Lunch Zake - Ch. 12 - The Twelfth Cup

[MangaDex]

 

[Guyincognitus]

Once a month is fucking brutal. Is this what co-parenting looks like in japan?

 

[EchoGirl]

Thanks for picking this back up !

Gotta love her being lured by good fish but still, a few hours heads up would've been good, at least she isn't petty to make them wait and take long to get ready

Once a month is fucking brutal. Is this what co-parenting looks like in japan?

i mean they are divorced, usually the mom gets custody but i wonder how much rights she gets when she doesn't live with the kid, tho given her situation it's prolly not as easy unless she was rich even if ppl would prolly look down on a single mother

who knows, maybe she'll have a temper tantrum in her teens and be like "i'm staying with mom for a while!" and intruding in one weekend or so when she goes thru puberty

 

[brndndss]

heavy family stuff still, sandwiched between some delicious looking seafood. i hope Shouko can regain her confidence before it's too late to win back Akari

 

[sleepyknight]

this might sound callous but i really dont understand why she doesnt at least text and facetime her child regularly. like all this talk abt wanting to be present and a understanding figure that akari can rely on, but theres really no attempt to like, actually be present or understand her as an individual.

theres a tendency in fiction to write children's internal states and attitudes as kind of, existing at adults convenience rather than being shaped by primarily by how their actual developmental needs are fulfilled. it makes the adults surrounding them look better comparitively, but it results in these flat, unrealistic child characters that just serve as set dressing for the adults in their life(which i guess, is what many people assume kids should be).

i think this, along with that aside abt a woman's estranged family actually loving her bc they badgered her husband for her ashes after she died, is indicative of a somewhat iffy perspective of familial relationships on the authors part. where years of lackluster parenting can be made up for with ~vibes~ in real life things rarely work out like that.

 

[malu]

Once a month is fucking brutal. Is this what co-parenting looks like in japan?

of course not

usually you don't get to see your child anymore

 

[totallytotally]

This manga is so ass.

 

[mug3n]

theres a tendency in fiction to write children's internal states and attitudes as kind of, existing at adults convenience rather than being shaped by primarily by how their actual developmental needs are fulfilled. it makes the adults surrounding them look better comparitively, but it results in these flat, unrealistic child characters that just serve as set dressing for the adults in their life(which i guess, is what many people assume kids should be).

A lot of the times they are written only as a sort of mangnifyer device where the rest of the characters image is reflected and amplified into the reader. I'm not really against this since it can bring clarity to moments of grey morality like this one where she (in my opinion) made the right choice of leaving her daughter into the household with a better balance for the kid but has a little of this woe is me attitude about it and then make pivot or give a new goalpost to the story. The consequence is all of this is without exploring the details regarding the kid, so is left as an incomplete character that shouldn't bother too much in the story other than their role, hence these kinds of small adult children.

But children can be very complicated to write, I don't blame an author who really don't want to delve into the real meat and potatoes of parenthood. And on top of that we have the kind of mentality of the society, like you said, in the western world would be her trying to see her child more than once a month or call her regularly, in Japan is a matter of ganbatte.

 

[Kyoumades]

This manga is so ass.

Children should not be allowed on the internet

 

[lowarctic]

this might sound callous but i really dont understand why she doesnt at least text and facetime her child regularly. like all this talk abt wanting to be present and a understanding figure that akari can rely on, but theres really no attempt to like, actually be present or understand her as an individual.

theres a tendency in fiction to write children's internal states and attitudes as kind of, existing at adults convenience rather than being shaped by primarily by how their actual developmental needs are fulfilled. it makes the adults surrounding them look better comparitively, but it results in these flat, unrealistic child characters that just serve as set dressing for the adults in their life(which i guess, is what many people assume kids should be).

although I think there‘s more to be elaborated, the answer is pretty obviously because as a single woman in a heavily patriarchal society she doesn’t have the power to oppose her ex-husband and his family: effectively her relationship with her child is entirely at their whims

she can ask for more access to her child in the form of calls, texts, letters, visits but if the ex-husband opposes it she’s risking what little access she does have to her daughter

whether the daughter wants to spend time with her mom or not is utterly irrelevant until the mom has enough social standing to make it happen in a very sexist Japanese society

 

[EchoGirl]

this might sound callous but i really dont understand why she doesnt at least text and facetime her child regularly. like all this talk abt wanting to be present and a understanding figure that akari can rely on, but theres really no attempt to like, actually be present or understand her as an individual.

