Ask John: Where’s the Pizza in Anime?
|Question:
What anime are there with characters eating pizza?
Answer:
I hope I can be forgiven for my failure to recollect very many anime that include scenes of characters eating pizza. I’ve watched tens of thousands of anime episodes, so remembering small details about specific episodes is especially difficult for me. The most well known example is C.C.’s affection for Pizza Hut in the Code Geass anime series. It’s also difficult to forget the role pizza plays in the 1990 Cat Ninden Teyande television series because it was titled “Samurai Pizza Cats” during its American broadcast. Actually, in recent years the Pizza Hut restaurant chain has been noticeably prominent in sponsoring anime. Pizza Hut features in Maria-sama ga Miteru season four episode 5. Pizza Hut logos appear periodically throughout the early episodes of Sora no Kakeru Shoujo. Pizza Hut has also sponsored promotional campaigns associated with the Kannagi, Macross Frontier, and Bakemonogatari TV series and Renewal of Evangelion & Sky Crawlers movies, although I don’t recall any of those anime actually depicting characters eating pizza. Kana eats pizza in Minami-ke Okawari episode 8. Ban Midou eats a slice of pizza during the opening of Getbackers episode 1. A pizza dinner figures prominently into Aria the Animation episode 7. Athena eats a slice of pizza in Aria the Origination episode 6. Italy snacks on a slice of Pizza in Hetalia ~Axis Powers~ episode 23. I don’t recall Keichi of Ah! My Goddess eating pizza, but he does try to order pizza, instead mis-dialing the goddess hotline. Dante in the Devil May Cry anime mentions his fondness for pizza, but I can’t remember if the anime ever shows him actually eating pizza. A segment of the second Kounai Shasei OVA from 1990 stars a pizza delivery boy, but I don’t recall the short involving any pizza eating.
This highly specific and rather odd question focuses attention of a broader topic that many anime fans may have never consciously noticed. Pizza just isn’t especially common in anime. More specifically, foods with a heavy cheese content like pizza, fondue, and lasagna appear infrequently in anime because cheese is much less a staple food in Asia than it is in Europe and America. Cheese primarily comes from cows. Cows are not native to Japan, nor are they especially common in Japan because they require a lot of grazing land and Japan is a relatively small nation without a lot of unused open fields. While not nearly as common in Japan as it is in America, pizza is still more popular in Japan than it is in many other Asian countries. Pizza Hut launched in Japan in 1973. Other American and native Japanese specialty chains including Shakeys, Dominos, Pizza-la, Pizza California, and Pizza Station provide uniquely Japanese pies topped with onions, peppers, pepperoni, shrimp, scallops, eel, squid, corn, mayonnaise, tuna, salmon, eggplant, broccoli, raisins, cabbage, and a variety of other stranger ingredients. Pizza certainly isn’t unknown in Japan, but it’s just far enough away from being a routine food that it doesn’t appear in anime especially often.
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I’m just wondering if pizza is the new KFC over there. Or is this question just an excuse for a new moe fetish? ^_-
“Cheese primarily comes from cows. Cows are not native to Japan,”
Really? I remember reading about a place in Japan where they massage and liquor up cattle. Maybe that explains it.
“nor are they especially common in Japan because they require a lot of grazing land and Japan is a relatively small island without a lot of unused open fields.”
So where does the country get its beef? Oh, right, us.
@GATS
You are thinking of Kobe beef. Those cows are raised specially for their meat, and it’s very expensive. I saw a show where the host ordered an average portion that was 4 bite size strips and cost around 9500 yen (around $100 US).
As far as their beef I’m sure they get it from China since they have lots of cows, but even then in supermarkets a pound of beef will run you the equivalent of $40-$50 US. The only thing that ever confused me were McDonalds… Based on the prices of meat you’d expect a burger to go for $10-$20, but then I found out that they get all their supplies (including meat) shipped to them by McDonald’s California distributor.
Another anime that featured Pizza eating was Moonphase Ep 11
I remember that Sakura was a delivery driver for ‘Pizza Shock’ in the anime “Key the Metal Idol” (“Pizza so fast it’ll shock you!”), but there was no actual eating of pizza.
@Girochin1,
I seriously doubt they get very much beef from china. They often try to avoid importing foods from there. Chinese rice for example is a big ‘no-no,’ even though it’s cheaper there.
Most of the beef is imported from either Australia or America.
My personal opinions: I’ve never tried Shakey’s pizza buffet in America, but I had it a few times in Kyoto and found it to be really disappointing as far as pizza is concerned. One large Japanese chain that John did not add is called, Pizza Little Party (very similar to Pizza-la) and they have a pretty good salmon pizza. Domino’s Pizza can also be found throughout Japan…