I want to eat your pancreas is a heartwarming and breaking story of a boy and his interactions with a female classmate has a terminal pancreatic disease. It is a beautiful portrayal of the importance of the life we have on Earth. It is an interaction between two opposite people: a male and a female, a bookworm and a person who only reads manga, an introvert and an extrovert, a healthy human and a person with a pancreatic disease, a person with a longer life expectancy and a person who has less than a year left. Regardless of their personalities, views, and circumstances being drastically different, the two become very close in the very few remaining months of Sakura, the girl with a terminal disease, has on Earth. In fact, they wish to be like the other, wanting some traits of their opposites. The outgoing girl, Sakura, has been interested in knowing “[Mr.Classmate who is on his own world with his books]” and gets the chance one day when [Mr. Classmate who is in his own world] finds out Sakura’s secret that only her family knows, the fact that Sakura has a terminal pancreatic disease. The protagonist finds out her secret when he finds a book that was left behind in the waiting room of the hospital. That is the start of their interaction and the transformation between a bookworm who seeks his everyday life with no one and a girl who is determined to live her life to the fullest. The male protagonist being indifferent from learning her secret provided a sense of normalcy to her life which kindles Sakura to spend her remaining time with him. Sakura could not share the fact that she has little to live to anyone outside her family, for she knew she could not live a regular life that she strives for if she does reveal her secret to her friends.
There are a few things I love about the book aside from the interactions between [Mr. Classmate who knows my [Sakura’s] Secret] and Sakura. I love how the author’s approach the story, the themes touched, and the author’s view on various aspect of life. One point that stood out to me the most was Sakura’s reply to the question of whether or not she should spend her remaining days idling attending school and being an assistant in the library instead of fulfilling her life goals. She points out that any of us can die at any moment yet we live life even with that fact. This is exemplified by the ending. A plot twist that was hinted in such small detail but was very unexpected. Most of us live life without actively trying to fulfill the things we wish to achieve or do before we die. I love how Sakura deals with her illness and the frequent dark humor she makes to irk the main protagonist. Another point that I like is Sakura’s comment on the idea of contrived coincidence. Sakura points out that their meeting isn’t simply a coincidence. The actions and decisions between the two of them led them to their journey. The “unnamed” protagonist chose to be at the hospital at that moment and also consciously decided to read the Living with Death book, a journal written by Sakura, that he found lying by some couch in the waiting area. It is not only the protagonist’s decision that led to the creation of their interesting relationship. It was also due to Sakura’s own decision to reveal her own secret to a classmate she barely knows, risking her own normalcy life that she wants to protect. Sakura could have simply not come to pick up her journal or state that the journal was simply a joke. Even the protagonist would never have imagined that Sakura was the owner nor did he even believe her when told. This reminds me of the idea of simulations and decision trees where the resulting outcome or behavior is built upon the actions/decision you make, a random thought that came to my mind. It makes the story between the two much more meaningful that the two made the decision to build a relationship that is hard to describe.
I want to be you. To be someone who could know other people, and who could be known. To be someone who could love other people, and who could be loved
-nameless protagonist-
Aside from the “philosophical” view, I enjoyed from the book, I love the character development in the story. Here we have an introvert who dislikes and avoids interacting with others. A loner who cannot recount a time in his life where he had friends and prefers to stay in the realm of his books than stay in the realm of reality. But his encounter and interactions with Sakura slowly change him from being a stoic loner to being a person who takes notice of others around him, to be a person who is capable of loving another person and being loved as well.
At one point, I realized something. Without anyone around me, I am no one special. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I mean, everyone’s like that, right? … Being compared to others, comparing ourselves to others – that’s how we discover who we are. That’s what living means to me. But you, and you alone, are always on your own. You found what makes yourself special outside of any social connections, by looking at yourself. I want to be able to do that for myself.
– Yamauchi Sakura in Living With Death –
For Sakura, the meaning of life is about the connections you have formed with others. But that is one stumbling block she faces. She easily makes friends with everyone but that is also her weakness and a source of her insecurities. Having a pancreatic disease doesn’t make her any special, nor does her fame and reputation make her feel secured. She longs for someone who can look at her for who she really is and to be a person who is needed by someone else. To be unique. Although her pancreatic disease and her personality do make her quite unique in itself. That does not satisfy Sakura. But when the nameless protagonist pleads with her to live a bit longer for he longs her companionship, is when she feels truly unique, loved, and needed.
