Isekai Izakaya "Nobu" (異世界居酒屋「のぶ」, lit. Alternate World Bar "Nobu") is a Japanese Light Novel series written by Natsuya Semikawa and illustrated by Kururi; originally a Web Serial Novel which began on Shousetsuka ni Narou in 2012, it was later picked up for publication by Takarajimasha in 2014. A 24-episode Animated Adaptation by Sunrise premiered from April 13 to September 14, 2018, while a 10-episode Live-Action Adaptation from WOWOW was released in May 2020; a follow-up second season for another ten episodes began broadcasting in June 2022.
The novels center on a bar called "Nobu" — located in Kyoto, Japan. Izakaya “Nobu” is a modest establishment, staffed by only two people: master, Nobuyuki Yazawa, and server, Shinobu Senke.
Despite its humble appearance, its entrance is mysteriously connected to an ancient city from another world: “Aitheria”. Nobu’s patrons consist of lazy palace guards, incognito clergymen, and the Waterworks Guildmaster – certainly not your average clientele!
But once they enter Nobu’s doors, they are greeted with the finest alcohol they’ve ever tasted and dishes the likes of which they’ve never seen. With the food plentiful and the drinks flowing, the patrons leave their troubles at the door.
The manga adaptation was licensed by UDON under the title Otherwordly Izakaya Nobu.
See Restaurant to Another World for a similar story about a Japanese restaurant from Earth with a door connecting to a Medieval fantasy world, serving delicious cuisine to a civilization with lesser culinary skills, and the restaurant owner/chef hiring a few women from said world as his waitresses.
Isekai Izakaya Nobu contains examples of the following tropes:
- Achievements in Ignorance: While Nobuyuki went out to learn what a schnitzel was to make it for Baron Brentano, Shinobu had actually made a schnitzel sandwich for him to tide him over without realizing it.
- Adorably Precocious Child: Eva is quite mature for her age and charms several patrons because of it.
- The Alcoholic: Leontine always seems to have some booze in her hand, however she is most definitely a high-functioning one, able to keep her wits about her and rarely gets passed out drunk. Interestingly, her love of spirits makes her Nobu's unofficial sommelier, able to tell which of Nobuyuki's meals pairs best with which drink, even beyond the normal draft beers the izakaya normally sells.
- Alice Allusion: In one chapter, Eva ends up going through the backdoor of Nobu that leads into the streets of Kyoto chasing after a white fox that had taken the fried tofu that was offered to Inari. The chapter is even called "Eva in Wonderland." The chapter does get somewhat dark as expected when a young girl from a medieval fantasy world ends up in modern-day Japan.
- Ambiguous Situation: The status of Eva's parents. In her introduction she is dirty, shaggy and wearing rags and while she and her younger siblings were confirmed to be very poor before Eva's employment at Nobu, her parents are never mentioned. Whether they were abandoned due to not having enough to eat or died is left in the air. In Chapter 60, it was finally revealed that her parents are still alive. It turns out that their mother was too weak to work (implying she might be sick) and her father, along with her older brother, are out working. The mother hasn't made a physical appearance in the manga yet, and the dad only made a brief appearance without his face being shown.
- …And That Little Girl Was Me: An apothecary, though sometimes referred to as a witch, named Ingrid tells the story of how once a short priest and a tall nun were to prepare a feast for an important nobleman that had made a considerable donation to the church. And while they had prepared everything perfectly, they had forgotten one important tidbit that the lands the lord ruled over had a mushroom taboo. And while the lord was a benevolent enough to not ask for retribution, someone still had to take responsibility for the mistake. Seeing as the nun already has some slanderous rumors going around about her and the monk had a promising future, the nun left a letter saying that she would be responsible for the mistake and left the church. Later, in "The Witch and the Archbishop" mini-arc, it's revealed that Ingrid was that nun and the archbishop Rodrigo was the priest.
- Angel Unaware: In the anime, Nobuyuki and Shinobu serve a mysterious woman dressed as a Miko after closing time. She makes an offhand comment that making the connection to Aitheria was worth it before vanishing and leaving behind a tip of Japanese yen. Nobuyuki realizes that she is in fact the spirit of the fox statue that they had prayed to for success of their restaurant three months prior.
