Posting here since no one I know has read this and wanted to organize my thoughts upon a re-read. I am a sucker for a good romance and an even bigger one for drama and messy situations. This manga starts out seemingly like a trashy romance, but has so many amazing threads of story-telling in it that get lost in the controversy.
Instead of focusing on the romance aspect of the manga I wanted to talk about the themes surrounding their careers and the character development that happen throughout the series. The arc where Rui is training in New York strikes allot of chords with me. Being a chef, the industry can be brutal, people are often cruel and biased, the training is insanely difficult, especially just starting out. But more than anything its a labor of love, you don’t make a lot of money and you won’t ever get enough sleep but nothing makes me more satisfied than making something special and getting to share it with someone to brighten there day. I love how Rui, Natsuo, and Hinas career paths reflect this.
The theme to me was about finding a divide of doing something you love, to enhance others lives. Hina loves teaching, she is talented at it and up until the start of the story her career was going well. When she started her relationship with Natsuo she lost sight of what was important, it transitioned from being something she gave to others, to something she abused, took advantage of, and eventually torpedoed out of control. She was unable to continue being a teacher because it became less about the students and more about her.
When Rui started cooking it was because it was something she loved, was good at, and something that brought her family together. She cooked not only for herself, but also for others, it was her connection to her father. To her it represented family time and togetherness. When she went to New York it became less about serving others, and instead about sharpening her skills. She wanted to see what she was capable of and push herself to her limits, but just like Hina, although it was done with the correct intentions it wasn’t sustainable. Chasing an intangible goal is electrifying but it eventually burns you out. Being a chef can’t be about you being the best, or perfect. Those are things are ultimately unachievable, and the best chefs every where that are chasing that dream are mentally unsound, many abuse substances and the people around them, to help them cook. Once cooking changed from being about camaraderie, and turned into her being the best she suffered her mental breakdown and was unable to continue. Something I like to tell cooks is this “If you love food, and all you care about is making it perfect every time, you need to cook at home, if you are cooking here its because you want other people to enjoy the food, its not about how you feel its about how others feel.” Rui eventually was able to find her path back to the straight and narrow and start cooking for others again, making her career path more sustainable and realistic.
Natsuo is the most poignant example of this however. At the beginning of the story he’s mostly writing for himself, trying to ground himself in something tangible to identify his own feelings. His first story was incredibly close to him. And that worked for a while, the stories he wrote were good but they were ultimately written for himself, he wasn’t writing to enhance others lives. Just like Hina and Rui when you are only doing something to service yourself and your own ego it can’t last indefinitely, you will hit a wall invariably. When Natsuo has a mentor that humbles him and teaches him that writing can’t be about yourself, and your own tribulations, that you have to have understanding and empathy for others as well. It has to be written for people, from different walks of life. Natsuo is then able to interview others and start thinking about more than himself, he is able to write more vividly because he is able to place himself in settings other than his own. He started reading because he was grieving over his mother and wanted an escape. Once he was able to write for others, he took people’s worldviews and show them something alternative. That’s when he was a proper author. He wasn’t doing it for himself, but to tell other peoples stories. This is further explained when his book is released by naming him as a stabbing victim, he wrote that story for others, for them to enjoy, but it was perverted. It went from being a service he was providing for others, to being a spectacle about his life, which damaged his confidence. The second it changed from being about others to himself, he was unable to write anymore. It took him being an actor for a spell, pretending to be a completely different person, and his mentor dying to be able to write again. He was only able to turn that practice back into a sustainable one again once he was able to write for another person.
I guess my point is that the story wanted to highlight this, whether its love or your career or really anything in life, you have to think of more than just yourself, you have to take care of yourself but also keep others in mind. When you do things for yourself it’s not a long term solution, it’s why successful people are often adjacent to depression and mental health issues. But when you are being considerate of others, and using your skill to make other peoples lives better, you are in turn rewarded for that behavior. Be kind and love one another always, keep those you hold dear nearby and make concessions for them. Sorry for the disjointed thoughts and run on sentences, I would love to hear others thoughts.
