Also I've Been Obsessed With Senya Lately (reworking Him As Well)

thinking about bucchigiri and its motif of connecting food with love and family, how matakara implied that he'd be happy to make miso soup with arajin for the rest of his life and how he enjoys just making gyoza with him...

One idea that I can't get out of my head is that maybe Matakara doesn't feel completely comfortable going to his friends' houses, because seeing them interact with their families makes him jealous and he feels bad about it. This also happened when visiting Arajin when he was younger, seeing how loving his mother was towards him (something that is not difficult to imagine) to that we add that surely given his background he must feel an almost instinctive distrust towards adults, especially parents, there being few exceptions to these.

CAN THEY COOK?- project: eden's garden cooking headcanons

detailed explanation for each placement, starting from "let them cook" to "do not let them in a kitchen unsupervised." everything's below the cut:

LET THEM COOK

-ingrid and eloise have big families and they have siblings, so it only makes sense they can cook well. desmond's mom and dad run a chain restaurant, so i feel like he'd be a good cook by proxy. -if there are people you trust to take you to a good restaurant, i feel like it'd be wenona, toshiko, and jean. partially vibes based but wenona would know when those ingredients are good and fresh, toshiko would appreciate expensive but also simple and affordable meals and jean has enough experience around his crew to understand how people's palates differ (as well as having tried a variety of dishes) -grace is an athlete. she will have her "cheat days" but other than that she is DEDICATED. veggies and grains before playing and protein after. i feel like she'd hate those weird health shakes though. she makes and breaks the rules as she wishes

-kai is the type of guy who strikes me as someone who is a good cook. there are a few dishes he can make off the top of his head and they're probably all specific internet dishes (i.e. pancakes, breakfast bowl, veggie pasta... myriad of drinks etc.) buttt i think if you asked him to just fry an egg he'd somehow burn it.

-damon's parents probably taught him how to cook as a life skill and also as #bondingtime. he'd probably know how to make some traditional japanese dishes but like i also feel like he gets a bit lazy with cooking sometimes (either because he's too locked in studying or he's just tired). so like, a bowl of cereal or a boiled egg and plain toast and a banana. i like to think kai and co. bring him to restaurants or cook with him so it's easier.

-diana, diana, diana. if you believe that she is italian then i do think she could cook some great italian food. but in all honesty i feel like half of her meals are things you don't have to cook (as in over a stove or in an oven). diana 100% is a baker though. she is the type of person to bring freshly baked brownies for the class. i headcanon she, ingrid, toshiko and eloise help her out.

What the hell, sure.

-i am so hard pressed to believe these guys eat enough veggies.

-all busy + don't feel like cooking + it's faster to take out food. once in a while they will cook but it is rare. their food is edible to them and that's all that matters

-cassidy is a MENACE on the grill though (proof? that one eden's island promotional art). ask her to fucking grill anything and she will DELIVER. same goes with jett but i believe cassidy is the better grill dad here

-this is a joke but why can I see jett, cassidy and mark going to restaurants guy fieri style

DO NOT LET THEM COOK

-i feel like eva is the type of person to be like "i can cook" but she ABSOLUTELY cannot. you'll be in the kitchen with her and she would be too embarrassed to admit she can't despite the fact she is continuously failing. she gets the hang of it after a while -wolfgang doesn't know how to do his own laundry so i assume he can't cook (bc he spent all his time studying as a kid) -if you asked ulysses if he could cook he'd be like "sort of?" he can follow a recipe, but if something goes wrong he panics a bit. i think he forgets to feed himself sometimes -i think tozu would make a mean shepard's pie (pun not intended). i feel like he likes french food. while he jokes about british food he finds it very unexciting and bland. he is genuinely a good cook but would absolutely troll you by putting a "secret ingredient" in his food (i.e. putting pineapple in lasagna) unfortunately, this would be ineffective on someone like kai or eva who like "weirder" food combos

I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE.

HEY SO GUESS WHAT I NOTICED LATELY AND KEPT THINKING ABOUT AND WANTED TO SHARE WITH YOU

Mata and arajin both kinda achieved what they wanted to some part?

