Okamoto Kitchen, a staple of Anime Expo’s variety of food truck offerings, has created a teaser trailer for their anime! In 2019, they launched a Kickstarter campaign, and were fully funded when the pandemic hit. It’s taken a little longer than expected but the trailer looks amazing. The food and characters are all beautifully drawn and they’ve got some really great talent voicing their characters. Okamoto Kitchen is a Los Angeles food truck specializing in bento boxes, and Japanese comfort foods. It was founded by Gerald and Chizuru Abraham in 2015.
The 25-minute “OVA” series tells the story of Haru Umesaki, an optimistic girl hailing from Japan who immediately finds herself embroiled in an odd world of competing food truck teams and their eccentric band of owners in Los Angeles. Joined by Chizuru, the cooking mastermind behind Okamoto Kitchen, the hopelessly un-suave Mickey, and an unusually meditative canine companion named Honey, each two-to-three-minute episode follows Haru as she navigates a madcap menagerie of hopelessly out of fashion Japanese gangsters, preening idol girls, and provocative mature ladies, all seeking their next favorite meal on wheels.
“The food truck industry is a brutal world! Savage races for parking spots, epic shonen food battles, and lots and lots of VIDEO GAMES! The naive Okamoto Kitchen food truck team of Haru, Chizuru, Mickey and Honey try their best to navigate their way around the unforgiving landscape of the Los Angeles food truck scene. Our heroes will have to push through the growing pains not only to figure out how to thrive in the food truck business, but to also discover who really has their best interests at heart. The culinary arts can sometimes be hard to digest.“
Okamoto Kitchen has partnered with animation studio Magic Bus (“Lupin The 3rd Part IV,” “Death Parade,” “Black Clover“), Studio Nine Lives (“Pokémon: Sun & Moon,” “Haikyuu“) alongside seasoned anime voice actress and director, Cristina Vee (“Sailor Moon,” “Hunter X Hunter,” “League OF Legends“), who lends her exuberant personality to main protagonist, Haru Umesaki. Other voice actors on this project include Allegra Clark (Jujutsu Kaisen, Granblue Fantasy, Street Fighter 6), Faye Mata (Kakegurui, Love Live!: School Idol Project, Tekken: Bloodline), P.M. Seymour (Genshin Impact, Honkai Star Rail) and Griffin Burns (Attack on Titan, Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure).
The ten-part series will release online at the end of 2023. Early previews of the OVA at discussion panels will take place at anime conventions in Southern California and New York.
