Devil Fruit, Anime, Video Games, and Food: An Interview with Alvin Zhou

Alvin Zhou is a content creator that can be seen in various places on YouTube. His "Anime with Alvin" series (a show on Babish Culinary Universe) recreates foods from popular anime, while the cooking videos on his own channel feature a more laid back, casual feel that can be quite soothing and relaxing. Other projects include the "Making It Big" series, and short films about chefs in the industry. He's interests in anime made him the perfect guest for FanimeCon 2022 and we were lucky enough to talk to him about his start in content creation, some of his favorite foods, his knowledge on the One Piece series, and lots more! This interview is a bit different from what we usually do as it turned into quite the conversation between Alvin and our interviewer, and it's quite the treat! Fans of Alvin, or those discovering him for the first time, will find something worth sinking their teeth into here, so read on and be sure to check out their videos when you're done as well!

A-to-J: Thank you for the interview. Could you please give us an introduction and tell us a little about yourself?
Alvin: Sure, thanks for having me. I’m Alvin, I like food, I LOVE food, I love videos, I love anime, and I love video games. That should tell you pretty much everything about me!

A-to-J: Can you tell us a little bit about how you get into content creation that mainly revolves around cooking and food?  
Alvin: Sure. So, I was messing around in my dorm in college and I was stealing, repurposing, and reallocating ingredients from the dining hall into my dorm room to bake. I wanted to bake, and I wanted to save money because I like saving money. I was making these random creations and this guy came in on my floor and said: “Hey, you wanna borrow my expensive camera?” I played around with it, made a couple videos, threw them up on YouTube, and BuzzFeed reached out like: “Hey, Saw a video. You wanna make food videos for us?”  And I was like: “Yeah! That sounds good to me!” So long story short, that’s how I got into it.

A-to-J: So, they reached out to you and then, you cooked for reaction videos? Because I’ve seen those reaction videos for anime food before. Did you make the food for those?
Alvin: Which ones are you talking about?
A-to-J: I usually see on BuzzFeed that they have those cooking shows.  
Alvin: I see, I know what you mean.
A-to-J: I’ve seen a couple videos with you and that other person who does the Japanese videos.
Alvin: Rie [McClenny]?
A-to-J: Yes! Do you interact with her a lot?
Alvin: Oh, she’s one of my best friends! I’m legally obligated to say that or else she’s gonna hate me.

A-to-J: That sounds great! So, your YouTube channel mentions that you are heavily influenced by Studio Ghibli films, anime, Asian vlog channels, video games, game soundtracks, and more. Can you explain what you mean by this?
Alvin: Sure, so the things that I love in my spare time always find a way to influence the things that I do during work. I love Hayao Miyazaki, I love Joe Hisaishi, and I love the music in Studio Ghibli films. I love watching anime and playing video games. I have also played piano for thirteen years, and now I just love playing piano. So the things that I love outside work always find a way to influence what I actually do. You’ll often find soft piano songs in my videos. You’ll find cinematography being the highlight of the things I love doing. You’ll find certain waltzes or even music that is similar to what you find in anime, game, or movie scenes.
A-to-J: Now, I feel like I need to rewatch the videos to see all those little details that you put in there. You put a lot of thought into all those videos. That’s really cool!
Alvin: Thank you.

A-to-J: Besides the ones you already mentioned, who are some of the other creators that inspire your work?
Alvin: So on my personal channel there’s a style that I like to use where it’s a little more cinematic, as in it’s subtitles only and you don’t see my face. You’re only hearing the sound of the music and the food.
A-to-J: Like ASMR?
Alvin: Yeah, exactly. There are a lot of these YouTubers especially Korean, Japanese, or Chinese who I watched and I thought: “This format is genius! You don’t have to talk. They can just cook and relax and their thoughts are on the video! It’s beautiful!” So I do have to give credit to them. There’s a lot of them like Zoe’s Café, High Green Doll, and Imamu Room. There’s just so many of these small YouTubers and big YouTubers, Cat’s Kitchen is another one, that are just so good at that style and I want to make my version of that.

