One thing I soon learned while in Japan, is that japanese people love the everliving lights out of processed food. If you, like me, are the kind of person who likes their food raw and simple, be ready to either pay a premium or give up: raw vegetables cost a fortune, many times over those very same ingredients cooked and packaged conbini-style; bread is fluffy and utterly tasteless; most food you can find in supermarkets and convenience store can't escape this... sweet aftertaste that japanese consumers seem to want in everything, from snacks to desserts. There are of course exceptions, especially if you live far from big city centers or in rural areas, but I have to say that tasting 'real' Japanese food has been, at least for me, more of a letdown than a discovery.
One item that I simply cannot fathom is fish sausages. Hyper-processed second-choice fish meat, turned into toothpaste-like matter and then wrapped in plastic. I don't mean naruto, that's still decent. I mean bona fide fish sausages like this:
Other people, however, seem to be of a different opinion - specifically, the two dōjin creators and organizers hiding behind the circle name 版元ひとり. On their online profiles they gleefully boast that they can and will write about anything they like, which seems to include fish sausages, as the here dōjinshi この魚肉ソーセージがすごい!? (Is this fish sausage delicious?) testifies. 64 pages of gloriously gloss, full color A4, this dōjinshi 'guide' purports to be the end-all, be-all encyclopedia of fish sausages, and it pulls no punches in doing so, gathering under banner of food reviewing not only the two authors behind the 版元ひとり name, but also over twelve illustrators and three real life models.
After a brief intro, describing in general the world and relevance of fish sausages to japanese cuisine, we are treated to a lenghty section in which more than 11 different brands of sausages are extensively reviewed, going into details such as size, calories count, texture, cooking uses and personal commentary, all of which is supported by girl-and-fish sausages illustrations (no, I'm not kidding...) by a number of Pixiv illustrators, as well as glamorous pin up shots where models pose in costumes, school attires and such along with fish sausages. If this sounds wtf and insane, I can guarantee you it is. Pictures really don't do it justice. The book is rounded up by a few recipes, and a behind the scenes making-of. It's somewhat bewildering to think of the effort put in this sausage-reviewing dōjinshi: production values are super high, and it must have cost a fair penny to stage this ode to processed fish.
The circle has an official store, where you can buy この魚肉ソーセージがすごい!?, along with other masterpieces such as この納豆がすごい！(Is this natto fantastic? spoiler: it's really not), croquette and tofu encyclopedias and so on. If you are, like me, a lover of this kind of, umm, super-otaku randomness, you will definitely find something interesting in this circle's output.
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