Kitchen Princess

Kitchen Princess (キッチンのお姫さま) is a shōjo manga series written by Miyuki Kobayashi and drawn by Natsumi Andō. It won the Kodansha Manga Award for children's manga in 2006. Kitchen Princess is published by Kodansha in Japan and by Del Rey Manga in the USA.

As the main character is a chef, the recipes for anything that she cooks are included in the back of the manga volumes as an omake ("bonus" or "extra").

Plot
Najika Kazami, an orphan from Hokkaidō with a talent for cooking, transfers to Seika Academy to chase her dream of being a great chef, and to find her "Flan Prince", a boy that saved her from falling into a river and gave her a cup of flan with a silver spoon with the school's emblem on it. At the time, she promised him she would make the most delicious dessert in the world when they met again. After she is placed into Class A, the special class, Najika becomes the target of bullying by teen model Akane Kishida and her friends. Najika does manage to befriend Sora and Daichi Kitazawa, both of whom seem to be candidates for the Flan Prince. As the story progresses, both brothers fall in love with her, furthering Akane's anger, who is in love with Daichi.

Slowly, Najika is also able to earn Akane's respect and friendship, starting after she manages to re-create Akane's grandmother's peach pie, whom Akane sorely misses, which saves Akane from anorexia. Things fully turn around after the girls have a fight after Najika learns Akane stole a watch Daichi gave her, culminating in Najika telling Akane that she is always lying and is an awful person. Despite this, Najika defends Akane afterward when an onlooker calls Akane pathetic. They soon make amends and Akane begins visiting Fujita Diner to eat Najika's cooking. Eventually, Najika chooses Sora, who tells her that he is her "Flan Prince".

As the story progresses, Najika enters a major cooking contest. She easily passes the first round and second round. As the final round is about to begin, Sora is hit by a truck while getting Najika some special vanilla beans. Najika, Daichi, and Akane rush to the hospital, but his wounds are fatal. Before he dies, he confesses to Najika that he is not really her Flan Prince, but that he did love her. Najika temporarily loses her sense of taste due to the psychological trauma, but to keep her last promise to him, she finishes the contest, though she loses. Najika is blamed for his death by both her classmates and her director, who kicks her out of school.

Daichi agrees to take Sora's place if his father will allow her to stay at the school. Daichi eventually remembers that his mother died protecting him from falling lumber, and locks himself up in his room for days without food. Najika tries to bring him food, but is constantly pushed away by the maid. She climbs a tree to his bedroom window, gives him some food, and confesses her feelings to him. However, Daichi rejects her out of guilt over Sora. Najika leaves Japan to participate in a cooking competition in Paris, but has to drop out after learning that her caretaker Hagio has collapsed. There she finds Daichi had helped care for her and goes to find him, meeting him at the pond where she almost drowned. She asks him again if he is the one who had saved her and he says he was but he had amnesia from the shock of his mother's death and had forgotten. He confesses his feelings to her, and they share a kiss under a rainbow in the sky.

Characters

 * Najika Kazami (風見 七虹香)
 * Najika is an orphan from Hokkaidō who lost both her parents in an accident at a very young age. Shortly after their deaths, the young girl was saved from drowning in a river by a boy gave her a delicious flan along with a special spoon. Since then, Najika has searched for her "Flan Prince", eventually transferring to Seika Academy when she discovers that the spoon is unique to that school. She is initially rejected by her classmates because she is put in the "special class", however she meets Sora and Daichi Kitazawa, the Seika director's sons, who become her first friends. As her classmates learn of her amazing cooking abilities, she earns their respect, except for Akane Kishida who leads others against her out of jealous over Daichi's attention towards Najika. Almost eternally optimistic and cheerful, Najika is a caring and hard-working individual. She is somewhat naive and easily manipulated by others, however she is also very forgiving, even of Akane who eventually becomes her best friend. Part of her talent is in her prodigious sense of taste: she never forgets a taste and can accurately analyze the components of almost any dish.


 * Daichi Kitazawa (北沢 大地)
 * Daichi is the younger brother of Sora Kitazawa and befriends Najika after her arrival. His first encounter with her occurs after she falls from a tree and lands on him. Daichi's feelings for Najika gradually become stronger, and he eventually falls in love with her. Najika is initially in love with Sora, though he kisses her once to express his attraction to her. After Sora's death, he is unable to bring himself to act on those feelings, though he gives in to his father's demands to try to protect Najika from being kicked out of the school. After he remembers his mother's death, he also remembers that he was Najika's "Flan Prince", and accepts her feelings for him.


 * Sora Kitazawa (北沢 空)
 * Sora is a talented pianist and the older brother of Daichi Kitazawa. He is the president of the student council and substitute director of the school. He is very composed, never letting sadness or anger show on his face. He is adored by all the girls at Seika Academy, and Najika's close relationship with him often invokes much jealousy. He falls in love with Najika, and tells Najika he is her flan prince. He is killed in a car crash while getting vanilla beans for Najika in a cooking contest, Before dying, he confesses that he lied about being her prince, and it is later revealed that he did so to try to keep Daichi from remembering their mother's death.


 * Akane Kishida (岸田 茜)
 * Akane is a popular young model who strives to be a super model like her mother was. She initially hates Najika due to her jealousy over Daichi. After she goes on an extreme diet and loses her ability to eat, Najika re-creates a peach pie made by Akane's grandmother which helps her regain her appetite. Akane softens towards Najika, eventually considering her her best friend despite her own feelings for Daichi, and comes to support Najika in both her competition and in her relationship with Daichi. At the end of the series, she begins a relationship with Seiya.


 * Seiya Mizuno (水野 星夜)
 * Seiya is a transfer student who replaces looks exactly like Sora and who the director uses to try to embarrass Najika out of the school. Egotistcal and arrogant, he initially looks down on Najika's informal and simple cooking style, but after he loses several competitions to her, despite being the school's new culinary representative, he begins to wonder if his way is correct. After eating a flan he made, Najika believes he must be the flan prince because it is the same taste, but its later shown that while Seiya had prepared it, Daichi was the one who gave it to her. After he is rejected by Najika, he eventually finds a new relationship with Akane.


 * Hagio (萩尾先生)
 * Hagio-sensei is Najika's caregiver and the one who runs the orphanage.


 * Fujita (フジタ)
 * Fujita is the owner of Fujita Diner, which was originally run-down and unpopulated, but, with the help of Najika, became a popular place for the students of Seika Academy to eat at. He acts lazy, and appears to have Najika doing all of his work, but he also gives her advice and supports her in her cooking. He was a chef to a three star restaurant in Paris and very talented, but he gave up his dreams after being betrayed by his lover. Fujita knew Najika's mother, Kaori, who inspired him to be a chef.