- Arch-Enemy: Damian, initially introduced as a retainer for a noble who wanted to purchase Nobu, becomes this for the izekaya after multiple interactions with it cause him a lot of embarrassment and even landed a former employer in prison. At least until his downplayed Karma Houdini Warranty finally ran out.
- Big Brother Instinct:
- Eva looks after her two younger siblings and brings food from Nobu to them after her shift is finished.
- As it turns out, Gernot is this. He frequently sends large sums of cash home to support his family, and is implied to be the reason his younger brother can live the life he wants, even though Gernot disapproves of his younger brother's profession (an actor in a travelling troupe). Even when Gernot is trying to hide his identity due to feeling shame about his profession in front of his family, he still couldn't help helping out his brother during a meal and blushing as he saw his brother loving the same dish he did.
- Comfort Food: Gernot was going to unfairly collect taxes from Nobuyuki but changed his mind after Shinobu prepared Napolitan pasta as the dish reminded him of his childhood and how his mother made it every day.
- Deliberate Values Dissonance: Since Aitheria is similar to medieval Europe, this occurs. No one, not even Eva, bats an eye that Hildegarde is twelve years old and is already married, though Shinobu is shocked. Likewise, an innkeeper wanted Shinobu to marry her seven year old grandson, thinking she was fourteen or fifteen and only backed off when Shinobu revealed she is actually in her twenties.
- Does Not Like Spam: While it's never explicitly stated why, though there are implications she's allergic, Shinobu doesn't eat anything with garlic in it.
- Dude Magnet: Shinobu is understandably very popular with Nobu's regulars to the point that when Nobu does Kisu Day, everyone thinks that someone is going to kiss Shinobu, not realizing that Nobuyuki and Shinobu were talking about Japanese Whiting and not the act.
- Entertainingly Wrong:
- A spy from another country attempts to gather information about Aitheria by sampling salads from Nobu. He accurately (and nervously) realizes that Nobu has unlimited access to many luxurious resources and thus the country must be wealthy. However, the spy assumed this country was Aitheria, never realizing that Nobu is actually from modern-day Japan.
- The same spy later returns and is tasked with gathering info at the restaurant again. Since the last visit unnerved him so much he was constantly on edge thinking everyone around him was making double speak, which did not help when the former mercenary-turned-waitress Leontine was serving him and trying to make smalltalk about Oiria (which, unbeknownst to both of them, is where they're both from), making him shit his pants thinking they already caught on to him and are making thinly veiled death threats. By the time of his third appearance, everyone has just come to accept he's just kind of weird.
- A third one involving yet again the same spy. Since he works for a spy network he naturally assumes he's being repeatedly sent back to gather info for some potential campaign, especially when he's later tasked with spying on Aitheria's Queen (who is Oiria's former Queen Regent who, at least officially, was disowned by her brother the king when she married Aitheria's Emperor). What he doesn't know is that the former Queen Regent was sending him specifically to Nobu so she could read about all the delicious foods there, while the reason he was later sent to spy on her was because her Brother, the new King, wanted to be sure she's living a happy life now that she's free of her responsibilities.
- When Celestine, Oiria's Queen Regent, married Konrad, Aitheria's Emperor, her evil chancellor revealed that he had secret orders that if she should accept the union, she would be disowned by the royal family by orders of her brother, the King. Everyone (which, sadly, included Celestine) assumed this was a power play as the King was too young to rule and Celestine had to rule in his place for years, and the King might fear that she would usurp him when he came of age. What they don't know is that the King had watched Celestine working herself to the bone to keep the kingdom running because he was too young, and disowned her upon her marriage so that she would be forever free of this life. He just worded it very, very poorly.
- Gernot the tax collector mistakenly assumes that Eva is a member of the royal family due to the fact she has the pervious emperor's, Conrad IV, handkerchief that bears a coat of arms that only he can use. Afterwards, he refuses to hear any other explanation, thinking they're just ways to hide her "identity", and resolves to take the "secret" to the grave. As to the real reason Eva has that handkerchief? It was given in thanks for her service during Johann and Conrad's visit to Nobu as well as to clean herself up when she dropped the flounder boiled in soy sauce dish.