A-to-J: That’s amazing! You’ve created a lot of content into the "Making It Big" series. Can you tell us a little bit about how that project came to be?
Alvin: Yeah, I first dived into YouTube for work and I was like: “You know, I like burgers. I wonder how big one could be.” That exists on YouTube already. I kind of wanted to make my own version of it and see if I could make it a little bit in my own way. So I did it. It happened to do well, and if you’re working at a company and something does well usually the logical thing is to do more.
A-to-J: Yeah, they bring you back.
Alvin: Exactly.

A-to-J: That’s good to hear. So, your own YouTube channel has cooking videos of totally different sorts, and you often see that sort of ASMR style that you mentioned earlier with how they’re created. Can you tell us a bit about the process and themes that go into making one of those videos?
Alvin: Sure. So those are not planned. Those videos are just, “Oh, I feel like cooking this" or "I really wanna make my version of a burger or a cake one day." Sometimes there are months with nothing planned but one day I’ll make it, and if I get really lazy I won’t do anything. But maybe if I really feel like something today, I’ll just record it, and I just kind of do it taking my time. It’s just me and my kitchen, one camera, one lens. No light, just sun because it’s free. I take as much time as I need and I enjoy the process, so it’s less of a shoot and it’s more of a diary of what it was like that day: The weather that day, what time it was, what I was doing, what are the sounds. You’ll see shots of scenery because that’s what it looks like outside my window. Those are essentially just ways to capture the day. 

A-to-J: That’s amazing! Especially since you don’t have to worry about a script as well. You’re just kind of showing what you’re doing so it’s a lot less stressful. You also worked on a show called "Anime with Alvin" where you recreate foods from anime and games. Can you tell us a bit about how this particular project came to be?
Alvin: Sure. So I love anime. You mentioned before that I have that in my YouTube bio. I believe someone on the Babbish team saw that and reached out like: “Hey, I heard you like anime.”  And I said yes and they said: “You wanna make anime foods for us?” I was like: “Yeah, sounds good.”  And that was it.

A-to-J: That sounds very easy and very fun! Is there a lot of planning that goes into making those specific dishes because you have to make it look very similar to the source? Like trying to get that right texture or the correct shape. Do you ever find that process difficult?  
Alvin: Yeah, you hit the nail on the head. There’s a lot of research that goes into the recipe, especially if it’s a cultural dish or something that needs context to understand. I’m not Japanese, and I don’t know a lot about the things we make, so we have to make sure we do our research and credit the creators that we reference the recipes from. We then cross our fingers and hope it goes well. We don’t test it, we just go for it.  
A-to-J: You just go for it, hit record, and hope it goes well?
Alvin: (Nods) Saves money. Saves time.

A-to-J: Yeah, a lot of re-recording, a lot of food takes. That would be really expensive. Is there a food dish that you would want to do from a particular anime that you haven’t done yet? 
Alvin: Ooh... I wanna try making one of the Devil Fruit from One Piece. [Transcriber’s Note: In-Universe they taste terrible, so the only way to go flavor-wise is up.]
A-to-J: Oh, which type of Devil Fruit because I know there’s different types of Devil Fruit that you could possibly do?
Alvin: I gotta admit I’ve never really watched One Piece.
A-to-J: It’s okay, it’s very long!
Alvin: There’s the purple one. Is that the Gum-Gum one? The one that Luffy eats.  
A-to-J: I’m pretty sure that’s it! [Transcriber’s Note: It is.]
Alvin: Yes, that’s one of them. The other one I want to make is the one with the flames on it. It comes in very early in the show and it has fire on it. [Transcriber’s Note: He’s referring to the Flame-Flame Fruit eaten by Ace]
A-to-J: I’m gonna be honest and hopefully, A-to-J doesn’t kill me for this, but I actually haven’t watched it either!
Alvin:  All right! Then we’re both in the same spot! Let’s go! (They high five.)
A-to-J: Because I have my friend who’s very, very intro interested in One Piece. I think I got through five episodes, because it’s on Netflix. Netflix helps, but I’ve only kind of dabbled into it.  I watched like episode 356 and that was it.
Alvin: Wow. All I know is that they’re hunting for the One Piece. That’s it.
A-to-J: And I think the series is entering its last arc right now too, that’s gonna be very interesting. So then you can kinda skim through and see all the Devil Fruits that you might want to make. 
Alvin: Yes, that would be fun.

