DC Studios has had a pivotal year in the wake of James Gunn’s Superman (2025) and the successful launch of a whole new DC Universe brand. Despite a major blockbuster film going bust (Supergirl), DC scored with a major primetime hit show in HBO’s Lanterns early this fall, while the Batman spinoff Clayface won the box office on its opening weekend and has already earned back at least double its modest budget ($40 million).
Overall, the DC brand is looking pretty solid as we head into 2027 and the release of Gunn’s highly-anticipated Superman sequel, Man of Tomorrow. However, the brand would be looking even stronger if more was being done to hype one of DC Studios’ best 2026 releases as actually being part of the brand. It would also be good to remind fans that it’s a DC project that was in part created by the late (great) Anthony Bourdain, and yet another testament to his talents.
Get Jiro is currently airing on Adult Swim Sundays and streaming soon after on HBO Max. As of writing this, the animated series has entered the back half of its ten-episode season, with Episode 6 airing over the Halloween weekend. The show is a joint production between Warner Bros. Animation/DC Studios and Jordan Blum’s Multiverse Cowboy and G&T Productions, the animation house of executive producers Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka. The series is based on the 2012 graphic novel Get Jiro!, which was co-written by Anthony Bourdain and novelist Joel Rose, and illustrated by artists Langdon Foss and Alé Garza. DC’s Vertigo imprint published the orignal graphic novel and its 2015 sequel, Get Jiro: Blood and Sushi.
To say that Get Jiro is one of the best things that DC Studios has put out this year would be an understatement. Like Netflix’s Blue Eye Samurai, Get Jiro is a blend of animated styles that marries anime influence to traditional American and/or European animation styles. It is an adult-animated series in the fullest sense, with violence and bloodshed that rivals an R-rated action flick.
Speaking of action, Get Jiro has some fo the best and most creative action sequences, which fully realize what it would be like if chefs transfered their skills into a gangwars, assassinations, and other violent criminal enterprises. It also blends many tropes of both shonen and cooking anime, two of the most popular forms of the genre. It’s the appreciation of food and cooking that makes Get Jiro stand out, and really distinguishes the series as something that came from the mind of Anthony Bourdain, one of the world’s greatest experts on both food and the culinary arts.
In our ComicBook review of Get Jiro, critic Nick Valdez wrote that, “When everything is in motion and firing off on all cylinders, Get Jiro is an exciting series with major developments in each episode. It reaches a boil towards the climax of its debut season, and that’s exactly what you want from an action series. It doesn’t overwhelm you with intense violence or kooky ideas, but instead paces you through each course. By the time you get to the end of it all, you’re undoubtedly going to want seconds.”
The story is set in a near-future dystopian version of Los Angeles, where the economic gap between rich and poor widened so far it broke society. The wealthy live in high-rises separated from desparate people in the streets; good food has become one of most valuable luxury commodities there is, and therefore, master chefs have become the new ganglords who hold the unrivaled power of being the last source of culinary delights. The series focuses on Jiro (Brian Tee), a mysterious sushi chef who opens a modest shop in the lawless streets of the “Outer Ring.”
After having his elite sushi disrespected, Jiro slaughters some rival chefs working for one of the city’s most ruthless warlords, “Bob” (Titus Welliver), who runs the most elite restaurant in the wealthy Inner Ring. Bob’s thirst for vengeance brings Jiro under the wing of Rose (Allison Pill), Bob’s rival who is a vegan culinary master and farming genius. As Rose prepares to unveil a product that could make cruelty-based food like meat obsolete, she and Bob are pushed to the brink of an all-out gang war. It’s only too late that the ganglords realize the silent, enigmatic chef sushi in the midst is far more cunning – and deadly – than he seems.
Episode 6, “Tokyo Story,” was a key flashback episode, which finally revealed the tragic backstory and true nature of Jiro. Now is the perfect time to catch up on the series and strap in for the final arc. Episodes 7, 8, 9, and 10, will be airing in subsequent weeks on Adult Swim before streaming on HBO Max.
Have you watched Get Jiro? What’s your review of the show?
