I've been thinking a lot lately about how Kabru deprives himself.
Kabru as a character is intertwined with the idea that sometimes we have to sacrifice the needs of the few for the good of the many. He ultimately subverts this first by sabotaging the Canaries and then by letting Laios go, but in practice he's already been living a life of self-sacrifice.
Saving people, and learning the secrets of the dungeons to seal them, are what's important. Not his own comforts. Not his own desires. He forces them down until he doesn't know they're there, until one of them has to come spilling out during the confession in chapter 76.
Specifically, I think it's very significant, in a story about food and all that it entails, that Kabru is rarely shown eating. He's the deuteragonist of Dungeon Meshi, the cooking manga, but while meals are the anchoring points of Laios's journey, given loving focus, for Kabru, they're ... not.
I'm sure he eats during dungeon expeditions, in the routine way that adventurers must when they sit down to camp. But on the surface, you get the idea that Kabru spends most of his time doing his self-assigned dungeon-related tasks: meeting with people, studying them, putting together that evidence board, researching the dungeon, god knows what else. Feeding himself is secondary.
He's introduced during a meal, eating at a restaurant, just to set up the contrast between his party and Laios's. And it's the last normal meal we see him eating until the communal ending feast (if you consider Falin's dragon parts normal).
First, we get this:
Kabru's response here is such a non-answer, it strongly implies to me that he wasn't thinking about it until Rin brought it up. That he might not even be feeling the hunger signals that he logically knew he should.
They sit down to eat, but Kabru is never drawn reaching for food or eating it like the rest of his party. He only drinks.
It's possible this means nothing, that we can just assume he's putting food in his mouth off-panel, but again, this entire manga is about food. Cooking it, eating it, appreciating it, taking pleasure in it, grounding yourself in the necessary routine of it and affirming your right to live by consuming it. It's given such a huge focus.
We don't see him eat again until the harpy egg.
What a significant question for the protagonist to ask his foil in this story about eating! Aren't you hungry? Aren't you, Kabru?
He was revived only minutes ago after a violent encounter. And then he chokes down food that causes him further harm by triggering him, all because he's so determined to stay in Laios's good graces.
In his flashback, we see Milsiril trying to spoon-feed young Kabru cake that we know he doesn't like. He doesn't want to eat: he wants to be training.
Then with Mithrun, we see him eating the least-monstery monster food he can get his hands on, for the sake of survival- walking mushroom, barometz, an egg. The barometz is his first chance to make something like an a real meal, and he actually seems excited about it because he wants to replicate a lamb dish his mother used to make him!
...but he doesn't get to enjoy it like he wanted to.
Then, when all the Canaries are eating field rations ... Kabru still isn't shown eating. He's only shown giving food to Mithrun.
And of course the next time he eats is the bavarois, which for his sake is at least plant based ... but he still has to use a coping mechanism to get through it.
I don't think Kabru does this all on purpose. I think Kui does this all on purpose. Kabru's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder should be understood as informing his character just as much as Laios's autism informs his. It's another way that Kabru and Laios act as foils: where Laios takes pleasure in meals and approaches food with the excitement of discovery, Kabru's experiences with eating are tainted by his trauma. Laios indulges; Kabru denies himself. Laios is shown enjoying food, Kabru is shown struggling with it.
And I can very easily imagine a reason why Kabru might have a subconscious aversion towards eating.
Meals are the privilege of the living.
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#109
When the doorbell rings, the hero’s kind of hoping it’s the pizza delivery guy.
They open the door to find, tragically, not the pizza delivery guy.
“Uh,” the villain says, “hi.”
The hero isn’t entirely sure what sequence of words would best fit this scenario. “Hi?” is the best they can do.
The villain shuffles on their feet awkwardly. A pause hangs between them, filled by the distant roar of the city beyond. “I thought you’d ask why I’m here,” they say eventually.
“I’m more concerned about how you’re here.”
A smile threatens the corners of the villain’s mouth. “We know where all you heroes live.” The smile fades into nothing again. “Or just I know, now, I guess.”
“Okay.” The hero squints at the villain uncertainly. “I’ll entertain you. Why the hell are you standing outside my door?”
“No one wants to be a villain anymore. Everyone quit.” The villain’s face contorts into some unreadable expression. “It’s just me.”
That doesn’t sound right. From the villain’s slight grimace, they know it too. “Everyone… quit villainy,” the hero repeats.
“There’s nothing to gain from it anymore. We had a vote and I was the only one who wanted to keep going.” The villain’s gaze dips to their hands as if they hold answers. “They left me everything, but… I can’t do it all on my own. So I’m turning myself in.”
The hero stares at the villain for a long moment. “Even [Supervillain].”
“Especially [Supervillain].”
The hero steps aside with a sigh. The villain looks like they’re being invited into a pit of wolves. “You want me to come into your house?”
“My handcuffs are in my living room cabinet and I don’t trust you standing out there. It’s cold, anyway.”
The villain closes the door behind them in an uncharacteristic show of politeness as the hero digs through their drawers. They’re wiping their shoes on the mat when the hero gets back, cuffs in hand.
The villain holds their hands out and the hero clicks the cuffs around their wrists. It’s almost too easy. The question is sitting on the tip of their tongue.
“What’s the catch?”
The villain doesn’t seem surprised by the question. They shrug halfheartedly. “Dunno.” They glance about for inspiration. “All the others have gone into hiding, I guess. You have me, but everyone else will probably evade you for the rest of time.”
“Much like they already do.” The hero manoeuvres them to the sofa in the living room, giving them a nudge to make them actually sit down. “You make it sound like you’ve been left in charge of the entire criminal organisation.”
The barking laugh the villain lets out is entirely fake. Too sharp, too short. “I have.”
“So villany will collapse without you.”
The villain shrugs again, the motion laden with effort. “Not like anyone else was willing to carry that burden—and I’m not either, hence why I’m, y’know…” They gesture vaguely at themself, in cuffs, in the hero’s living room.
The villain goes, villainy is defeated. No more villains, no more big crimes, no more heroes. Everything the agency has worked to be would collapse. The hero would be out of a job. It'd be over.
Yet here the villain is, giving everything up, taking the entirety of villainy down with them. The sole survivor of a shipwreck and wishing they’d gone down with the ship. A ship they don’t seem to realise the hero is on too.
The doorbell rings again, and the hero leaves the villain carefully settling on the sofa to answer it. They return with a giant grin on their face and a giant pizza box in their hands.
“Let’s worry about all this afterwards,” the hero says brightly. They brandish the box at the villain in the hopes of tempting them. “Want some?”
The tempting works; the villain reaches for a slice. “What a last meal.”
The hero sets the box on the coffee table as they flop back on the sofa. “I don’t know, [Villain],” they say with a smile, “I don’t think it has to be.”
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