🐕Storyline

Where it all began

⋰ 1 ✦ Looking for a new path

I am SHIBA INOUE. If my name sounds familiar to you, it is because it was a difficult choice that my father had to make in his own time. He was a famous draughtsman in one of the biggest publishing houses in Japan. After being fired by his employer, he had to give up everything and move to another city with my mother. And the reason for this? Publishing a manga about samurais when the trend was Shônen. Since his reputation was in tatters, he had no choice but to change his name and be anonymous. That's why he naturally chose the name of one of his favorite mangaka, Takehiko Inoue. Author of the famous Seinen book 'Vagabond'.

I wanted to follow in my father's footsteps and become the hero he had always wanted to draw, in order to redeem his honor: To be a respected samurai. This is how I grew up and joined the legendary ⚔️ Shibas Shotokan Clan, a dojo renowned for having trained the greatest samurais of all time and a representative of the city of 🏔️ Kotama. Dedicated to Bushido all my life, my boundless ambition (and boredom with taking orders) led me to be banished from the clan forever and become a Rōnin, an unemployed samurai in search of a new path. Funny how my life followed my father's path...

One day, a counselor gave me several ideas for a new career, as I had no idea what to do with my time. Building temples? Too austere for me. Woodworking? I can work with wood, but only with dummies. And why not... Chef? From that particular moment, my profession has been evidence and an epiphany for me. I started learning the basics, then invented things with my hands until my techniques matured.

⋰ 2 ✦ The art of Cookshido

During my years as an apprentice, I used to work hard in small local restaurants to silently perfect my art. Because of my reserved temperament, people still watched me as a fallen Samurai. So, I isolated myself a bit from people to fully invest my time in my own creations. As I progressed in my art, my techniques became more and more precise and elaborate and I felt my mastery growing day by day. I used to practice day and night, at work and at home, during my lunch breaks, while setting the table in that dingy restaurant. Until the day I got tired of working for other people's dreams: it was time for me to follow my own. So I quit and decided to open my very first restaurant.

My insatiable desire to bring a new breath to Japanese cuisine pushed me more and more to imagine my own culinary art and mastered it: the one and only noble art that I finally named 🔪Cookshido. A skillful blend of ancestral techniques and masteries, combining the subtle art of cooking with the traditional customs of the Samurais.

A few months later, I get the keys to my first restaurant. It was not yet the one I dreamed of, but its sobriety was perfect to start practicing and working actively. I was so excited about my new life, but in the meantime, I used to be constantly tired of my heavy loneliness and I rarely saw my parents as I was very busy with everything. I couldn't manage all the tasks in the kitchen. The amount of work to be done was so overwhelming that I needed apprentices to help me prepare the recipes, dress the plates, wash the dishes, sharpen the knives, and especially serve my customers. With this in mind, and now mastering the 🔪 Cookshido near to perfection, I decided to search for something that would keep me company.

⋰ 3 ✦ Birth of Samurices

While searching through my various Cookshido manuals written by myself to keep all my recipes in one place, I came across a very old idea that I never had the courage to finish because of lack of time, but which would allow me to cook the perfect Onigiris. Combined with a special Traditional Rice of my own creation, this recipe was supposed to potentially breathe life into these Onigiris. I used to call this unique recipe: Omusubi Samurisu, but I finally give it the name Samurices.

Since the number 7 brings luck in Japan, I decided to start my experiments first and foremost by cooking only 7 Onigiris that I have carefully prepared. But things got complicated and I couldn't get to the end of the recipe. The problem was that the 7 Originals did not last long and started to expire very fast until they died for good. But I never gave up and after these first failures, I finally was able to prepare more than one hundred of them! As time passed, I saw them grow up and they quickly became my pride. My recipe had finally worked, it was an incredible sensation to see my creations alive.

Immediately considering them as my children, they started to help me out in so many tasks at the Restaurant. Their different characters made them gradually form 7 Foodlines, each with their own interests and passions. But as the years went by, the more they grew up the more they become little naughty kids, teenagers that always make trouble. In Japan, we have a word for them: "Kuso Gaki" (クソガキ). Yet, they had unprecedented intelligence and I had to share my creation with the world, to give people the opportunity to continue their lives and pursue their dreams with the help of my Samurices. It was a way for me to repent and help others in some way.

⋰ 4 ✦ A Restaurant like no other

As hundreds of my kids were growing up alongside me, I needed more space. A much larger restaurant to develop my main ambition of making it a unique place, with an unexpected particularity: besides eating delicious homemade dishes, my customers would have the possibility to adopt new Samurices and learn the Cookshido in a special school within the building. A new restaurant was born and was soberly named SAMURICES RESTAURANT.