OK LEMME EXPLAIN : mata wanted to be stronger (why? To never be left behind again) and he did just that

Arajin wanted to be braver I think (why? To never leave behind a friend ever again)

And guess what

Come on guess it

THEY BOTH DID DO JUST THAT, BUT ONE FOCUSED MORE ON THE GOAL RATHER THAN THE WHY (Mata, with his delusional belief that getting stronger will solve everything) AND THE OTHER FOCUSED ON THE WHY MORE THAN THE GOAL (arajin, with him simply deciding that you can't leave behind a friend if you don't have any, he truly is the smartest idiot out there)

Mata is now much much stronger, maybe not the strongest but still, and arajin is much much more brave, maybe not the bravest but still much braver, especially when you see how they used to be and how they are rn

LIKE COME ON. COME ON. LIKE, ANOTHER LAYER TO THEIR RELATIONSHIP AND I KNOW IT'S A SIMPLE ONE TO NOTICE BUT I DIDN'T UNTIL TOO LATE AND GOD, THEY BOTH WILL NEVER BE SATISFIED TILL THE GOAL AND THE WHY BOTH GET ANSWERED, AND THAT WONT HAPPEN TILL BOTH DROP THEIR DELUSIONS AND WAIT IS THIS A LAYER OF NEVER FEELING LIKE YOU'VE DONE BEFORE IM SEEING??

(sorry for rambling, it just been circulating my mind for the past three days and my god I need that 2 hours analysis video asap)

OKAY! Finally had some time to give this my full attention, took me a minute. Hope the wait wasn’t too long. (Also trust I’ll get to your comment back but I try to reply to everything which means I need time to sit it down and Do That but I’ve been busy as shit UGHHH)

BUT RAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! THE ADDED LAYERS OF THIS DYNAMIC IS SO GOOOOOOOOOOOOD. I’m so glad you mentioned this because I didn’t quite notice it as an added bit of their dynamic, but they both, as the should go, got a little bit of what they’ve wanted!!!! Which is really charming that they both kinda stay stubborn in their ways, regressing or simply doubling down respectively, and then actually both grow a little bit by the end! While obviously they should progress (or land somewhere other than where they’ve started until that’s another point/purpose), it’s just a charming detail they did get something, by actually dropping the delusion/confronting a bit of who they are and what things are actually like in reality.

They make me so ill, I think. I love my little bad coping mechanism mfs. They rlly thought if they just just dug their heels in, stubborn as shit, double down again and again, it’d just work out. Like no. Dumbass. I love them, though. They match each other’s narratively, but they haven’t caught got to the actual bestie / seeing each other completely yet. (SOBBING ABOUT IT ARAJIN LET DOWN UR MASK PLEASE—) (THERE IS MORE TO YOU I KNOW IT)

Also it will never not be funny to me Arajin rlly went giving “I’ve ever met this man before in my life”/“we’re not friends -_-” energy and Mata is just: “no we’re best friends :) best friends forever :) I’m simply ignoring what you said, you’re just a silly little jokester we’re the best friends in the entire planet trust me! We never stopped being friends! We’re super duper close! Fav guy in the whole world!!”

I love my pair of unreliable ass mfs, never trust them to take control of narration, you’re gonna be lied too.

Look at them. Unreliable ass mfs. I love them so much. They’re so precious to me. Unstoppable force vs unmovable object ass dynamic. Mutually not seeing each other ass dynamic. Denial buddies. Driven by fear ass mfs. “What if I just doubled down” like that’ll do anything. Idiots. I love them so much oh my god.

ALSO PLEASE SHARE RAMBLES AND IDEAS AND ALL THAT JAZZ! I love yapping about stuff like this! I’m just sluggish at replying back cause I’m gonna be busy as shit for a couple monthssssss.

okay so i just finished watching the recap episode (pretty standard, nothing fancy) and THE END CARD??? "group date" so like a mixer, then? which is when a bunch of single people get together to form bonds, have drinks or food, play games, or get set up with a blind date. "the sea" BEACH EPISODE??? MAYBE??? they can expand on the lore too bc the city's waters were made from a crater from by senya and ichiya's fight. or maybe the sea is relevant in some other way to some characters? explore different character's dynamics? i don't mind a more light-hearted episode but bucchigiri, at least to me, is the type of show that doesn't waste any of its episodes or runtime to tell a story, so even if the episode is more laid back i think it'll still have some of the overarching plot there. also, we know majority of the cast is guys (exception: mahoro) and like. most of the gangs dont have girls (exception: NG boys but they're the enemy and defeated for now) so…. hmmmmm. most mixers are not that big (i think) unless it's a school-wide thing for the celebration of the NG boys being defeated? if it just involves the main cast hanging out then i can %100 smell some of those homoerotic undertones from here. bonus points if it is a beach episode or something of that variety. just some food for thought. speaking of food, croquettes!! yummy!! wonder if we'll see some more of mama tomoshibi's homecooked food or something else... the food shots are one of the highlights of every ep for me lol i love it when characters just chow down on yummy food

