It’s pretty easy to sum up the theme of this week’s Doukyonin wa Hiza, Tokidoki, Atama no Ue. – food.  This is all about food, both the Subaru and Haru segments.  It’s something we take for granted – those of us who don’t want for it anyway, though I have memories of occasional times when my family was so broke when I was a kid that there wasn’t much of anything for days at a time.  That experience certainly makes one appreciate food all the more, I think – even as you transition to seeing eating as something you do for pleasure, you can’t forget what it was like when it was something you were thrilled to do just to survive.

Haru and Subaru have rather opposite perspectives on food, and that’s a product not just of their species but their backgrounds.  Haru lived on the streets on the edge of starvation every day, and Subaru is so disinterested in food that he often can’t be bothered to feed himself until he’s so weak he’s about ready to pass out (and occasionally does).  This is played up for comic (and dramatic) effect, of course, but Haru’s obsession with Subaru’s health is a quite normal part of the feline-human pair bond relationship.  It’s something I’m very familiar with myself.

I’m also familiar, of course, with cats jumping up on the counter while the burners are going and the knives are out, not to mention cats learning how to open doors.  It varies some from cat to cat, but my experience is that almost all of them see a closed door as both an irresistible temptation and a personal affront – even when they don’t have a very specific agenda like Haru does here.  Haru certainly does in this instance, but often it isn’t even so much that the cat wants to be wherever the other side of the door is – they just want it to be their option, not yours.

The overarching theme that the food plot plays into, of course, is the way Haru is slowly pushing Subaru to open up to the world almost without him even realizing it.  We see many examples of it here, not least of which the fact that Subaru notes (to his own surprise) that he tends to eat more often when he’s just prepared Haru’s food and she’s eating.  And after Hiroto’s littler sister stops by with other-Haru and the latter cooks Haru-Haru the same food she used to at the restaurant, Subaru actually takes it on himself to go to the supermarket and shop for ingredients after human Haru gives him the recipe.

It doesn’t get dwelled on much, but this is kind of a big moment for Doukyonin was Hiza and Subaru’s character.  It’s not just just that he’s willing to go to the suupaa to buy food for her – it’s that he makes the decision almost casually.  It’s a reflection not just of how much Subaru has come to care for Haru but of how he’s started to get on top of his social anxiety a little.  Of course the supermarket itself is a bit of a disaster – for someone who never goes to one, the supermarket is full of frightening things and potential pit-traps.  Fortunately Hiroto coincidentally (if I’ve a quibble with this series, the preponderance of coincidence would be it) show up just in time to prevent Subaru from walking out with a week’s supply of upsold food he’d probably never eat.

The cooking is a bit of a disaster too, but again – like the trip to the suupaa it’s not whether it goes smoothly, but the fact that Subaru is willing to do it in the first place.  The second or fifth or 50th time Subaru cooks or goes shopping is going to be a lot easier than this, and that’s all down to Haru and the act of caring for another living creature.  And that of course is fully mutual – Haru remains obsessed with Subaru’s dietary habits, so much so that she even initially refrains from eating the Haru-special he’s prepared for her until she sees that he’s actually made some for himself, too.

All of this comedy of errors – the supermarket, the cooking injuries, the preposterous spectacle of Subaru actually trying to measure Haru’s mouth so he can figure out how small to cut up the veggies and chicken – is actually a good thing.  It’s growing pains, that’s all – and growing that was really long overdue.  It’s almost as if Haru got stuck in adolescence when his parents left him, and it took Haru coming along to get the train rolling again.  Everybody should have a Haru in their lives, but if anybody every really needed one, it was Subaru.