On a rainy evening last week, Anthony Bourdain invited a few journalists to a dim and moody izakaya just south of Times Square. The event was to promote the Parts Unknown host's new comic book, Get Jiro: Blood and Sushi, a gory yakuza adventure whose katana-wielding protagonist moonlights as a sushi apprentice despite his mob boss father’s wishes. (It’s fun! Think Uma Thurman in her yellow tracksuit gyroscopically carving up the Crazy 88 for a hundred pages, but with more shabu shabu references.)

As I sat across from Bourdain and Jiro co-author Joel Rose over skewers of porky animal flesh and thimbles of sake, a few things struck me. First, Bourdain is one of those rare celebrities who seems even taller than his towering TV presence would suggest. This holds no deeper meaning but seems like an observation worth pointing out. Bourdain is also in phenomenal physical shape for a 59-year-old, which is perhaps a testament to his most recent love, Brazilian jiu jitsu, which he reportedly trains in twice a day. His cheeks are rosy like a happy baby. Lastly, it is nearly impossible to eat, drink, or otherwise indulge any of your own tummy curiosities in front of Anthony Bourdain without feeling like a varietal of the foodie hipsters who are both his frequent targets and, conversely, his most ardent fans. Which is maybe why I decided to use my 10 minutes of face time to ask him about hand-to-knife combat.

GQ: I’m gonna ask you a weird, stupid question.

Anthony Bourdain: Sure.

In the first Get Jiro, the sushi knife is the hero’s weapon of choice. You’ve been practicing jiu jitsu for a few years now. How would you disarm a guy with a knife who was, I don’t know, asking for your wallet?

Oh, I would give him my wallet.

No questions asked?

If you were in a knife fight… if we both have knives, one of us is going to get cut, you know what I mean? That’s for sure. If you’re trying to take my life, yeah, I’ll fight you. You’re threatening somebody I love? Sure. But my wallet? Take the fucking wallet.

It’s not a fear of death thing, either. You cut me bad, I can’t train in jiu jitsu.

What if you were forced to protect someone you loved? From a jiu jitsu-y technical standpoint, what would you do to take the guy out?

I would be really unhappy about that! I would hope that I could choke you out before I bleed out. It’s not a striking form. I would definitely be at a disadvantage. Jiu jitsu’s all about getting close and taking someone on the ground. That’s not really where you want to be with someone like that.

Why does jiu jitsu speak to you at this point in your life?

It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. There’s no end game, and it’s very, very technical. Every day. Even on a good day.

It’s like writing. You have a good writing day, you write for a certain period of time, and you reach a point where you’re done for the day. You’ve created a number of problems for yourself. How am I going to proceed tomorrow?

Jiu jitsu is like that. You go in. Things work. Most other things don’t work. And you spend the rest of the day thinking about how you might suck less tomorrow.

"It's like writing... Jiu jitsu is like that. You go in. Things work. Most other things don’t work. And you spend the rest of the day thinking about how you might suck less tomorrow."

Get Jiro has these moments of great violence. Is there a connection between this and your appreciation for martial arts? Why are these sort of things manifesting for you at this stage in your life?

Jiu jitsu isn’t a very violent. They call it the gentle art. You’re working really hard to not get tapped. But you’re not intentionally looking to damage someone, [like] your training partner. People are very nice. There’s no high fiving. There’s no striking. You really seek to do no harm. You’re all learning together. I would say it really doesn’t have anything to do with these violent impulses.

If anything, my wife got me into it. My daughter—now eight—has been doing it half her life. I started getting it from them, the ladies of the family.

But the violence in Jiro, that comes from a lifelong love of Japanese-genre gangster films and sword flicks. Who doesn’t like a good sword flick with some arterial spray? A violent revenge drama? I’ve always loved that. I’m not reaching a bitter point in my life where I’m suddenly thinking about gutting people like chickens. I’m having fun here.

How do you want to see the series progress?

We were just kicking around an idea. Maybe we’ll do another one.

Would you turn it into an anime cartoon or anything like that?

Yeah. I mean.. I’d rather do live action. The Japanese action hero gets the girl and doesn’t have a sidekick. That would be nice, you know?