A Nonfiction Gourmet Manga Like No Other
The premise of Nabe ni Dangan wo Ukenagara (鍋に弾丸を受けながら), known by fans as Nabetama, takes some explaining. Protagonist Juntarō has consumed so much anime and manga over the years that his brain now renders every human being as a beautiful girl. Equipped with this particular affliction and a personal 50,000-point deliciousness scale, he travels the globe seeking out restaurants and street stalls that no guidebook would dare list.
The result is what the creators call a "nonfiction, chaos, and hard gourmet report" manga. Written by Juntarō Aoki with art by Shin Moriyama, the series runs on Kadokawa's Comic Newtype web platform and currently spans five compiled volumes. Japanese anime news site Animate Times reported that every volume maintains a 4.8 to 4.9 star review rating. The manga placed 18th in the male readers' category of the 2023 Kono Manga ga Sugoi! guidebook and earned Next Manga Award nominations in both 2022 and 2023.
J.C.STAFF (Food Wars!, One-Punch Man Season 2) is producing the anime adaptation, with a broadcast window of 2027. No specific season, director, or voice cast has been announced.
The Teaser Visual and a Very On-Brand Author Comment
The teaser visual puts Juntarō's face front and center, surrounded by sticker-style graphics evoking travel and food. The tagline across the middle reads: "Beautiful girl (middle-aged man), world crazy gourmet journey, begins__." A separate character visual shows Juntarō holding a suitcase, ready for the road.
Original author Aoki delivered his announcement comment partly in English, staying completely in character: "Probably, This is one of the craziest Manga ever. Welcome to this crazy era of Japan, where such manga is being animated." He added in Japanese that he couldn't think of another anime whose overseas fan reactions he was more eager to see, thanking Japanese readers and noting that English is convenient for sidestepping certain expression regulations that only apply in Japanese.
The comment captures what makes Nabetama distinctive. This is a manga that knows exactly how unhinged it is, built around a real person's actual travel experiences filtered through an anime-addled visual style. The anime adaptation will test whether that formula translates to motion.
Looking Ahead
The anime is set for 2027, with no narrower window confirmed. No director, series composition writer, or voice cast has been announced beyond J.C.STAFF as the production studio. Kadokawa appears to be building the property: a spin-off manga, Nabe ni Tama o Ukenagara Transit, illustrated by Hirota Takahara, began serialization in March 2026.
International streaming partners have not been announced. The source manga does not appear to have an English-language publisher, so Western fans looking to get ahead of the anime will need to read the original Japanese on Kadokawa's Comic Walker platform or pick up the print volumes. The series' official X account is @nabenitama.