Ep.12 What Did You Eat Yesterday?
Written by Cordelia Shan, edited by Grace
In this episode, we are going to talk about a manga called きのう何食べた? (What Did You Eat Yesterday?) and its TV show and movie adaptation.
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The Story
What Did You Eat Yesterday? is a manga series written and illustrated by Fumi Yoshinaga. This food and slice-of-life series manga focus on the relationship between Shiro Kakei and Kenji Yabuki, a middle-aged gay couple living in Tokyo. This manga was first published in Morning in 2007, and is still ongoing. Then 12 years later, it was adapted into a TV series by Tokyo TV in 2019, New Year Special ep in 2020, and then a movie in 2021.
The whole story constructs a rich world, without too many ups and downs, and is centred around three meals a day; daily necessities like rice, oil, salt, soy sauce, vinegar, and tea are the ingredients of this manga. There are morning rush hours, traffic jams; troubles from work, support between Shiro and Kenji; complaints among people; uptight and homophobic parents – all of these make up the daily life of Shiro and Kenji.
Some people might dislike slice-of-life manga because it is just life and nothing special to it, and life is boring; therefore, what is the point of reading it? They sometimes say fantasy or adventure, or hot-blooded manga are the best! Oh, well, What Did You Eat Yesterday? Is still, fun and exciting to read, even if it is all about those long days. The life depicted in the manga is well captured and enhanced by manga artist Yoshinaga. A gay couple, like any other couple, takes every second of life seriously. Food is the most important thing for people, and delicious food cannot disappoint, and this love for food is bred in every chef's (Shiro, Kanako-San, and Kohinata-San) knife; also, food is essential to life.
Fumi Yoshinaga
How can I describe the manga artist, Fumi Yoshinaga, as my favourite artist to my dear listeners? In summary, Yoshinaga is a successful BL manga artist, a food lover, and a feminist. I would love to call her sensei.
Yoshinaga Sensei was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan, in 1971. She attended Keio University, where she attended the manga club and started the doujinshi of Slam Dunk. She was inspired by the characters of Kogure and Mitsui. Yoshinaga-Sensei started her career by drawing BL dojinshi, a kind of underground or self-published work. She made her debut in 1994 with a BL manga called The Moon and the Sandals (Tsuki to Sandal), which first appeared in the comic market, and was later serialised in Hanoto magazine. Her career took off with the popular manga Antique Bakery (Seiyo Kotto Yogashiten), which was serialised from 1999 to 2002. Antique Bakery won the 2002 Kodansha Manga Award for shojo manga. Another popular series by Yoshinaga-sensei, called Ooku, or the Inner Chamber, talks about a female shogun, the military general in the Tokugawa time, who has 3,000 beautiful young men as servants – a gender-reversed re-telling of history. Ōoku: The Inner Chambers won an Excellence Prize at the 10th Japan Media Arts Festival, a special prize at The Japanese Association of Feminist Science Fiction and Fantasy's fifth annual Sense of Gender Awards in 2005, and the Grand Prize of the 13th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2009. Published in June 2004 and ended in 2020. It was adapted into a motion picture in 2010, starring Ninomiya Katsunari; it was adapted two times as a live action TV show; the first time was in 2012 by TBS, and another one is airing this year by NHK.
Besides her gender consciousness and expertise in the BL and shoujo genres (manga for girls), Yoshinaga Sensei is also a well-known food lover. Many of her stories occur partly or wholly in kitchen or restaurant settings. Her debut manga, The Moon and The Sandals, portrays the protagonist as a young man who likes to cook for his loved one and is a picky eater.
Antique Bakery and Not Love but Delicious Foods Make Me So Happy! Are mangas which employ food as their main topic. At the same time, Antique Bakery indicates the food-related theme in its name. In the manga Not Love but Delicious Foods Make Me So Happy! the food is used an expression of love. And here, in the manga What Did You Eat Yesterday?, Food is used as an expression, not as cookbook material, and is also used for gender discussion.
Manga, reflects the significance of culture within contemporary, around 2007 Japan’s society, commonly used food as a main native driver. In the past, there are not many Japanese literature neither manga don’t pay interest in subjects like food, but recent year, there are a growing number books, tv shows, and manga on the topic of food. What Did You Eat Yesterday? is one of the earliest food manga. Food is important to Japaense culture across a range of contexts, from religion celebration to the stress release, pure enjoyment, and a tale of relationships.
