index_ti01 のコピー

One of the manga/anime items that has long caught the fancy of the Japanese public is, interestingly, a kind of meat that has come to be known as “manga meat” (manga niku), or sometimes also as “primeval meat” (genshi niku). From the mammoth meat that appeared in the 1970’s anime First Human Giatrus (yes, the story was set in the stone age and it was supposed to be actual mammoth meat!) to meats appearing in more recent anime such as Dragon Ball and One Piece,  the image of the manga niku has captivated us, making us fantasize about taking a chewy bite of the fictional fare.

Well, Japanese convenience chain Mini Stop is currently offering a product that to a certain degree lets you fulfill that fantasy. It’s the Hammer Chicken Primeval-style Meat with Bone  (Hone-tsuki Genshi Niku fu Hammer Chicken) which went on sale just this week, and as you might expect, we hurried over to a Mini Stop to get a taste.

Manga_meat のコピー 2

But first, we should tell you that not any ordinary meat passes as manga meat. It has to be a single large piece of meat on a single bone, like the mammoth piece from First Human Giatrus pictured above. According to the Mini Stop website, the staff responsible for developing the Hammer Chicken indeed had always wanted to eat manga meat, and the item was inspired by meat that appears in video games. So, let’s take a look at the actual Hammer Chicken and see how it measures up to the meats from fiction.

▼Here we have the actual product as we take it out of the bag.
Chicken 1

▼Yes, the meat comes on a bone, like it should!
Chicken 2

▼When we held it in our hands, it looked appetizing but was smaller than what you would expect a manga meat to be.Chicken 2-2

▼From its outward appearance, the meat seemed to be grilled nicely. It says on the Mini Stop website that each Hammer Chicken is char-broiled with care.Chicken 3

▼We bought two, just in case we really liked them!
Chicken 4

▼The Hammer Chicken apparently was not easy to create. To recreate the shape of a mange meat, they had to make the meat two layered. They ended up covering the chicken thigh with a layer of minced chicken meat,as you can see from the cut surface here. Chicken 5

▼Some closer looks at the cut chicken.
Chicken 6

Chicken 8

When we took our first bite of the Hammer Chicken, we found it be much more flavorful than expected. That was probably due to the various spices that were added along with the black pepper and garlic. They had also added chicken skin to the surrounding minced chicken, which made the entire meat sufficiently juicy. The minced meat also made the texture soft and easy to bite into.

Overall, we actually quite liked the strong flavoring and thought it would go well with white rice. but we guess it might be a bit overwhelming if you like light-tasting food. Now, whether it’s a faithful recreation of manga meat, we’re not quite sure, since the chicken was not very big, and manga meats are supposed to be impressive in their size. But that said, our palate was satisfied with the spiced-up taste, and we wouldn’t mind trying it again.

The Hammer chicken sells for 240 yen (US$2.30) a piece, and although they haven’t announced how long they will be selling the product, it will most likely be for a limited time, so if you want to try the fiction-inspired meat, you may want to get to a Mini Stop before they run out!

Top image and source: Mini Stop website
Inset image of manga niku from First Human Giatrus: Wikipedia (First human Giatrus)
All other inset images: RocketNews24