What Did You Eat Yesterday?
きのう何食べた？
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A lawyer and a hairdresser, two men in their forties, and the dinners that hold their life together.
Shiro Kakei is a meticulous lawyer at a small Tokyo firm who has never told his colleagues that he is gay. Kenji Yabuki, a hairdresser at a neighbourhood salon, has never hidden it. They live together in Shiro's flat, and every evening Shiro leaves work on time to cook dinner for two on a food budget of 25,000 yen a month. Each episode follows a meal from the supermarket to the table, and the life around it.
The first season is made of small events. A mysterious message on Shiro's phone sends Kenji into a panic. Shiro makes friends with Kayoko Tominaga, a housewife he meets at the supermarket, and they share out bulk buys. The couple are drawn into dinners with Daisaku Kohinata, a talent-agency manager, and his young, spoilt partner, Wataru. Flashbacks show how Shiro and Kenji met, at a gay bar in Shinjuku. Shiro's parents know their son is gay and cannot quite accept it; his mother, Hisae, tries too hard. At New Year Shiro takes Kenji home to meet them. It is stiff and awkward, and his father ends up showing Kenji old school photographs. On the way back Kenji weeps: he never believed he would sit down to a meal with a lover's parents. Shiro puts an arm round him and says they should eat less fat and sugar and live a long time. The season ends with Kenji cutting Shiro's hair at home and Shiro promising to go with him to the cafés he loves.
A New Year special followed in 2020 and a feature film in 2021. The second season, in 2023, finds them around fifty. Shiro needs reading glasses, food prices keep rising, and an old boyfriend of Shiro's reappears. Kenji becomes manager of his salon, and Shiro at last meets Kenji's mother and sisters over a meal of eel. Shiro's parents settle on a care home, and his mother tells him to start preparing seriously for his own old age. In the final episode Shiro tells Kenji he wants to make a will leaving him everything, and suggests adoption as the simpler route. Kenji refuses to become his son: an adopted pair could never marry, even if two men are one day allowed to. Asked whether this means they will be together until death, Shiro says he cannot promise, only that Kenji is the one person he would ever leave his estate to. Kenji accepts the will. The next morning he packs Shiro a lunch, and that evening Shiro gives him his birthday present, an apron.
Starring
Hidetoshi Nishijimaas Shiro Kakei
A thrifty, precise lawyer who hides that he is gay at work and cooks dinner for Kenji every night.
Shiro Kakei’s story
Shiro plans every dinner around a monthly budget of 25,000 yen and leaves work on time to cook. His parents know he is gay and still struggle with it. He decides to take Kenji home for New Year: near tears, he says his parents must have thought him a pitiable child and blamed themselves, and he wants them to see he is happier than they fear. After the stiff visit he holds the weeping Kenji and says they should eat less fat and live a long time. Near fifty, he needs reading glasses, agrees to take over his firm and meets Kenji's mother and sisters over eel. When Kenji refuses to be adopted as his heir, Shiro makes a will: he cannot promise to stay until death, only that Kenji is the one he would leave everything to.
Seiyo Uchinoas Kenji Yabuki
Shiro's partner, a warm, openly gay hairdresser and a romantic, who wants to be seen and loved out loud.
Kenji Yabuki’s story
Kenji lives in Shiro's flat and longs for the affection Shiro rarely puts into words. A mysterious message on Shiro's phone throws him into a panic, and he shows off their matching rings. When Shiro says he will take him home to his parents, Kenji weeps and promises to go, and on the way back he cries again: he never believed he would share a meal with a lover's parents. Urged on by Shiro, he becomes manager of his salon and introduces Shiro to his mother and sisters. Offered adoption so that he can inherit, he refuses to become Shiro's son, since an adopted pair could never marry if the law ever allows it, and accepts a will instead. The next morning he packs Shiro a lunch, and that evening Shiro gives him an apron for his birthday.
Koji Yamamotoas Daisaku Kohinata
A gay talent-agency manager who befriends the couple and dotes on his much younger partner.
Hayato Isomuraas Wataru Inoue
Daisaku's young partner, beautiful, capricious and sharp-tongued, who is kinder than he lets on.
Misako Tanakaas Kayoko Tominaga
A housewife Shiro meets at the supermarket, who becomes his friend in bargains, recipes and advice.
Meiko Kajias Hisae Kakei
Shiro's mother, who loves her son and struggles, sometimes clumsily, to accept that he is gay.
Why it matters
What Did You Eat Yesterday? is about two gay men growing from their forties towards fifty, and almost nothing in it is dramatic: a monthly food budget, a friendship made over supermarket bargains, a haircut at home. That ordinariness is its argument. The issues arrive the way they do in life: a lawyer who has never told his colleagues, parents who love their son and still flinch, the question of what happens to one partner if the other dies. The last episode of the second season turns on a law that is missing. Because two men cannot marry in Japan, Shiro offers adoption so that Kenji can inherit, and Kenji refuses, because adoption would bar them from marrying if the law ever changes. When it aired, critics set it beside Ossan's Love and found this the more realistic picture of gay men's daily lives. It leaves open the question of what counts as a family.