Guess it depends on how busy ppl are tho i'd imagine the kid would also be busy with studying/her own friends unless her dad is subtly trying to limit their time together (she prolly can't use a smartphone at school tho versus setting up a time to like borrow her dad's phone/ipad or so for face time, and like her friend said, she was struggling just to keep it together by herself)

i imagine this takes modern day but depending on how old she or the author is, maybe they're just from a generation where it's uncommon to just call for no reason versus like a once a week call

Surprised there's not a drama tag too rather than just the comedy even if the beginning was light hearted

Would be interesting to see this get a live action

 

[mug3n]

Guess it depends on how busy ppl are tho i'd imagine the kid would also be busy with studying/her own friends unless her dad is subtly trying to limit their time together (she prolly can't use a smartphone at school tho versus setting up a time to like borrow her dad's phone/ipad or so for face time, and like her friend said, she was struggling just to keep it together by herself)

i imagine this takes modern day but depending on how old she or the author is, maybe they're just from a generation where it's uncommon to just call for no reason versus like a once a week call

Surprised there's not a drama tag too rather than just the comedy even if the beginning was light hearted

Would be interesting to see this get a live action

We lack context here, but I've been in the kid's situation with my mother, we were alone with my grandparents near us. At some point she had to move out for work for a year and a half and we talked on the phone like 2 times a week, she always called. Idk, the only thing we have seen until now is she only talks to her only in the mandatory time with her. I'm not saying she shouldn't think about living with her, but there is a disconnect between what she thinks and what she does.

 

[CheesiBoye]

this might sound callous but i really dont understand why she doesnt at least text and facetime her child regularly. like all this talk abt wanting to be present and a understanding figure that akari can rely on, but theres really no attempt to like, actually be present or understand her as an individual.

theres a tendency in fiction to write children's internal states and attitudes as kind of, existing at adults convenience rather than being shaped by primarily by how their actual developmental needs are fulfilled. it makes the adults surrounding them look better comparitively, but it results in these flat, unrealistic child characters that just serve as set dressing for the adults in their life(which i guess, is what many people assume kids should be).

i think this, along with that aside abt a woman's estranged family actually loving her bc they badgered her husband for her ashes after she died, is indicative of a somewhat iffy perspective of familial relationships on the authors part. where years of lackluster parenting can be made up for with ~vibes~ in real life things rarely work out like that.

I feel like it is a limitation of writing a narrative centered around local food tourism in japan. It comes off as very non-commital to most of the characters in the human drama, any forward action gets under cut by the actual comission and is never shown to be the vice it actually is. The closest the narrative ever got to framing her form of cope as something harmful was a few chapters back juxtaposing her going for a drink then somberly thinking about her kid, only to be met with more chapters like this one where it begins the narrative but seemingly gets resolved by drinking and eating with nothing actually being done.

The narrative feels like it will never let her stop drinking, but is completely fine with her not having the kid. I have no idea how they spin it into a positive light, having her drink and eat as opposed to finding time to spend with her child, which seems to be the only other core trait the author gave her

 

[acatia]

this might sound callous but i really dont understand why she doesnt at least text and facetime her child regularly.

Its entirely possible the kid just doesnt have a phone ngl. I know some people who only got their own phone at like, 17-ish. MC also doesnt seem to be in contact with her ex-husband's family at all, and she doesn't seem to talk to her ex outside of the few very dry correspondences we're shown. Plus the ex-husband is stated to be rather busy w work etc. Her work is on pretty odd hours too, so its hard to say if she has the liberty to regularly schedule anything at all. Perhaps its just a case of unfortunate circumstances. Or just a case of bad writing, but i think its best to give everyone the benefit of doubt.