I Want to Eat Your Pancreas ( Kimi no Suizō o Tabetai), also known as Let Me Eat Your Pancreas, is a novel by the Japanese writer Yoru Sumino. The animated film premiered on September 1, 2018.

Although the anime sounds like a thriller anime with violence and gore or at least an anime with some pancreatic loving zombies. But to our surprise, it has nothing to do with killing/zombies. Rather, It is a beautifully tragic drama. I love how it is both beautiful and tragic at the same time.

The title comes after the Japanese legendary story of eating a body part from a loved one to cure a disease afflicting the same body part.

The anime starts with a pretty upset setting, a funeral, silent town, dark days, heavy rain and a gloomy protagonist. The protagonist whose name is only used at the end of the anime.

This anime is very simple yet heart touching. Maybe the simple things are the ones that really touch our hearts.

The protagonist is shown to be a quiet, introverted and bookish person with no friends and emotions. He doesn’t care about anyone and we can almost feel the emptiness he has.

And coincidentally, no not by the coincidence but by the choice of the protagonist to be at the hospital at that moment and by his own choice to pick a book named “Living with Dying” falling on the floor, he meets a person he will never forget, Sakura Yamauchi, the owner of the book.

“People don’t meet by coincidence, they meet by the choices they made in life.” – Sakura Yamauchi

The book is a journal of the Sakura who has few months to live because of a terminal pancreatic illness. Sakura is a very cheerful, popular and kind person who wants to live her life to the fullest so she could die with no regrets. Now since the protagonist too knows about her illness which Sakura had kept the secret from her friends, she drags him along with her bucket list.

The protagonist seems to be not caring at all but soon he starts to have fun with Sakura and begins to wish for her life. The wish, which is unheard.

It’s beautiful to see the evolution of the protagonist from an emotionless person to a fun-loving person. It’s almost like a caterpillar turning into a butterfly. Emotions are what make humans beautiful after all.

I love how the anime is inclined more towards life than towards the death, It’s almost like Living with Dying as death is always with us everywhere.

At the end of the anime, the name of the protagonist is revealed as Shiga Haruki.

Sakura simply means “cherry blossom” in English while Haruki means “bright clean weather” and although cherry blossoms are short-lived they look the most beautiful in bright clean weather.

Final Thoughts

Overall the anime is sadly warming and beautiful and sends off a great message which we all know but still ignore, that life is to be lived fullest so that we can die with no regrets.