Yay for book exchange and holiday travel reading! There was no note, so I’m not sure who to thank, but still, thanks! Nailed that one. Cozy has been having a moment (a trend I’m mostly down with), and The Kamogawa Food Detectives is sort of cozy, but that label doesn’t quite fit. It’s a food based mystery series (in this case, almost a sequence of sort of related short stories; but also there is a sequel) featuring a father-daughter detective agency restaurant, in which the daughter interviews someone who wants to find a recipe/food from their memories but only vaguely recall; it’s kind of like going into a bookstore and not knowing the title or author, “but it’s got a blue cover!” kind of thing.
From whatever Koichi learns from the client, the dad Nagare does the investigation and recreation. The cozy kind of fits because Nagare always succeeds, and the lesson/meaning of the food memory is what the client needed if not also being what they wanted. The thing is, for me at least, is that the investigation totally skips the usual pattern in a mystery where the detective looks for clues, talks to people who may or may not be useful, etc. Think a Sherlock Holmes type story, or Agatha Christie. Skip 2/3 of the story, between when the problem is discovered, all the way to the part where the detective gathers everyone relevant and explains who dunnit, or in this case, what the food memory was, and what it probably means to the client. This in itself kind of saves time and focuses on the client and their food (there’s a lot of food talk and description), but it also means that Nagare gets very little character development. He’s basically just a food genius who runs a restaurant that’s really hard to find unless you really want to, and you have seen the one-line ad in a gourmet food magazine that doesn’t give much info about location of food options. Maybe a hint of magical realism, but not quite. This is the thing that makes the whole story slightly less than cozy. There’s that vague sense of the unknown which if this were an anime or manga (and it practically could be a slightly more real “Restaurant in Another World” (at least I think that’s the title, but even that series has a little more continuity)) would eventually give way to some kind of magical reveal The story itself is generally predictable like a cozy one would be, Koichi and Nagare are pretty general characters but they’re still kind of entertaining, the endings are mostly happy-ish, but… There’s a sense of atmosphere in the passing of time between stories and in the little Nagare and Koichi finales after the customer leaves, and I think it’s that plus the vague something-ness that’s a little different, not cozy; not objectionable, just not sure what to call it.