#2. Ramen Discovery Legend (ラーメン発見伝）

ラーメン発見伝

By day, Kohei is a junior executive at Daiyu Trading Company; he wears a suit and acts like a normal salaryman. But at night, even though it’s against company policy to moonlight, he secretly operates a ramen stall in a nearby park. His aim is dassara — to leave salaried life so he can open his own ramen restaurant. (Dassara is an amalgum of the character 脱, datsu — “to separate from” — and sara — the beginning of salaryman.) First, though, Kohei must do battle with the nasty Mr. Serizawa, a bald ramen shop owner who derides Kohei as “nothing more than a ramen-obsessed fool.” Kohei is often accompanied on visits to other ramen shops by Ms. Sakura, a Daiyu secretary who knows about Kohei’s secret ramen-chef identity.