Get Jiro: Blood and Sushi

December 15, 2015
In Get Jiro! (2012), celebrity chef Bourdain and cowriter Rose told the story of gastronomic samurai Jiro, who manipulates both sides of a dystopian future's culinary gang war. In this prequel, they fill in the backstory with plenty of blood, severed heads, and raw fish. Jiro is going against the wishes of his father, a powerful Yakuza gang lord, by secretly learning the art of sushi. Hounded by his rapacious, brutal half brother, Jiro finds himself in the midst of a family bloodbath that ultimately drives him out of Japan and into his prescribed future. Though lacking the zest of the original's genre melange, this prequel tells a swift, grisly tale of secret passion and family betrayal, cooked in the sort of gangster stew that Frank Miller perfected with Sin City. The artificiality of the digital coloring unfortunately robs the visuals of a vital solidity, and the depiction of women is barely short of pornographic, but Garza and Villarrubia's jaunty linework is a comfortable fit for the energy and pace of the story.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)