Genre: Drama
Publisher: Seven Seas Entertainment
Edited by KnightAvenger
Kimi no Suizou wo Tabetai (I Want to Eat Your Pancreas) is a light novel originally released in Japan by Futabasha in 2015 and, in November of 2018, got an official English translation by Seven Seas Entertainment. The focus of the story is on the relationship that develops between a dying high school girl and her asocial classmate who accidentally learns her secret. It’s written by Sumino Yoru and has received some awards since it was published. It was also adapted into a manga and an anime movie as well as a live action movie.
With a name like I Want to Eat Your Pancreas, I never expected it to be the type of story that it was. What I personally expected the first time I heard the name and didn’t previously know anything about the novel was a romantic comedy focusing on some monster girl, specifically a zombie girl due to wanting to eat a specific organ. Also, I expected that phrase to be one of those things in anime and Japanese media in general where some cute girl says something that would, by all accounts, be horrible, but says it in such a cutesy way that is meant to make her the best girl, which sometimes succeeds and sometimes doesn’t. The sort of thing like in the original To LOVE-Ru anime where the protagonist explains to his alien bride that they dissect frogs to learn more about them, after which she starts chasing after him with scissors asking him with a huge smile to let her dissect him because she wants to learn more about him. The reason I chose an older anime is to avoid issues with giving spoilers, but that’s the kind of scene I had in my mind when I first saw the title.
Although I guessed somewhat correctly that it would be a romance story (but only very marginally as such), all the rest was completely wrong. It’s actually a drama with some romance elements, with the title being a phrase from the book that was meaningful and emotional to the characters within the context of the novel itself. It’s not unusual to put a certain, seemingly meaningless, phrase that actually does mean something within the book, as the title. But due to the nature of a lot of light novels, with names that are often as blunt as possible and largely unimaginative and even acting as a summary of the main point of the book, it’s easy to assume it’s the same thing with this book. Luckily, it wasn’t, but I also wouldn’t mind a romantic comedy with a zombie girl, though I suppose Sankarea already took care of that.
Back to the book: I really enjoyed it. The story was pretty cool; it’s very much a slice-of-life but with dialogue that makes it very interesting to go through and want to learn more about the characters. The cast itself wasn’t large with the main focus being, of course, on the two main characters. Their conversations were often witty and funny, but the more serious ones were intriguing, and learning about their characters kept my attention so well that I often had moments where I didn’t want to stop reading. Sakura, the girl, is very cheerful and easygoing about her daily life, making and maintaining friendships and so on, whereas the classmate who learns she is dying is pretty robotic at times in regards to how he expresses and explains things about himself. The dynamic was obviously done well and the book itself is very much a character-focused, coming-of-age story. The characterization and some story events really facilitated the coming-of-age nature well and the end had me in tears.
The tone and style reminded me a lot of Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami and from other people’s accounts, it also feels like Your Name by Makoto Shinkai, so the general feeling could, maybe, be described as a mix of both of those, but as I have not read Your Name, I can’t personally attest to that. But one thing to note is that this isn’t really a romance story at all. While there are romantic elements, some bits where it seems like they will get together in that way, it’s actually much more of a story about friendship and growth. The male protagonist is a complete loner, someone who has never had a friend, but slowly over the course of the story, he grows more interested in people. That is the main theme here, friendship and love that comes out of that kind of a relationship and coming to terms with and understanding it, rather than romantic love.
My enjoyment of the writing might also have something to do with a great translation, as even incredible stories are nothing if the translation isn’t up to par, and this one really was. Often times, translations for light novels, even official ones, end up not being very good with weird phrasings of certain things, translations that sound and feel awkward, but I’m glad to say that Seven Seas’ Nathan Collins did a good job with it.
Seeing as it is a light novel, there aren’t really any illustrations or anything, which is understandable to a degree. The one exception is the cover image, which was drawn by the author. It looks nice and interesting, if a little bit basic, but for a cover image, it’s good, especially due to the pastel colors stemming from it being drawn with aquarelle. There is also a fitting and pretty obvious motif of sakura trees, which references the name of the dying girl, but also, how she describes her personality at certain points during the novel. Aside from that, there are some interesting bits of visual design when it comes to the book, such as there being different coloring of the page in a certain spot where the current text is a draft of a letter and the person writing it makes a note to self to try not to cry when they end up writing the final version of the letter, meant to indicate that a tear dropped there. Not many of those gimmicks are in the book but what is there is still interesting, nonetheless.
In summary, it’s a very enjoyable coming of age drama with a nice little twist near the end which made me cry. The characters are great and interesting and their dialogue very good. I definitely recommend the novel. It’s available both digitally and in paperback from various well-known stores, so it shouldn’t be hard to get hold of a copy, and you should.
I Want to Eat Your Pancreas is available for purchase at the price of $14.99 (USD).
