Cover of “Restaurant To Another World, Volume 5” by Junpei Inuzuka and illustrated by Katsumi Enami.I’m back with another book review and this time I’m reviewing “Restaurant To Another World, Volume 5” by Junpei Inuzuka! I highly enjoyed the past few books in this series, and I looked forward to reading this book and reviewing it!
Here’s a quick summary so we know what it’s about:
“NEW NAME, SAME RESTAURANT
For 30 long years, Western Cuisine Nekoya has served delicious food and drink to customers across two worlds. But now, as the Master finally inherits full control of the restaurant from his grandmother, it’s time for a rebranding—and a new name! And so the newly christened Nekoya: Restaurant to Another World opens its doors to the public, as the bell rings on Saturday and the customers flood in…”
Plot Development: 5 out of 5 stars
As many readers of this series might be aware at this point, this is a slice-of-life novel with some continuity through its sideplots. I do enjoy how each new recipe either gives the chance to introduce a new character or expands more on returning customers. I also found it fun to see that the restaurant went under some rebranding with a new name to fit the current, present times of the Nekoya Restaurant. I also enjoyed the use of the side stories, to show the perspectives of other characters and their relationships with specific other characters of importance.
I noticed that there are many more repeated recipes this time around. Even though this meant that the same dish from past novels was being served, I also realized that this was being used to advance specific storylines. It was a clever way to expand more on Shareef and Adelhaid’s own characters and relationships with others to Fardania bonding more with her mentee without potentially running out of recipes in the long run for this series, which I enjoyed.
Character Development: 5 out of 5 stars
It was fun reading Aletta and Kuro’s interactions with the customers, and I also enjoyed reading both the new and returning characters presented in this book. There are more expansions on characters, such as Shareef and his crush on Adelhaid (and it makes me hope that one day they’ll dine together). I also thought that it was fun to see more the returning characters introducing new characters to the restaurant, as well as their growing bonds with each other.
The side stories featured at the end of the book gave more depth to Kuro, Aletta, Nekoya’s current owner and a few other returning characters, which I enjoyed. Since those side stories were in a first-person point-of-view, it made it easier to get into their heads and learn more about their thought processes.
Worldbuilding Development: 5 out of 5 stars
I love that how with each volume, you learn a bit more about the political and magical structures of the world. There are also more cultural details shown about specific races like half-elves, orcs, dwarves and so on. This light novel continued expanding on that in a consistent way. I also enjoyed the deeper dive into characters serving various gods and other deities, and how it impacted their outlook on life and food. I wish I could say more about it, but it would give some major spoilers about the plot and characters.
Overall, I’m rating this book 5 out of 5 stars!
I really do enjoy reading this series so far, and I hope to pick up the next book when it’s available. I highly recommend this series to anyone who enjoys slice-of-life stories, lovely descriptions of food, and fun worldbuilding and character development on the side.
As a friendly reminder, today’s book review is the last one that I’ll be posting for this year! However, I will have three fun posts posted later this month. Two of them will have me ranking the Top 5 Books I Read In 2021 and the Worst 5 Books I Read In 2021. I will also post about my Fanfiction Recommendations of 2021! Keep an eye out for them when they’re posted!
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