- Issac sees that Nobu is using tree roots and mushrooms in their cooking and assume they come from a country that is so harsh that it's inhabitants have to dig up roots and risk eating mushrooms to survive. This is because in their world, there was recently a mushroom poisoning epidemic and Issac has never seen Gobou, which is a root vegetable that looks very much like tree roots but isn't. As a result his later compliment to Shinobu (largely about the hardships of their forefathers) left her quite confused.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: It's clear that the fantasy world Nobu's connected to is heavily inspired by Medieval-Renaissance Europe, and more specifically the Holy Roman Empire, given the use of German and Italian.
- Food Porn: Each episode/chapter tends to focus on a particular dish and shows the progress of preparing it in loving detail.
- Gossip Evolution: Archbishop Rodrigo's desire to find a certain witch to ascertain her identity somehow becomes that the archbishop wants to reinstitute the Witch Hunt, which ends up being followed. In truth, he was just looking for his old friend, a nun who said she would leave the church to become a witch. That old friend being Ingrid the apothecary.
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: The official UDON translation keeps a lot of the source language for the characters, especially when it comes to food and drink
- Gratuitous German: German is used for the old capital of Aitheria.
- Gratuitous Japanese: As expected, a lot of the food and drink served at Nobu is said in Japanese.
- Gratuitous Italian: Archbishop Rodrigo and implicitly the country of Lupuccia uses Italian as it's source language.
- Hero with Bad Publicity: Downplayed but this happens twice to Nobu. The first time, the restaurant was accused of distributing lager which is banned in the country. And the second time, they were accused of being a witch's den since Nobu is considered "strange" and neither Nobuyuki or Shinobu could explain where they are actually from. Both times Nobuyuki and Shinobu worry about closing the restaurant or being arrested by the Archbishop. However, several of their regular patrons, many who are in powerful positions within the city, support them and kept their business going.
- I Was Quite a Looker:
- Deacon Edwin was apparently quite the looker when he was young; while we don't actually see it, both Rodrigo and Ingrid described him as having long flowing and luxurious hair while the current Edwin is completely bald. The difference is so drastic that while both Rodrigo and Ingrid had seen Edwin's face, neither of them realized he was the same person (although to their credit, they also mention that someone as respected and old as Edwin would have risen higher by now).
- Sebastian, Emperor Konrad's aide, use to be quite the looker (and womanizer) when he was younger. He currently has a face so weathered by age that Konrad was surprised to learn Sebastian even knew the concept of love.
- I Will Find You: Archbishop Rodrigo's attempt at searching for the specific witch from his past basically amounted to just investigating rumors of drunk women who liked sweets across the entire country. His friend, upon learning this, pointed out that such a search would take a lifetime. Which it did as by the time he finally found the Witch, Ingrid, she had become an old crone and he has become and old man. But for Rodrigo, it was worth it.
- Karma Houdini Warranty: Downplayed; but while Damian escaped multiple times from proper retribution with some egg on his face, he finally gets everything he deserves handed to him when he tries to have Nobu shut down as a witch's lair. This was the final straw and when he tries to escape through the backdoor of Nobu, which is connected to Japan, the White Fox that protects Nobu instead transports Damian deep into the mountain where Fushimi Inari shrine
is located. - King Incognito:
- Since Nobuyuki and Shinobu are not from Aitheria and Eva is too young to know, they did not realize that the old man Johann brings to their restaurant one day was the former Emperor.
- This happens again when the current Emperor, Konrad, sneaks out to have one last hurrah before his arranged marriage and is brought to the restaurant by a girl who he meets and told him about a legendary pub in his own city. As it was noon (and thus all the officials were working, namely trying to find Konrad) no one realizes who he was. Shinobu slightly clues in when she sees Konrad's face on the coin he pays with. Moreover, the girl who Konrad met was Celestine, regent of the Kingdom of Oiria, sister of the young king, and the woman he was arranged to be married with.
- Arnoux had been wandering around Aitheria getting drunk and into fights while trying to become a poet. It isn't until he gets a good heart to heart with Nobuyuki that he decides to take on the family business, to which everyone is surprised to learn that he Arnoux the Fifteenth, Duke of Saknusemburg, making the duke of the old capitol (essentially the highest local authority there is) where the story takes place.
