Adult Swim Premieres Get Jiro Anime Adaptation

Before writing TV reviews, I spent a decade as a dining reporter. Truly terrible restaurants are rare, but the vast majority are merely mediocre. Some meals begin with a creative and delicious appetizer, only to continue with a bland entrée and sickly sweet dessert. There is nothing so disappointing as realizing the best bites are already behind you. Unfortunately, Get Jiro, Adult Swim’s adaptation of the graphic novel from Kitchen Confidential author and No Reservations host Anthony Bourdain, progresses like one of those meals.

Bourdain and Joel Rose co-wrote Get Jiro! in 2012, imagining a future Los Angeles where status is defined by restaurant reservations and competition between chefs regularly turns violent. When the mysterious newcomer Jiro, played by Brian Tee, attracts attention for serving flawless omakase in a strip mall in the city’s Outer Ring, the most powerful restaurateurs decide he is a tool they can use to shift the balance of power.

In the first episode, Jiro explains that he does not have a secret ingredient but crafts his sushi by devoting equal care to each element. Similarly, the first four episodes of the show are a blend of John Wick and Delicious in Dungeon, setting Jiro up as a sushi chef samurai like Hattori Hanzō from Kill Bill. The bloody, action-packed thriller is stewed in rich cooking references. The ruthless head chef Bob, portrayed by Bosch star Titus Welliver, explains his contempt for brunch customers while drowning an underling in hollandaise. Bob’s vegan rival Rose, played by Alison Pill of Devs, tries to seduce Jiro while biting into a freshly picked tomato.

Showrunners Alessandro Tanaka and Brian Gatewood lay out the stakes and develop the supporting cast, blending absurd situations with sincere musings about the power of food. Highlights include a chase sequence involving mercenary food truck operators fighting with kebab skewers, an assassin who bakes the pieces of her sniper rifle into baguettes, and a roving biker gang that raids a roadside restaurant for barbecue sauce. Bob and Rose are relatable villains, and Jiro comes to understand his enemies and potential allies through the meals they share together.

The showrunners dramatically change direction halfway through the 10-episode season as they pivot to integrating material from Bourdain and Rose’s 2015 prequel, Get Jiro: Blood and Sushi. Rather than maintain the focus on food, these flashbacks explore Jiro’s ties to Japan’s criminal underworld and make for a thinner gruel of crime drama clichés. After setting up enemies who chew the scenery, the show pushes them aside to make way for Jiro’s psychopathic brother Ichi, whose own food connection is not given enough time to simmer. The vibrant cyberpunk version of Tokyo looks awesome, but the arc puts style over substance.

Tanaka and Gatewood should have maintained Jiro’s commitment to the balance of ingredients, because the show falters every time it focuses more on the action than the food. An episode set in a prison run by a spiteful evangelical clumsily attempts to build out the world’s lore and wastes a bunch of chef cameos. The series momentarily gets back on track by paying homage to Hannibal, but the fresh infusion of flavor quickly fades and is replaced by tired revenge tropes.

While Bourdain invented the absurd world where restaurant staff beat each other to death with kitchen utensils, many of the best parts are not from the comics at all. Tanaka and Gatewood made this version of Los Angeles feel alive by adding family restaurants trying to get by, a disciplined health inspector looking for justice, and an overeager young apprentice for Jiro. They pack original humor into scenes involving hungry beat cops, corrupt politicians, and frustrated investors. The season ends by teasing a new adventure, and another serving would be welcome to see what the showrunners could do if they were not rushing to cram two graphic novels into 10 episodes.

In one scene, the chef Bob explains that he does not believe he is personally capable of the level of perfection achieved by the best chefs. He is not disciplined enough to keep practicing until he can make flawless pasta, but he accepts that a messy preparation can sometimes be good enough. That may be good enough for Get Jiro too. With more time to cook up a second season, Tanaka and Gatewood could tweak their recipe and create a series that leaves audiences hungry for more.

Get Jiro premieres on Adult Swim on Oct. 3 and HBO Max on Oct. 4. New episodes release at midnight Saturdays through Dec. 5.

Source: Polygon