A Salad Bowl of Eccentrics (Henjin no Salad Bowl), is a Comedy/Isekai Light Novel series written by Yomi Hirasaka (author of Haganai) and illustrated by Kantoku. It began publication in Shogakukan's Gagaga Bunko on October 19, 2021. A manga adaptation illustrated by Koutarou Yamada began serialization in Shogakukan's Sunday Webry magazine on September 27, 2022. An anime adaptation by Synergy SP and Studio Comet began airing on April 5, 2024. Crunchyroll has licensed the series.
Down-on-his-luck detective Sousuke Kaburagi is currently tracking someone in a possible affair case. But, in the middle of the night, a mysterious girl with exotic clothes crashes from above and introduces herself as a runaway princess from another world. Sousuke at first mistakes her for a cosplayer until she displays her powers, including Healing Hands and blowing up an empty playground equipment. She explains that a rebellion has taken place in her home country and she was forced to flee to our Earth. Sousuke, albeit very reluctantly, decides to let her move in to his house for now. Confused yet?
Well, let's add more oddballs to this setup: the female bodyguard of the princess who begins to live as a homeless person, a divorce agent, a devilish (not suprisingly) lawyer, and the leader of a cult...yeah, now the title makes sense.
Provide examples of:
- Amoral Attorney: Brenda Aisaki, Sousuke's employer, clearly plays the type. She is always looking for Sousuke to do some dirty work for her.
- Blackmail: Sara blackmails Sousuke to let her stay in his house by trying to invoke a Laser-Guided Amnesia spell on him. She tells him that this not only would erase his memories of Sara, but even weeks or years of memories. And she admits that she can't do the spell properly and can get him crippled. She claims that it's only because she don't want to get captured and experimented on. But Sousuke doesn't buy it, even then, he really doesn't have a choice.
- Company Cross References: In Chapter 2 of the manga, Sara is shown reading a volume of Case Closed, even commenting "Conan is the best!". Both Salad Bowl and Case Closed are serialized in magazines belonging to Shogakukan.
- Compensated Dating: Livia almost ended in such business. Fortunately, a police raid interrupted her first job. Although she couldn't keep her money.
- Credits Gag: In the ending theme, there are some optical illusion pictures that change depending on the episode. Also, a wooden plate with a phrase written by one of the characters is shown at the end.
- Cult: The World's Branch Hill Clan, who claims that her leader, Noa Murakami, was born in the Tibet and developed divine powers. Otherwise, it's an ordinary cult with some questionable tactics to recruit new members.
- Foreshadowing: Episode 4 has several moments that hint at Sara being from an alternate version of Japan, such as being able to speak Japanese yet taking crude slang literally and being deeply knowledgeable of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms despite only being in Japan for a short time.
- Homeless Hero: Livia, after crossing to our world following her princess, decides to keep living as a homeless person for now. Being scouted for a sleazy job not even a few days after she came didn't help too much. However, she got very good at doing some tasks like recycling cans.
- I Was Just Passing Through: A variation, after Livia saves the life of a desperate man who lost all of his savings to the cult, Noa begs her to stay and guide them to salvation. She declines after saying this, to the dismay of all the members of the cult.
- Older Than They Look: Don't be fooled by Brenda's look and height, she is actually 34 years old.
- The Reveal: After some light questioning from Sousuke, Sara reveals that she didn't just come from another world, but actually an alternate version of Japan in which Nobunaga Oda learned magic from that world's Portugal, conquered and united Japan using it, and changed his name to Odin, thus creating the family that eventually led to Sara.
- Shout-Out: Sara in Chapter 2 of the manga is clearly playing a game on a Nintendo Switch.
- Trapped in Another World: Inverted, since two of the main characters are transported from their fantasy world to contemporary Japan. They keep their physical and magical abilities, though.