A-to-J: Since we’ve been talking so much about food, what are some of your favorite foods and cuisines unrelated to anime?  
Alvin: Fun Fact: I don’t know what you think I eat every day, but it is quite weird and boring. I eat half a box of spring mix everyday dry, no dressing. I eat a chicken breast. I eat Chinese pickled lettuce condiments. You know what I’m talking about? I drink Spindrift. That’s it. That’s my day-to-day food. I’m trying to keep things tight, but if I go out to eat it makes the food taste better because the stuff I eat every day is boring. When I finally get flavor in my mouth it’s amazing.
A-to-J: So, what would you go out to eat as comfort food? Do you only do it with friends, or do you do it when you want to treat yourself?
Alvin: Mostly it’s with friends. I think eating with friends just makes everything more memorable.
A-to-J: Friends always make food better. That’s why I love eating out at conventions.
Alvin: Exactly and you get to share and try a lot more food.
A-to-J: I always do everything family style as well. 
Alvin: See, you know what it’s like. So usually I go for strong flavors, whether it’s certain kinds of Asian food or certain kinds of cuisine that sound interesting to me. The kind that punches my palate is what I really like because I don’t want to eat something that I could make at home.
A-to-J: Yeah, nothing bland. You want to get some exotic spices and things you've never heard about. Do your friends usually say: “Yeah, sounds great!” and go with the flow?
Alvin: It happen pretty often. I usually shoulder the mantle of responsibility…
A-to-J: Finishing the dish?
Alvin: I don’t mind doing that. Also, the pride of ordering for the table is quite fun.  
A-to-J: Yes! The power!
Alvin: You listen to me!

A-to-J: Sounds great! Since "Anime with Alvin" is so different than the content of your own channel, do you prefer one style over the other?
Alvin: I don’t. They’re both different. When I make the food and someone else makes the video, that’s "Anime with Alvin". When I make the food and I make the video, that’s my personal channel. When someone else makes the food and I make the video, that’s the chef documentary series I do.

A-to-J: Oh, it sounds really simple depending on what you want to do that day. Would you consider yourself more of a technical chef or one that cooks more with feeling? 
Alvin: There’s both. When it’s for a video or an anime recipe where we have to be pretty precise, or a dish where I’m investing a lot of money and time in like on my personal channel, I’m quite the perfectionist. I try to give it the best that I can, so I’m very technical in the way I approach it. Not necessarily the amounts of ingredients, it’s more about anticipating how the food behaves, slicing it carefully, treating it, giving it the attention that the dish deserves. You have to stand by the dish, take care of it like you would a woman, so that when you finally eat it... that sounds weird... it turns out the way you want it. Because if you don’t show it love, it’s not going to show you love back.

A-to-J: Since you’re a fan of anime, could you tell us some of your favorite series and characters?
Alvin: I love the darker stuff that kind of sets you in a world that operates on a different set of rules: Psycho-Pass, Attack on Titan, Darling in the Franxx, Darker than Black, Terror in Resonance, Erased. Anything that has you just thrown into this world that operates very differently, and you figure out how the world works. Then it slowly reveals, peels back the layers one by one. Usually there’s a big reveal at the end and you’re just like: “Oh my god!”  And, you’re probably crying.  
A-to-J: Yeah, the kind of show where all the puzzle pieces are eventually revealed. Those types of anime are really nice as well. I think we were touching base on magical girls because I we were doing that panel earlier. [Here are the slides from the most recent version of that panel!] We were going to do a series on dark magical girls that we couldn’t talk about at an all-ages panel.  
Alvin: Ooh! I’ll go to that one.  