- Large and in Charge: The archbishop of the Church is a huge man, easily towering over almost every member of the cast. He's so big he actually has to bend down a little to fit inside Nobu's doors. The Witch and the Archbishop arc also reveals that this crosses over with I Got Bigger as in his youth he was below average in height.
- Mistaken for Romance: Due to cultural differences, several first-timers have mistaken Nobuyuki and Shinobu for being a wedded couple running a simple tavern, though this is never outright stated and the regulars know that nothing is going on between them.
- Mundane Object Amazement: Citizens of Aitheria are completely fascinated and amazed by the modern objects and foods prepared in Nobu's bar, such as the "chilled ale" (draft beer) served in glass mugs (glass is expensive in their world). One man even freaked out when Shinobu casually added pepper to his salad, as pepper is equated to gold.note
- Older Than They Look:
- Shinobu was once mistaken for a young teenager when she is actually in her mid-twenties.
- Eva looks to be about eight to ten years old, but is in fact fourteen.
- Only Sane Man: Played for Laughs. The spy in episode 14 is the only one questioning and freaking out how Nobu, in a land-locked northern country, is able to secure fresh ocean fish so easily. None of the other regular customers, even those from nobility, question how Nobu is able to access fresh ingredients like vegetables during the wintertime.
- Ojou: Shinobu was the daughter of Nobuyuki's ex-employer and was frequently referred to as this.
- Perfectly Arranged Marriage:
- Berthold and Hermina are quite happy with their arranged marriage.
- During the big fair and Nobu's one year anniversary of being in Aitheria, it's revealed that Hildegard is also happy with her husband. Helping matters is that her husband is roughly around the same age as her, much to Shinobu's relief.
- The current emperor, Konrad V is arranged to marry the Queen Regent of Oilia, Celestine. Unknowingly, they fall in love at first blush and date and are surprised when they meet for their marriage interview as both had been disguised at the time.
- Picky Eater: Hildegarde wanted food that was not stinky, spicy, sour, bitter, hard and that wasn't bread, potatoes, rice porridge, eggs or stew but was tasty. Her uncle Johann muses this being a combination of her being spoiled by him when she was young, being insecure at her newly arranged marriage and missing the comforts of a warm meal due to needing a poison tester ensuring she only had cold meals.
- Product Placement: When the tax collector, Gernot, first entered the Nobu and encountered his Trademark Favorite Food of Napolitan, due to the fact that McIlhenny Co. Tabasco Brand Pepper Sauce is in fact the condiment of choice,* it gets a plug◊ in the manga.
- Riches to Rags: While not excessively wealthy, Eva's family had once owned and farmed their own land until several bad harvests led them to selling everything they owned and became tenant famers with only the surplus of the crop being their pay. The winter before Eva began working at Nobu was so bad, the family barely survived by the skin of their teeth, and is what led Eva to try and steal the faucet from Nobu. Fortunately for Eva, this turned out to be a much needed windfall for the family as the pay and meals Eva brings home helps lighten the burden on the family.
- Right for the Wrong Reasons: Baron Brantano demanded for Nobu to make him schnitzel, except neither Nobuyuki or Shinobu know what it is or how to make it. While Nobuyuki leaves the restaurant to gather ingredients, Brantano tells Shinobu to make him something else in the meanwhile. She prepares him hirekatsu or pork cutlet sandwiches, since the baron mentioned that schnitzel contains pork. She did not realize that schnitzel and hirekatsu are prepared very similarly.
- Romantic Runner-Up: Leontine, a wandering female mercenary, came to Aitheria not only due to rumors that the old capital and northern territories may start warring, but to find a certain soldier whom she fell in love with on the battlefield. Unfortunately, that soldier just so happens to be Berthold who is already married to Hermina. At the end of her chapter, she can only complain about her ushiojiru becoming salty.
- Spell My Name With An S: In the official translation by UDON, Eva is named Effa, an actual name of Greek origin meaning "Fair speaking person".
- Supreme Chef: Downplayed, while Nobuyuki is noted to be an excellent chef by nearly everyone, the head chef of the restaurant he used to work at and a culinary poet both remark that the chef isn't quite there yet as his flavors are in a transitionary stage between what he was taught, what he has learned and what can be considered "his".
