Shin Oishinbo casts Akio Otsuka in his late father's role as Yuzan Kaibara, premieres 2027

When Oishinbo's exacting gourmet Yuzan Kaibara returns to television, the voice will stay in the family: Akio Otsuka inherits the part from his father, Chikao Otsuka, who originated it in the first anime. His casting was one of three lead roles revealed on September 24 for Shin Oishinbo (New Oishinbo), which is set to premiere in 2027.

Yohei Azakami takes over as Shiro Yamaoka, the jaded newspaperman with an extraordinary palate, and Hitomi Sasaki plays his colleague Yuko Kurita. The teaser art shows Yamaoka with his back to the viewer and a jacket hooked over his shoulder, paired with a tagline rendered in English as "This time, the story has a different flavor."

A sequel, not a remake

Rather than starting over, the new series picks up as a direct continuation, some three and a half decades after the earlier show signed off. Shin-Ei Animation, the studio behind the original, is producing once more. Kenichi Nishida directs, Takahiro Nagano oversees series composition, and Nozomi Kawashige designs the characters.

A long-running food epic

Writer Tetsu Kariya and artist Akira Hanasaki created the manga for Shogakukan's Weekly Big Comic Spirits; its circulation now tops 135 million copies. In the setup, as summarized by English publisher Viz Media, the Tozai News celebrates its centennial by commissioning an "Ultimate Menu" and hands the job to Yamaoka, a cynic with little drive but an encyclopedic grasp of food. The first TV adaptation debuted in October 1988 and lasted 136 episodes.

Viewers wanting a refresher before 2027 had a head start: the official Oishinbo YouTube channel lined up a best-of compilation from the 1988 series for September 25. In South Korea the older show can also be found on Watcha and TVING, and several Japanese platforms carry it at home.