I had vague memory that Matsumoto batch-cooking was a thing that happened, but I did not realize the specific context of this scene. This is BANANAS.
Okay, I need to back up. At this point in the story, 3/4 Bount and Ichinose have been neutralized as threats. There are a lot of injuries and Ishida is chomping at the bit to finish his Oedipal narrative arc, and Matsumoto wisely points out that everyone has been running around for over 24 hours and rest and food are IMPORTANT. Which is thoughtful and lovely, except... when she said that I thought they were just going to have some niblets and get four hours of sleep or something, because there is a highly dangerous, vengeful murderman roaming the streets of the Seireitei right now. He already blew up a building and took out a Gate Guardian, held his own against Byakuya, and has the ability to regenerate himself by taking bites out of Seireitei Shingles.
But instead they have a whole-ass block party!!! WHAT IS HAPPENING.
This is especially funny because in the next episode Ishida shows up to fight Kariya alone, and where is Ichigo? where is everyone else? STILL AT THE 10TH DIVISION SLUMBER PARTY THAT’S WHERE. Ishida got up early for his regular morning insanity and everyone else nearly slept through the thrilling conclusion to this arc.
Even more bananas is the fact that Kariya... I don’t actually know, I wasn’t paying attention, but I guess he absorbed a power thingy and was waiting to get maximally powerful. My man got his COVID booster and is waiting for peak immunity. So literally time is of the essence!! And this is what they do!!!
(In fairness, it doesn’t seem anyone at this block party knows about the power thingy during that scene. But the next morning Rantao tells them all about what they missed while they were asleep and Hitsugaya is like, ‘Yeah, we heard about the power thingy. Time is of the essence!’ so clearly at some point they got this information and then proceeded to just keep doing whatever they were already doing.)
I am just so conflicted because I love a morale party but OH MY GOD WHAT. WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE DOING. Idk this just feels like just sitting down to KBBQ two hours before an international flight, and you’re not even at the airport yet. It gives me ANXIETY.
On the other hand, it is a lovely spread:
I laughed out loud at myself the other day when I was pulling these caps, because my first thought was, “Oh, interesting! Vegetarian!”
And my second was, LOL. HOW CAN YOU TELL. EVERYTHING IS POLYGONS.
I think it’s because immediately prior, I’d been meal planning, and I was trying to decide whether I felt autumnal enough to make this, so I had it on the brain, but I’m willing to hold to my original impression of this meal and say that it is, indeed, vegetarian. There’s mushrooms and pickles happening in the side dishes and the soup looks like carrots and at least two different kinds of starchy vegetable. And there’s a basket of raw vegetables.
This is interesting to me because I am always interested in what they eat in Soul Society (and what the supply chain is), and I feel like this meal being vegetarian tracks. Given that the population of entities who need to eat is the minority, I imagine agricultural practice has remained pretty small-scale. We see fields sometimes, but domestic animals don’t seem like a huge thing. There’s one (1) boar biker gang and given how proud they are of this, that’s probably not the norm.
I’m not saying Soul Society is vegetarian--plenty of proof against this--but if meat is prepared in Soul Society I’m guessing more often than not it’s wild game (and even this feels very mysterious to me, XD); but anyway, that’s hard to do on an industrial scale, particularly on short notice, so if you’re a normal shinigami eating a normal meal, it’s probably rice and vegetables. They only whip out the fancy food for fancy occasions like Byakuya’s hanami, the installation of the New Third Captain, and Jump Festa. If you’re a noble, well, that’s different. And even if you’re a VC-level officer and above--it’s probably a little different, since there do appear to be exclusive dining establishments that cater to VCs and their corporealized zanpakutou that one time. Or if you’re with Unohana and she treats you to a fancy pork dish (meat provenance: undisclosed). But normie shinigami? No wonder Rin was so excited about cake, and Hanatarou got so distracted by the Miraculous Living World Combini!
My main point: Hitsugaya let them have a block party mid murderman-invasion, but they did not go to McDonald’s--even with their esteemed guests Kurosaki Ichigo And Friends in attendance--because they had tubers at home.
Secondary point: Tongs Renji was excited af for that Living World barbecue during the Reigai arc, and for good reason!!
