Mana Books releases the official video game cookbook this October 3, 2024 Genshin Impact. A niche that has largely proven itself over the years.
Despite a market in clear decline – the cookbook sector is down 10% year-on-year – there is one area in which publishers continue to see life in rosy terms, and that is ” cookbooks” adapted from a flagship license. Mangas, Anime, films, series, but also video games, there is everything, and for all fans.
A few weeks before the first Christmas shopping, the publisher Mana Books is offering an “official” cookbook based on Genshin Impactthe huge fun video box from China. It is an exclusive work, the result of several years of work with Hoyoverse, the studio which is at its origin. Alongside the specialized publisher, no less than Thibaud Villanova, alias Gastronogeek, well known to fans of pop culture with a culinary bias with his some 650,000 copies sold. The videographer and cook offers more than 60 illustrated recipes based on those present in the video game, all prefaced by star chefs Paul Pairet and Mory Sacko.
Among the recipes, we can for example find “Broccoli and cauliflower gratin with spinach béchamel and spinach tuiles”. A recipe by Sucrose, one of the characters in Genshin Impact where the cabbages and pieces of ham that can be collected during the adventure are put to good use. The probationary dinner of Rosalia, another character in the game, is also present. This time, it is a poultry roasted in honey butter, which can be composed in the game with sugar flowers and therefore poultry.
A very attentive studio
For Mana Books, which negotiated the production of this book with the studio, the idea was not to make a simple recipe booklet, but to immerse itself in the universe of the title to also tell a story to the players. less resourceful in the kitchen: “I’m a big fan of Genshin Impactand I had wanted to create editorial content on the license for a long time, so I contacted the studio and quickly, the idea of a cookbook came to the table because it is an important element. says Erwan Roux, editorial manager at Mana Books.
“It’s an idea that was very well accepted by the studio, especially coming from France which is the country of gastronomy, but I didn’t want to do something classic, I wanted to tell a story and honor the license, so I proposed an idea to the studio to focus on the supreme gourmets, who can be encountered in the different areas of the game.”
In this book, we don’t just find recipes: there are restaurants that we see in Genshin Impacta sort of common thread which allows the less resourceful to still have a beautiful collector’s item in their hands, and all levels can try the adventure.
To design this book, Mana Books immediately thought of Thibaud Villanova: “He is the reference in terms of cuisine and pop culture in France, he is someone who manages with genius to transcribe recipes from pop culture licenses in reality,” says Erwan Roux, for whom his chance meeting at New York Comic Con gave rise to this unprecedented collaboration.
“We arrived at the right time”
To succeed in this feat of imposing the project on Hoyoverse, Erwan Roux admits to having benefited from a good dose of luck: the negotiations thus started when the game was not yet the hit it is today . “We arrived at the right time. The studio was just starting to realize that they had a strong license. I contacted Hoyoverse before we even talked about the artbooks [que Mana Books édite en France, ndlr] and it was by working on cooking that we were able to benefit from the publishing rights for other books.”
Mana Books is also in negotiations with publishers around the world for the translation of this official cookbook from Genshin Impact: “We sold the rights in English, German and Japan, as well as in China,” he recalls.
For Thibaud Villanova, at the origin of the different recipes, designing such a book is not always an easy thing: “What I do is that I put myself at the service of the license, and I start from a plate that’s already visible in-game, and then figure out how to do it and teach people how to do it.”
Above all a collector’s item for fans, cookbooks based on a license are not necessarily purchased by budding cooks: “We expect it, that’s why we make them into objects that can be role play, and this is the case on Genshin Impact where we have integrated a banner with the recipe available in game with the text of the game. So every reader who is a fan can find their way there. We also reproduced the dressages.”
Creating a recipe for an imaginary universe is a real challenge for the videographer who must “accept” that everything is not perfectly similar to what is in the game: “We still made a selection, which has already made it possible to make sorting through things that are difficult to achieve. I’m proud that I didn’t cheat to get there.”
A necessary “alignment of the planets”
Mana Books and Thibaud Villanova assure that they were particularly touched by the care taken by the Hoyoverse studio in monitoring the project: “Everyone was very concerned. On this book, it’s the first time that they will do something other than publishing artbooks, they had to trust us. Everyone had to agree with major phases of negotiations. I asked that Mana Books and Hoyoverse come to an agreement so that I don’t. “I have no constraints,” reveals Thibaud Villanova.
Thibaud Villanova, who launched an Ulule project a few days ago for a cookbook – this time unofficial – around Lord of the Rings – describes the “challenge” that such a work can become: “We want to make a beautiful object for the fans, we have exceeded objectives which allow us to go as far as possible, including for those who would have only given 35 euros – which allows you to receive the physical version.”
But for him, recipe books adapted from major licenses must rhyme with quality: “We put a lot of effort at Mana Books and Hachette Heroes to develop something, when it’s well done and not just aesthetic, that there has substance with recipes that have a reason to exist, there is an alignment of the planets We nevertheless feel a clear decline in the cookbook market. Perhaps because we have said everything, or because. the players who entered the market only made aesthetic books? When we release a book? Alien or Transformersyou still have to find something to eat in these licenses. When you watch a Ghibli, an Asterix or Genshin, you want to be at the license banquet.”
Same observation for Mana Books which has made a place for itself on a market which sells 2.4 million copies for the year 2024 alone: “When I select a cookbook, I try to measure the commercial potential of the license, but also if it will bring anything to the table,” notes Erwan Roux.
“We must also keep in mind that when we develop recipes, there are ingredients that we will not find in all countries, this is an additional challenge, in addition to making them accessible to everyone. “
The official cookbook of Genshin Impact could nevertheless be one of the very good students at the end of the year in this sector. According to information from Tech&Co, the book is already in restocking even before its launch: “We are arriving at the first end-of-year purchases, so it is an optimal period. And the advantage with a book based on a license, “we are going to be present both in the pop culture sections and in the cooking sections,” confides Erwan Roux. So success is only just beginning.
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