You have decided you didn’t need any friend or anyone to love. But then you chose to need someone. And not just someone. You chose me. For the first time, I realized someone needed me for who I was. For the first time, I realized I was unique. – Yamauchi Sakura in Living With Death –
The protagonists have an interesting view on their purpose on Earth which is to meet each other. That they were born to feel needed and loved. That by their own decisions, they fulfilled their purpose. Sounds like a fight and contradiction of destiny but I like it a lot. Perhaps the author was trying to write that we may have a destiny to fulfill but it is by our own actions that we fulfill our destiny and not just simply because of fate. That we need to work to the fate that is planned before us.
I never thought anyone would want to be like me.But she did. And now I find a new belief. I was born to meet her. All the choices, I’ve made in life were for one purpose: to meet her. I have no doubts. I know it must be true, because nothing has ever brought me this much joy or this much pain.
– Yamauchi Sakura in Living With Death –
I would encourage you to read the book for yourself. There are just so many things I find indescribable and complex for me to write. Taking ideas and giving it a form like this blog truly feels incomplete and terrible. I don’t think I have ever written a piece, report, or program that ever satisfied what I wanted to convey. I feel that the letters written for the nameless protagonist recorded in the journal Living With Death truly sums the connection between the two. A relationship that cannot be said to be friends, nor lovers,
I don’t want to define our relationship with common words like those. Love? Friendship? That’s not what we have, is it?
– Yamauchi Sakura in Living With Death –
The pair knows this struggle of the loss of value and hence is hesitant to even describe their relationship. That is why they tell others that they just get along. They are not sure how to describe their connection with each other. It’s also the reason why the protagonist is unable to call Sakura by her name and never refers to her by her name. He’s afraid of defining who Sakura is to him, afraid to attach a feeling to the name in fear of losing that connection they have for each other. An indescribable connection that cannot be put to simple words such as a friend or a girlfriend.
In regards to the title, you may be wondering why is the title of the book “I want to eat your pancreas”. What a bizarre title for a heartwarming book. It gives the impression of cannibalism which does put the nameless protagonist off whenever he thinks about that sentence. But it’s the final words they relayed to each other. Sakura through her Living With Death and from the nameless protagonist, his text before her last moments. There are two ideas where the title comes from. Sakura mentions an old folklore that I assume to be of Japanese origin of eating a body part of a loved one to get better. The other idea comes from some culture where they believed that your loved ones live inside of you when you eat a part of their body. I’ve heard of the idea of having a loved one live inside of you by eating their corpse from both my Sister and from an anthropology course I took in University to satisfy my distribution credits. I believe most people would credit the title coming from the first idea I mentioned but I feel that there is more to the meaning of the title than that. I don’t think it’s as simple as wanting to eat the other part of your loved one to be healthy. Those words were used as final words to describe their connection and their own being and feelings for each other as best as possible. The last note I want to bring to your attention is the idea of hiding/concealing information. You probably notice that the protagonist’s name is never mentioned throughout the majority of the book, manga, and film. His name is revealed to Shiga Haruki and the meaning is never really mentioned in the Light novel but the anime reveals it to be Spring Tree or “bright clean weather” according to nobutaku which I assume comes from the dub version of the anime. Either way, the name can be viewed to either the Sakura that waits for the Spring Tree or “although cherry blossoms are short-lived they look the most beautiful in bright clean weather.” The light novel just states that there are two famous writers with the same name as mentioned by both Sakura and Sakura’s mother when Haruki replies to their question. I just love how both the mother and Sakura say the same thing but not sure if there’s a meaning behind it in the LN.
The reason for this story is both a sad but satisfying ending is how the character develops. Both Sakura and Haruki learn a lot from each other and grow. Haruki learns to appreciate those around him and make an effort to be more like Sakura, trying to get friends starting with Sakura’s best friend who hates him to the bottom of her heart. Just knowing that Sakura read Haruki’s final text to her: “I want to eat your Pancreas” was a moment of joy and sadness. It’s the point where Haruki finally cries both out of grief for losing Sakura and joy that she read his feelings towards her.