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How can one begin to describeKantaro: The Sweet Tooth Salaryman?
But then he bites the food and is immediately transported to a land of sweets and CGI.
Its a food show, its a travel show, and its a truly unhinged comedy.
There is no tonal consistency, especially in the acting styles of the ensemble.
Kantaros boss is basically the pig boss from fellow Japanese Netflix import,Aggretsuko.
The people who serve Kantaro food really work in those cafes, so they arent acting at all.
And Kantaro veers between total stoicism and re-creating his favorite GIFs fromJizz in My Pants.
Comedian Aparna Nancherlasees beyondKantaros grotesqueries to the existential parable at its heart.
The show makes you ask:What are you living for?
For your friends and family?Kantaro lives for dessert, but in moderation.
How did you find this show?My boyfriend was the one who turned me on to it.
I dont know if I would have discovered it otherwise.
Usually when I sign on to Netflix, I get so overwhelmed that I dont know where to start.
I dont think I even got a satisfactory explanation of how he discovered it, but he somehow did.
He watches a lot more than I do, so I think he stumbled onto it.
When he first described it to me, I thought it was a cartoon.
In no way did I think it was going to be live-action.
Wikipedia describes it as a drama-comedy, and I guess it has moments of drama.
But generally, its so sweet and quirky and weird.
It scratches an itch I didnt even know I had.
This businessman whos seemingly very successful at work takes these secret rendezvous with desserts.
It captures some vein of existentialism that I didnt feel like Id seen on television before.
Is it odd for you as a professional artist to feel like work life can be soulless?
Theres that American ethos that if you love your job, it cant really be work.Yeah!
Its not even work.No, its still definitely work.
Youre running away from something if you have to consume yourself with this one area of your life.
As long as I was there, it didnt matter if I was doing my job or not.
Whereas when youre freelancing, youre never really in an office.
Every single moment, I feel like I could be working.
How was it described when it was initially conceived?
I guess its based on a manga, so there was already a basis from where it was adapted.
But it still defies any one genre.
You want it to be just a comedy, but then itll have much more serious moments.
Even his enjoyment of the dessert theres so much pathos to it.
Its almost like a soap opera in the moments that hes enjoying a dessert.
Youre having sex with this dessert.
Its very over-the-top, and I could see it turning some people off.
I just love how committed he is to these simple pleasures.
It is like a shared humanity.
Normally, youd associate that level of carnal pleasure with sex or something.
But hes just truly enjoying this afternoon treat.
It is giving him euphoria.
Is there a dessert from the show that particularly appealed to you?
I personally got obsessed with trying shaved ice and went down a Yelp-hole looking for it.Did you find any?
Theres this place calledBesfren they have this dessert thats basically a pile of cookies in a cup.
And they fill it with milk and its basically like a cookie cereal.
What else do you want in life?
On the show, all the Japanese desserts fascinated me because they were entirely new to me.
The first one, anmitsu, was incredible.
But it definitely makes you want one.
I was also into the Western ones that had been adapted to these little Japanese cafes.
Thepancake onewas fascinating to me.
It was treated not as a breakfast food, but as a dessert.
Because itisa dessert we just have never acknowledged it as such.
There are a lot of breakfast foods that are really just desserts.
But it was funny that the show was like, No, pancake hascakein the name.
It is a dessert.
I feel like no matter where I go, Ill be trying to find the bougie-est coffee shop.
What do you like about a bougie coffee shop?Bougie coffee shops are essentially a chain.
Their brand is that none of them are a chain, but theyalllook the same.
Theyre all essentially copycats of each other.
But theres something about the aesthetic that feels familiar to me.
The industrial-chic vibe is a little too sterile for me.
I need it to be like somebodys aunt came through first.
And tried her best.Or at least sold a few of her crafts.
I want to go back to the fantasy sequences onKantaro.
I have to do dark chocolate over milk chocolate, stuff like that.
So now, if I do have something that sweet, I can feel it coursing through me.
But it has a noticeable effect on our brains.
That is something that I was also feeling.
I almost never get dessert because of trying to cut down on sweets or whatever.
It got really uncomfortable when he was having the dessert over his moms sleeping body.
But I really related to it because it showed the two extremes of this man.
Hes allowing himself these indulgences in life and not really giving himself guilt or shame about it.
Versus where he came from, which was the farthest extreme of No Sugar Ever.
I was struck when you said the show was existential because Id never thought of it that way.
Food really is an existential crisis.
We talk about food and desserts as things that will kill you.
But if you deny yourself constantly, then what are you living for?
Have you found a balance?I struggled with food issues in college.
I appreciated his outlook that was [more indulgent].
Even though he lets himself have dessert every day, hes not overdoing it.
Theres this fascination with being completely pure cutting something out completely, or just being good around food completely.
So I appreciated the way the show approached dessert like it wasnt something bad.
It was just associated with positive things.
