Oishinbo is coming back to TV after three decades
Shinei Animation is making Shin Oishinbo, a new television anime of the food manga that ran for 136 episodes in the early 1990s, with no date, cast or staff attached yet.
Oishinbo is getting a new television anime. Shinei Animation announced Shin Oishinbo at its 50th-anniversary stage presentation at Abema Anime Matsuri on 19 September, with a super-teaser that does little more than confirm the title and the tagline: the origin, and the summit.
The manga is Tetsu Kariya's story with Akira Hanasaki's art, serialised in Shogakukan's Weekly Big Comic Spirits since 1983. It is a food story built on a grudge: the Tōzai Shimbun's “Ultimate Menu”, assembled by Shiro Yamaoka and Yūko Kurita, against the “Supreme Menu” of the gourmand Yuzan Kaibara. The new anime carries the same franchise title with a 新 – “new” – in front of it.
Why this is a bigger deal than it sounds
The previous television anime also came from Shinei Animation and ran for 136 episodes between 1988 and 1992, followed by two specials. The manga went quiet for a long stretch: it reached its 111th volume in December 2014 and has been on hiatus since. Viz Media has published five volumes in print and on its own digital service, and the franchise has previously been adapted into live-action series and a film.
Shinei is marking its 50th year with the announcement, and there is a supporting beat on 25 September: a compilation special, Oishinbo Introductions, premieres on the official YouTube channel at 20:00 JST, assembled from the remastered 1988–1992 episodes. The channel behind it has passed 590,000 subscribers since opening in October 2020, which tells you how much appetite there still is for a show about arguing over dinner.
What has not been announced
Nothing about the new series beyond its existence. There is no broadcast date, no slot, no studio confirmation, no cast, no staff and no streaming territory, and the announcement says plainly that details will follow later. The old series' broadcast pattern is not a guide to the new one, and neither Shogakukan nor Shinei has said anything about how the hiatus is being handled.
Our opinion
Reviving Oishinbo in 2026 is a stranger decision than it first looks. The show's whole engine was that food was a moral argument, and the manga's long hiatus left the story stranded mid-argument, which means a new anime either adapts what exists and stops or commits to an ending the manga has not written. Shinei, to its credit, is not pretending otherwise: a super-teaser and a tagline is a promise to be careful. The genuinely funny part is the timing. Japan's food television has moved a long way towards quiet, gentle shows about small portions, and the return of a series where a bad meal is treated as a personal insult is either perfect counter-programming or a museum piece. It has 590,000 YouTube subscribers suggesting the audience never left.