Adult Swim, apparently content to continue its to dominate the conversation coming out of this year’s Annecy International Animation Film Festival, has another big-name project soon to come to its televisual shores: , which carries a hell of a pedigree, being based on a graphic novel co-penned by the late Anthony Bourdain. Bourdain published the first book in the series—which he co-wrote with Joel Rose, with art by Langdon Foss—in 2012, landing it on the ’ bestsellers list. The book imagines a future where cutthroat gangs of chefs rule Los Angeles, and a mysterious, revenge-minded sushi chef comes to town, bringing violent chaos with him.
(And yes, this is basically, and consciously, the plot of , but with a sushi chef in the central role.) The book got good reviews, and while it did fall a out of conceptual step with some of Bourdain’s more anthropological efforts, it’s not hard to imagine him pitching the bit where Jiro angrily decapitates a boorish patron who drowns his carefully prepared sushi in wasabi and soy sauce. Would the book have been as successful—or gotten this TV series adaptation—without Bourdain’s name attached? We’d imagine not, but it’s still a pretty fun premise, with Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka serving as co-showrunners on the new series.
(And it’s still less ghoulish than, say, , as the producers of semi-recent documentary did to add a little more Bourdain “magic” to their film.) [ ].