Deaimon: Recipe for Happiness

Episodes 1-3

There's a Yiddish expression that, abbreviated, amounts to “worries go down better with soup.” Soup may not be the food featured in Deaimon, but the sentiment seems to be present nonetheless – there's something comforting about eating a soothing food when the world feels like it's turned upside down. That has most certainly happened for the characters in this show in varying degrees, and the calm, understated progression of them working through their worries across these first three episodes is a charming combination of slice-of-life and family drama.

Part of what makes it work so well is that no one's problems are being compared to anyone else's – there's no denying that Itsuka may have it the worst, because she's been abandoned by her parents and is constantly waiting for her father to come back, even if the piece of her that expects to take over the traditional Japanese confectionery that took her in knows that the chances of him returning are slim. But Nagomu, whose dreams of being a musician in Tokyo are in pieces, is also in a rough space, and what's great about this is that no one is saying anything to him like, “Oh, come on, Itsuka's got is so much worse than you!” Instead, everyone is allowed to work through their issues in their own space, converging in the confectionery as the central location that gives them all a place to be grounded.

Each of the episodes brings in a new character while also showing how their stories impact those of our main two, Nagomu and Itsuka. The first episode does the work of establishing the main conflict – that since Nagomu left, Itsuka is slated to take over the shop as the de-facto grandchild. (And also because Nagomu is truly terrible at working the counter. It's impressive how attached he gets to each wagashi, although I have to admit I'd probably function similarly in an antique bookstore.) The second goes deeper into the story of Mitsuru, a high school student who works part-time and sells her handmade phone charms at the confectionery. Like Nagomu, she has musical aspirations, but she's not sure that she can pursue them given her family's needs. Mitsuru's situation informs Nagomu's both as someone who tried to live that same dream and in the way that he goes to bat for her, taking on a semi-parental role in talking to her parents, much the way Nagomu's own parents want him to be a father-figure to Itsuka.

That Itsuka is conflicted about Nagomu as her substitute dad comes across very clearly in episode three. The Gion Festival is nigh, and both Itsuka and Nagomu have difficult memories of it – Itsuka's dad promised to take her, and Nagomu was supposed to take the girlfriend who broke up with him. Watching the ways that they both react to the suggestion that they go together is a beautiful illustration of their different struggles as well as their ages: Nagomu is willing to take Itsuka, but Itsuka feels like it would be a betrayal of her father to go with someone else – especially, we get the feeling, a different father figure. Whether this drives her to follow a man with a guitar onto a bus to Ohara instead of going to school isn't certain, but I'd definitely say that it's likely. Itsuka hasn't stopped looking for her missing father (she doesn't seem to care about her equally absent mother, possibly because she left first and so Itsuka feels no loyalty to her); in fact, it's how she first met Nagomu, because any man with a guitar could, in her mind, be him. With his departure and failure to return made even more prominent with the arrival of the very festival he promised to take her to, her obsession with finding him has risen to the surface in a bigger way, prompting her to take more drastic actions than she normally would. She knows it's not a great plan, and we can see her wilting when she realizes she's both lost her target and has no way to get home, but she simply cannot help herself. It's as much a piece of her soul as music is for Mitsuru and Nagomu.

I don't love Kanako, Nagomu's ex-girlfriend who makes her appearance in episode three, because leaving someone when they're as down as Nagomu was at the time is a pretty rotten move. But I can see that she may be important for helping Itsuka have a different perspective on her life, helping her to accept Nagomu and to move on without feeling like she's abandoned her father in retaliation for leaving her. Deiamon stands to be less about “found family” and more about “made family,” where everyone takes deliberate steps towards finding peace together. Whether you equate that warmth with fresh wagashi (or the sweet of your choice) or soup, it's hard to deny that everyone's worries will go down better with its help.

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Deaimon: Recipe for Happiness is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.