ANIME REVIEW: I WANT TO EAT YOUR PANCREAS

I Want to Eat Your Pancreas
Released By: Manga Entertainment
Rating: PG
Running Time: 108 mins
Release Date: 24/2/2020
Reviewed By: Sandra Scholes

There are several ways a high-school kid can get with a girl, but finding one is the main problem they face in most anime. When he finds a book called "Living with Dying," it is a journal kept by Sakura Yamauchi, the sort of girl who wouldn't have looked at him once, let alone twice, but she has a nice personality and one problem. She has a pancreatic illness and only has so long to live.

She writes her thoughts in this journal and when she tells him about her ordeal, they will be the best of friends and it will be up to him to keep her secret.

Without having read the manga this story is based on, I saw the title and thought it could be a demon or zombie anime. It is neither, instead I Want to Eat Your Pancreas is a heartwarming tale of a young girl with an incurable illness and how she copes with it alone, noting her experiences of life in her journal. It is only when she meets a boy who strangely for a shy person, makes friends with her as being the only one who knows her secret.

It is not just how they deal with their problem, it is also the way the anime is handled. It works and if it doesn't have you crying by the end of it then it hasn't done its job as an almost perfect shojo anime with a limited series of episodes. You might think because of this it would have a limited interest due to its subject matter, but that is not the case.

The boy who befriends her isn't the sort who would do this normally, he keeps away from people, only watches others. This time he thought he would open his heart to someone who looked like they might have needed help and this is the essence of the anime; that change of heart for someone special. This is Shinichiro Ushijima's adaptation of Yoru Sumino's novel and it complements it with its exploration of friendship in the face of adversity and the question of "wouldn't we all want to find someone like him?"


Bonus Material: Trailers and Commercials.

Summary: This is a touching story of finding a pure kind of love in the most unlikely of places.