I hope to let my, listeners, know that, in Japanese culture, a man should not cook at all, unless it is his profession.
In 2007, in an interview with a BL reader Shion Miura, Yoshinaga Sensei confirmed herself to be a feminist. Her idea of feminism is not “an effort to find a moderately realistic compromise” but the formation of a more radical definition that favours women exploring other options beyond marriage and finding support to do so through new economic conditions. This is not moderate feminism and it indicates a painful reality in Japan. It also shows the core thoughts of the movement, where women rarely achieve financial independence outside marriage. What Yoshinaga Sensei tried to describe is a more balanced relationship and more balanced gender equality.
In an interview Yoshinaga Sensei did in 2007, she mentioned, “I want my readers to understand the happiness that people can get from trying hard, going through the process, and being frustrated… BL deals with minorities. I show the pain of gay people who cannot fit in. Minorities have to deal with society before they can achieve happiness… I used to think there was no way I could portray anything to do with feminism in the manga… But I did that with Ooku.”
To me, as a faithful reader, I believe Yoshinaga sensei’s work contributes to and brings gender awareness to the public eye, which for me means a lot. Reading her Slam Dunk dojinshi was my moment of enlightenment about the LGBT community, and even my self-awareness of gender.
Real People Adoption
In 2019, Tokyo TV released the TV adaptation of the What Did You Eat Yesterday? Starring Hidetoshi Nishijima as Shiro and Seiyou Uchino as Kenji, which in my opinion is a great choice. Among so many BL manga adaptations, this TV production and the movie are at the top of the top. I was surprised at the quality and was amazed by every second of it.
Shiro and Kenji
What kind of person is Shiro Kakei？
Just a lawyer? Shiro is the most desirable target for unmarried young women of today, in his early forties. Shiro is not balding and without a big belly, looks good and comfortable with his usual scientific and healthy diet, and perhaps is the diamond man you see next to you on the train who makes you look back at him several times. So what is the real Shiro Kakei like? At the supermarket, he is the elite sales hunter, the one who can always find what he wants at first glance and instantly make up a perfect food menu at second glance. This is also the place where Shiro meets his best friend, a housewife name Kanako-San, who shares the same love for sales. At home, he cooks well at home without messing around, and is the gentle and introverted man who asks Kenji for a thank you instead of an apology whenever he cooks a table of food, the shy man who cooks a menu of what Kenji loves as a reconciliation when he knows he is wrong, in short, Shiro's life seems to revolve around food. Life seems to have a full circle drawn with food as the centre and nutrition as the radius, with Shiro’s cooking.
What kind of person is hairdresser Kenji?
Just a stylist at a salon? Kenji has an easy-going personality who seems to have a light heart. Kenji is in love with Shiro, and satisfied when he eats Shiro's food, who sighs heartily every day, who is a grownup that Shiro is seriously good at feeding. He is the one who seems to have no brain, he can also say a thing or two that makes Shiro reflect on it, and he gets angry and makes up and forgives easily, tolerating Shiro who seems to be mature, but is in fact calculating and slightly childish. But Kenji is also sensitive, and doesn’t mind expressing his love through words. By the way, Kenji was not really Shiro’s type at first.
How to describe their relationship?
It is not an easy one, Shiro hasn’t come out at his workplace. But Kenji is proud of his boyfriend and openly came out in front of families, co-workers, and even his clients. Following the stories, we see Shiro’s changes.
Ending
Their relationship is reflected in the characteristics of each type of food, the preparation of it, the cooking of it, the person who stands in the kitchen, and the decor on the dining table. Therefore, I would say, their relationship is warm like the miso soup served at night; their relationship is healthy like the way how the ingredient are cut and prepared, Shiro delivers his love and care through food, as he is the one standing in the kitchen; their relationship is no different from most others just like a common wooden table in most people’s house.I really don’t want to share too much about the stories in the manga, so no spoiler at all this time. This manga is already translated into English, up until to volume 20, and it is up-to-date with the Japanese edition, The manga is also available in print and ebook editions, and should be available in the local public library.
Reference
Manga on Amazon Canada page: link
Movie Website in Japanese: link
Movie BMG: link
TV Show website in Japanese: link
Cover from movie website: link