A-to-J: That one’s gonna be really fun, and I think it’s going to get a pretty good audience. Speaking of conventions, do you often come to conventions like Fanime? You said this was one of your first conventions, but have you been to any as an attendee before like Comic-Con or Fanime?
Alvin: This is my very first real one.
A-to-J: Oh? Are you having a great time?
Alvin: It’s been a blast!
A-to-J: Have you been to the Dealer’s Hall and seen all the artwork? I know there’s a lot of people in there.  
Alvin: There’s a lot! I was lucky enough to have a team of talent wranglers like Jessica and Arthur, and people that are just happy to show me around and navigate me through the craziness that a convention center can be. You know, to help me purchase art, to help me go to where I need to be, and show me the ropes. So it’s a very lucky experience that I’ve been able to have.  
A-to-J: That’s good to hear. Hopefully, you’ll come back to another anime convention especially since you have a lot of anime foods that you like to make. Maybe as a guest, or maybe as an attendee.
Alvin: I’m down.

A-to-J: Have you found it fun to meet your fans at the con?  
Alvin: It’s been really crazy because I didn’t even really know I had fans. As video people, we just make the video and put it out on YouTube. Sure, we see the numbers and the comments, and it’s always amazing, but I think it means something else when someone in real life literally references something that you made, tells you how much they liked it or how it inspired them. It's quite humbling, but also very inspiring at the same time, to keep making the things that make people feel a certain way. Because my intention when I make videos is not to inspire people how to cook, not to teach people how to cook, not to help them get through tough times, not to help them reconnect with their family, even though they do say these things to me. I’m just like: “Wow! That’s awesome but I never intended to be that!” All I wanted to do was make something that I like, and that was it. So to see people say those kinds of things, it gives me a lot of unexpected surprise and pressure because I’m like: “Oh, I didn’t know people saw my work like that. I better be good.”
A-to-J: When people see you doing anything you love like cooking, they can really feel inspired from that. Especially from those videos, you’re very informative in some of them. In other ones, you’re just very chill. Those chill ones are the kinds that I like to watch when I’m doing my homework, or when I’m eating as well. They're kind of nice background videos.
Alvin: Thanks. Me too.

A-to-J: Do you have any advice for someone who wants to get into content creation? Like making food videos, or videos in general? I know you mentioned your friend offered you that camera and that’s how you got started, but do you have any other advice? 
Alvin: A common piece of advice I hear is, “Just do it”. [Insert Shia LeBeouf meme here.] Which is a good piece of advice, but I would like to add a caveat to that with: “The most successful people, and the best content that I personally enjoy watching is made by people doing something that they actually love.” Usually, that means finding their own voice. It sounds really artsy but for me, it was the whole silent Asian vlog style cinematography. That’s what I found myself loving. The fact that I get inspiration from anime, video games, and movies and put those into my videos, that’s how you know it’s an Alvin video. It has a certain feel to it that is very difficult to explain. Even though that’s not a very popular way to do things, because YouTube is: “You’re talking, you’re cooking, your face is there. It’s high energy," but I’d like to think that by just doing things the way you want to do it, if you do succeed, it will be way more meaningful and impactful than if you just try to mesh in with everybody else. 
My channel was almost an experiment personally. It was an experiment to do everything you don’t do on YouTube: I post once every five or six months when you’re supposed to post twice a week. You’re supposed to show your face: I don’t show my face. You’re supposed to talk: I don’t talk. You’re supposed to have high energy and quick cuts to keep the energy going: Mine are the slowest things you’ll ever watch. You’re supposed to use high energy music and crazy thumbnails and titles to hook people in, and even though I have training from BuzzFeed, I just feel like: “This is the food!” whatever it is. It’s crazy to see that people actually enjoy that. I thought it was going to fail because it was literally everything you’re not supposed to do. It was inspiring to see that you don’t have to go with the majority in order to succeed. Sometimes it’s the opposite that can set you apart.
A-to-J: That sounds really interesting because I know a lot of people who are doing things like streaming on Twitch. They say you have to follow very strict rules and then if you don’t post often enough you might lose fans, but I feel like if you’re actually doing something that you really love and enjoy, fans will keep coming back just to watch you enjoy doing that one thing.   
Alvin: I think they can sense it.

