Kitchen

“I’ve always been like that—if I’m not pushed to the brink, I won’t move.”

This quote comes off as both a blessing and a curse. Being pushed to the brink can be traumatic for some and an impetus for change in others.

“In this world there is no place for sadness. No place; not one.”

Though she is grieving, Mikage feels that the world does not concern itself with sadness. Life goes on, and people must also move on to survive.

“That they could be this cheerfully normal in the midst of such extreme abnormality.”

Mikage is in awe of the Tanabes, and wonders at their ability to find normality in what she sees at first as abnormality (i.e., Eriko being transgender).

“When I thought, now at last I won’t be torn between two places, I began to feel strangely shaky, close to tears.”

Mikage highlights how dramatic endings can be, even those that are meant to be good for people, like a new beginning.

“I had a feeling that I wasn’t crying over any one sad thing, but rather for many.”

Mikage’s tears and breakdown reveal to her that she has been holding many things inside and that her crying addresses all these things.

“If a person wants to stand on her own two feet, I recommend undertaking the care and feeding of something …. By doing that you come to understand your own limitations.”

Eriko advises that to care for others, even if one fails, is the best way to know how to care for oneself. 

“But if a person hasn’t ever experienced true despair, she grows old never knowing how to evaluate where she is in life.”

Eriko suggests that a happy, carefree life leaves one without anything to compare happiness or sadness to. This suggests that growth comes from trials and tribulations as well as from happiness.

“But never had I felt so alone as I did now.”

Mikage has no blood relatives, and though she knows the Tanabes, death brings her feelings of complete loneliness.

“For some reason there’s always death around us … in this gigantic universe there can’t be a pair like us.”

Mikage realizes that death follows her and Yuichi around. It turns out to be the thing that brings them closer to each other.

“A door opened before us that night—the door to the grave.”

Though together, both Yuichi and Mikage are marred by the deaths of loved ones. When they are silent, tragedy reminds them of their losses.

“Truly great people emit a light that warms the hearts of those around them. When that light has been put out, a heavy shadow of despair descends.”

Eriko’s death sends Mikage and Yuichi both into a tailspin of sadness. Eriko’s light shone upon others and made them feel warm; now they feel cold and in the dark without it.

“To the extent that I had come to understand that despair does not necessarily result in annihilation… Was that what it meant to be an adult, to live with ugly ambiguities?”

Mikage begins to understand that sadness and despair are not the end of life, though they are a sad way to live. She wonders if being an adult means living in this sad state without recourse.

“They had been taught, probably by caring parents, not to exceed the boundaries of their happiness regardless of what they were doing.”

Mikage sees women as being taught not to think about their death, or the fact that everyone dies alone in the end. As such, their happiness is a performance.

“No matter what, I want to continue living with the awareness that I will die.”

Mikage realizes that death is not the answer for her. She will live with the knowledge that everyone must die. This realization highlights growth on her part.

“If Yuichi is with me, I need nothing else.”

Mikage comes to understand that she is not only tied to Yuichi by tragedy; she genuinely feels for him.

“But for the time being, ‘just the two of us’ was a warm, safe place where the future was on hold.”

Mikage accepts that when she is with Yuichi, she can feel better about life and not live in fear or sadness regarding the tragedies that have taken place.

“It was all your imagination. And imagination is sometimes worse than reality.”

Mikage relates a powerful observation: that as bad as reality is, as their reality is, their imaginations can harm them even more if they give in to that darkness.

“The feeling [of death] bore down heavier as the night deepened. It made me feel that nothing could be shared.”

Mikage sees death as something that is experienced in solitude. When it arrives, there is no bond strong enough between people to allow connection and understanding.

“The whole time I was with him there was that feeling of ephemerality, uncertainty.”

Satsuki foreshadows Hitoshi’s death and realizes in hindsight that she knew all along that something might separate them.

“The night he died, my soul went away to some other place and I couldn’t bring it back.”

Satsuki’s sad lament underscores how death is a journey. Though her loved one died, her essence departed as well, as if on its own solitary journey, and she must now attempt to find it.

“Her eyes were too knowing and serene; the expression on her face hinted that she had tasted deeply of the sorrows and joys of this world.”

Urara looks happy, and is strange, and her countenance appears to indicate that there is something otherworldly about her.

“[Laughter] was the only way the two of us had to make light of the wounds in our hearts.”

Laughter works here as an effective coping mechanism. It brings Satsuki and Hiiragi together and masks the pain that they feel over their losses.

“Now I understood. His sailor outfit—my jogging. They served exactly the same purpose. Neither recourse was anything more than a way of trying to lend some life to a shriveled spirit.”

Though embarrassed at first by Hiiragi wearing a girl’s school uniform, Satsuki realizes that it is a coping mechanism like her jogging, and thus understands how sad he must feel about the loss of his girlfriend and brother.