeming full of "special customers." For the office workers, it is a familiar place with familiar dishes, but for these Saturday customers — "people from that world" — it is nothing but cuisine never seen or heard before.

Inuzuka launched the story on the Shōsetsu-ka ni Narō (literally, "Let's Become Novelists") website in 2013, and Shufunotomo's Hero Bunko imprint published the first print volume in February 2015. Katsumi Inami has been drawing the illustrations, and the third volume shipped on September 30.