In the very first page of the Kemono Friends Manga, a book set during Japari Park's now long-gone days of human occupation, author Furai opens the story with a single-page-spanning conflict between the righteous caretaker Nana and the lazy fox Friend she is responsible for.

Here Ezo Red Fox offers Nana an opportunity to bribe her loyalty for 10 seconds at the cost of a kilogram of meat buns. But what if she or someone else were to take her up on that offer?

Assuming that Ezo was seriously offering this, she actually intended to honor the agreement upon payment, and that additional seconds of her time can be bought in multiples of 10 with the necessary amount of buns, how many meat buns would be needed to buy a 1 hour date with the fox, and how much money would that cost?

How Many Buns?

The first number we need to compute this would be the weight of one bun. The Japanese calorie counting website eiyoukeisan.com lists the meat bun or Nikuman (肉まん) as weighing 111 grams and containing about 279 calories.

Next, we determine how many buns add up to one kilogram. Since one kilogram = 1,000 grams we know that 9 buns (999 grams) is approximately that weight. With that we have 10 seconds of Ezo's time, but that's not enough.

To get one minuet we multiply our ten-seconds-worth of buns by 6 which is 54 buns, weighing a total of 5,994 grams and approximately 6 kilograms. To make an hour this is then multiplied by 60 giving us 3,240 buns weighing 359,640 grams and totaling approximately 360 kilograms. In US customary units this is 793.7 pounds.

At What Cost?

To calculate the price of these buns, we will set the cost of one meat bun at 120 Japanese yen, as this is how much Gray Wolf paid for Ezo's bun in chapter 2 of the manga. 3,240 buns at 120 yen each, assuming the base price already accounts for tax or is not taxed, brings the grand total to 388,800 yen. At the current exchange rate, this is equal to 3,426.59 US dollars or 2,715.84 British pounds or 3,015.14 Euros.

So, with 3,240 meat buns, you could buy about 3,600 seconds of Ezo's time, enough for a 1 hour date and a very happy fox girl.