After the war, workers came down from the northeast to the Fuji Heavy Industries plant in Ota. Among them were people from Yokote in Akita, where yakisoba was already long established. They brought it down with them, and it stayed after they had gone.

It was cheap, it came in quantity, and nobody had to make an occasion out of eating it, which is exactly how a dish spreads through a working town.

What most people picture is thick noodles under a dark, heavy sauce, almost black on the plate. That version exists and it is common. So do considerably paler ones.

The association that promotes it, the Joshu Ota Yakisoba Norenkai, describes the dish by saying that having no defining characteristic is its defining characteristic. It sets no condition on seasoning or method for shops that want to join. As a result the membership includes thick noodles and thin, versions closer to Chinese cooking, versions closer to spaghetti. Their own literature says that no two taste the same. Ota is an industrial town and this is industrial food, in the sense that it was built for people who worked long shifts and wanted to be fed. What the town agreed on was not to agree on anything.