Manga / Not Love But Delicious Foods Make Me So Happy

Not Love But Delicious Foods Make Me So Happy (愛がなくても喰ってゆけます; Ai ga Nakutemo Kutteyukemasu) is a semi-autobiographical manga by Fumi Yoshinaga, also known for Antique Bakery and her Boys' Love works. It ran in Manga Erotics F in 2005, with 15 chapters compiled into a single volume. The manga follows her as she visits a variety of Tokyo restaurants and samples their menus.

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This manga provides examples of the following tropes:

• Big Eater: Y-naga loves food, but even she doesn't eat as much as her friend N-ko O-ta, who's nicknamed "American Car" (because she has terrible fuel efficiency).
• Fallback Marriage Pact: Y-naga and her friend S-hara agree to get married when he turns 30 (she's 2 years older than him) if neither of them have found anyone by then (she actually asked a bunch of guys, but he was the only one who agreed). As luck would have it, they remember about this when he's 29 and both of them are single, and after a Beat, they both agree to push it to 35. At the end of the chapter, they're both thinking "When we hit 35, I wonder if we can push it to forty?"
• Food Porn: In every chapter, given that this is a manga about food.
• Gaydar: Subverted. Everyone in her social circle except Y-naga knew A-dou was gay before she did.
• Old Maid: Y-naga is already 31 and unmarried, but she tries several times to find a man.
• Plain Palate:
  • Compared to Y-naga, S-hara has much more boring tastes in food. At a bakery, he orders melon bread, curry bread, and yakisoba bread, which the translator's notes mention is like getting only vanilla at a 31-flavor ice cream place.
  • T-i dislikes spicy food.
• Platonic Life-Partners: S-hara and Y-naga have been friends since college, and even have a Fallback Marriage Pact, but know each other well enough (especially after becoming roommates) that they have no romantic feelings for one another.
• She Cleans Up Nicely: It may just be the way she's drawn, but when Y-naga dresses up to go to a restaurant, she changes from her usual gonk to a beautiful woman.
• Spell My Name with a Blank: The characters are based on Yoshinaga and her friends and coworkers, but with their names spelled like "Y-naga" to give a veneer of privacy.
• Unsatisfiable Customer: Y-naga starts drawing a manga assignment for a non-manga magazine, but they take way too long to respond to her sketches, and once they do, demand that she redraw all the pages before the deadline three days away. S-hara goes into a rage and chews them out on the phone, resulting in him losing his job offer from that company, but at least she doesn't have to redraw the pages.