Friendship

The author thematically inspects friendship throughout Sweet Bean Paste. After Tokue begins working at Doraharu with Sentaro, Sukegawa illustrates the symbiotic nature of platonic relationships. In Chapter 11, Tokue thanks Sentaro for hiring her. When she was young, Tokue dreamed of being a schoolteacher and spending time with the schoolgirls who visit the shops allows her to “enjoy a fraction of what it might’ve been like” (65). She is grateful to her boss for “giving her a chance to meet those girls” (65). Concurrently, Sentaro feels that he is the one receiving help. Without Tokue he would not have learned how to make bean paste and the bakery would have continued to struggle. Through their friendship, both characters are able to explore latent facets of their personal identities and abet feelings of loneliness.

In Chapter 11, the author continues to explore friendship through his character Wakana. Unlike the other...