Well To begin with I think it's important to not fight the silliness when watching Bucchigiri?! it's essential to enjoy this show i guess, cause if you try to find deep and clearly stated moral lesson in every detail of it, you will be just disappointed, especially while it's still airing, because that's like not the point These characters are not model heroes with high ideals and immense willpower, they're like the opposite, they're all silly and weird in their own ways, all with flaws (and yes, even Matakara, we're just not covering his problems yet) and their interactions are just as unhinged, which makes sense, and that's cool. It makes everything interesting because there's no clear moral compass to follow yet, and some stuff just happens, but that's the comedy of it, and beauty too. That feels fresh, and of course it's not for everyone, but fighting this show's intrinsic silliness and randomness just leads to less enjoyment from it all, and it's pointless. If you want to enjoy it embrace the silliness and watch it like a bunch of seagulls fighting with tourists for junk, or like bugs living their lives under the rocks, or something. It's an open end question and all the marks will be defined randomly in this media interpretation class, enjoy the liberating feeling of knowing that author probably wanted to tell you something but realizing you have literally no idea what it was or having all 100 ideas being somehow a valid answer. Or watch it any other way, but like, don't let predefined ideas of how things should be take away from your enjoyment.

also this rock is a symbol. i truly think that as long as it stays intact matakara will never lose faith in arajin. and for the sake of both of their character development i will crush it with my bare fucking hands

Just like before, but not as same

I read recently about how some feel the end of Bucchigiri?! was a return to the status quo, and while I don't entirely disagree, is that really so? I think part of the problem comes from how compressed the episode was, so it's very easy for some things to go unnoticed. Because yes, we are back to "normal." But at least in the case of Arajin and Matakara we can notice (very briefly) that something has changed.

Let's go in order…

First let's talk about Arajin, I understand that as a character he can be frustrating for many, especially seeing him go after Mahoro again, even though it seemed like he had finally learned something from everything that happened, but there is something that we must highlight and that is the scene in front of the mirror while trying to imitate Marito.

Arajin always appeared as someone simple and content with his mediocrity, because as many here have already said, it was not only a way to escape from his guilt, but also because he surely felt unworthy of something better than being a "common" boy

It's easy to believe that he's just trying to imitate Marito because he knows that Mahoro has him on a pedestal, but… wouldn't it also mean that he's finally willing to aspire for more? Marito is someone strong, charismatic, casual and who never hesitates in the face of any challenge that catches his attention, qualities that if we think carefully, can be attractive to someone like Arajin, contrasting with the more disciplinary and traditional principles of Minato kai, much more in line for someone like Matakara.

Imitating Marito means recognizing him as superior, and therefore, a goal to achieve, and perhaps even surpass, something that until now, Arajin had never dared to consider.

And regarding insisting on Mahoro again… We remember that Arajin is a teenager, right? I understand that his approach to her has never been the most appropriate, but… is it so strange that he wants to try again now that he has rediscovered his own courage?(again, it's obvious that his way is not the right one)

In Matakara's case, although the fact that everyone forgives him so easily after what happened still seems convenient, I prefer to believe that it has more to do with the reputation he had and the high esteem in which he was held even if he was not capable to notice it, once again reinforcing the idea that he is no longer alone.

His changes, like Arajin's, are very subtle, but deep down they say a lot. The first thing is at the party to celebrate Marito and Kenichiro, where we see him making gyoza with Arajin. I had already said it in a previous analysis, about how cooking is connected to affection and bonds. Here I will take the opportunity to complement it with a couple of things.

Something I mentioned was how the ability to cook could be interpreted as the provision of tools to deal with life, although now that I think about it, also how they were in an unequal relationship. But returning to the party, we see Matakara managing to make his first gyoza well, making visible the fact that the gap between them has fallen, but not only that, I also mentioned how cooking as an activity is closely related to the people Matakara loves. It's more than evident that Arajin has been teaching him, again reinforcing not only their reconciliation, but also the fact that from now on he will be there for him.

Here we also add that he is cooking, not only for his close circle, but for everyone, letting us know that he is finally willing to open his heart to others, which we can also appreciate by how he affectionately hugs his friends after being accepted into Minato kai again.

I had already said this, but I think it is worth returning to it. Remember since Mitsukuni's incident Matakara didn't go to see him even once? Surely because seeing his brother in that state would have been more than he could have endured. You don't have to be a genius to understand what a shock it's for someone like him and at that age. It was a reality that he was fleeing from, because most likely deep down he knew that there was no way to rationalize what had happened with his weakness.

Now, however, knowing that he is no longer alone, that there are people who, despite not knowing him thoroughly, care about him, he finally feels that he can face the situation without his own darkness tormenting him, in one way or another, he has accepted his vulnerability and that he has no control over what will happen, which is certainly a difficult and sometimes very painful lesson.

It's obvious that such a hasty ending in one way or another still hinders the experience and doesn't justify other problems, but I do think that perhaps we shouldn't say that our boys didn't learn anything from all this, plus, again, they are teenagers, This is not the only thing they will have to learn, but there is no doubt that the seed of change has sprouted in both, whether to a greater or lesser extent.

hiroko utsumi you've done it again....