A-to-J: It’s something that they can look forward to. What are some of your hobbies other than cooking that you like to do in your spare time?  
Alvin: I love exercising. I eat a lot so I have to. I just love listening to music so whether it’s like high energy music or soft, slow music. I love watching movies. I love playing the piano. I don’t play classical anymore because I have a very intense experience from training as a kid. 
A-to-J: I have some of that experience as well.
Alvin: You play the piano too?  
A-to-J: Yeah, I play piano as well.
Alvin: So you know what it’s like?
A-to-J: Definitely.
Alvin: I’ve got a secret YouTube channel that has me playing piano. You’re not going to be able to find it unless you search really hard.  
A-to-J: Especially since you don’t have to show your face when you’re playing piano as well. It's just something you can enjoy doing.  
Alvin: Exactly. And if it’s not cooking, it’s eating.
A-to-J: Definitely eating. I love eating too. I eat all the time. All my money is spent on food I like. Good food too, because if I’m going to eat it, it might as well be delicious.
Alvin: One small thing that I don’t think a lot of people know about me: I love leather restoration.
A-to-J: Leather restoration? I would never expect something like that, but judging by what we’ve been talking about, and how you feel with your personality and what you’re saying, I feel that kind of really does suit you.
Alvin: It’s nice.
A-to-J: Especially since you’re just working on it slowly and then you get to see the end product after you’ve been working on it for so long.
Alvin: A lot of my hobbies just involve me using my hands. I love using my hands whether it’s piano, cooking, video editing, or working with leather. It’s relaxing just using my hands.  
A-to-J: De-stressing; nothing stressful.  
Alvin: Exactly.

A-to-J: Have you ever tried to create a dish and the whole thing just failed spectacularly?
Alvin: Oh always.  
A-to-J: Especially since you said you just do it and hope it goes well. Do you usually end up having to finish the food or does everyone share that burden?
Alvin: Oh, I’m passing that on to everyone else! They’re guinea pigs. My failure is your failure!
A-to-J: So everyone’s gotta take a part in it.  
Alvin: Yes, it is our failure.

A-to-J: Do you have any secret talents that your fans might not know about? Oh... That would probably be leather restoration.
Alvin: Leather restoration and piano.

A-to-J:  Lastly, can you leave us with a closing message?
Alvin: Yeah. I mean, one, thank you for taking the time to talk with me. It’s also cool that you’re doing a lot of stuff in the magical girl space. [Referring directly to our interviewer, Garwye] Now, I’m interested in that too, but also I think the biggest thing is that anime and video games, this entire world of culture is often seen as useless, a waste of time, taboo, "Why are you doing this?", especially from older generations. Literally my work is influenced by that heavily: my video work, the way that I approach shooting, and even editing music. It’s the one thing that makes my videos feel personal to me, and I think that's really fascinating to think about. What used to be just “a waste of time” is now what sets me apart.
A-to-J: I know that anime conventions are getting more popular, that’s why it’s they're always so crowded. It’s good to see that newer generations are appreciating anime culture, and they like things such as cooking, and other things, as well. Thank you so much!
Alvin: Thank you!

We'd like to thank Alvin Zhou for the interview and we strongly encourage everyone to check out his work and follow their social media via the links below. As always, keep an eye out for more from Alvin in the future! Also, special thanks to FanimeCon for this opportunity!

For More Information On Alvin Zhou:
YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@AlvinKZhou/videos
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/alvin.zhou/
Alvin Zhou Films: https://www.youtube.com/@alvinzhoufilms/

The above interview was conducted by Garwye Wong, with assistance by Manuel Figueroa. Transcription by Jeffery Kelly.