Heartwarming
AnimalsParenting
"If I Eat You, We'll All Live Together": A 9-Year-Old's Farewell to Her Pet Crayfish
She raised a crayfish that ate all her other pets. When it died, she had one request: let's cook and eat it together.
What's going on
Last summer, a 9-year-old girl in Osaka went to a barbecue with friends and caught a bunch of crayfish and small fish from a nearby stream. Everyone gave their catches to her, so she brought them all home and put them together in one tank. The next morning: chaos. One large crayfish had eaten every single other creature — the small fish, the smaller crayfish, all of them. Including ones she had caught herself.
She was annoyed at first, but then she reached a conclusion. The others weren't coming back, so she decided to think of them as now living inside the big crayfish. She named it Zari-chan, resolved to keep it healthy, and tended to it with care for six months. Then, after its second molt, Zari-chan died. And that's when the girl had her second idea: if she and her friends ate Zari-chan together, then Zari-chan — and all the creatures it had once eaten — would live on inside them.
Her mom said "that's disgusting." The girl put the crayfish in the freezer anyway. Then she wrote to Detective! Knight Scoop *(a beloved long-running Osaka variety show where a team of "detectives" are dispatched to fulfill unusual requests from the public)*, asking for help making it happen. This is what followed.
Comments
Call it a gut feeling, but this girl is going to be somebody.
なんとなくですが、この女の子は将来大物になりそう
When the detective said “oh how cute, you put a little ribbon on it!” and she just replied with a quiet “heh heh heh…!” — that was too good.
「あら可愛いリボンつけて！」に対する返事が「ふっふっふ…！」なの可愛すぎる
“If you can eat a dead roly-poly, you can eat a dead crayfish” — I love this argument. (Pill bugs / roly-polies are a common backyard creature that kids in Japan encounter constantly.)
9:28 死んだダンゴムシ食えるなら死んだザリガニもイケるやろ理論すき
That one line stole the entire episode 😂
あの発言で全部持ってかれたな😂
The look on the mom’s face when the friend casually mentioned having eaten 5 roly-polies lol
「ダンゴムシ5個食べた」って言われたお母さんの顔ｗ
9:07 — both friends going “ohh, I see” and “yeah, that tracks” so quickly lol. Good kids.
9:07 🧒「あぁ〜そういうことか」 🧒「そういうことね」って納得が早いw いいお友達だね
The total personality gap between her and her mom is somehow really endearing.
お母さんと全くキャラ違うのなんか良いな
Mom is so quietly reserved, and yet her daughter has nerves of absolute steel lol
お母さんおとなしいのに、娘肝座りすぎやん(笑)
She’s probably got a pretty high IQ. You can just tell she has sharp natural intelligence.
恐らくIQが高いんやろうな 地頭も良さそうだし
Yeah, it’s not the kind of goofiness that comes from being dumb. It’s something totally different.
確かに、アホやからチョケてるっていうのと違う感じがするんよな
I’m completely in awe of how this girl thinks about life and food. She’s on another level.
依頼者の命に対する考え、食との向き合い方に平伏すしかない 凄すぎでしょこの女の子
There have actually been cultures where consuming the bones of the deceased was a form of mourning, so eating something as a tribute isn’t that strange when you think about it. Anyway, this girl is something else 笑
骨噛みという文化もあったから、故人を弔うために食べることは変なことじゃないのかも。 女の子めっちゃ肝座ってて好きだ笑
When I heard “smell specialist,” I was half-expecting that one person from a past episode to show up again.
「匂いの専門家」て聞いてまたあの子が来るかと思った
The fact that the boy said “5 pieces” instead of “5 bugs” when talking about the roly-polies he ate — that detail alone is the whole bit www
少年の死んだダンゴムシ5匹じゃなくて5個なのがポイント高いwww
She speaks so clearly and confidently for a 3rd grader……
三年生でこんなハキハキ喋れるのか……
The mom never once dismissed her daughter’s way of thinking or imposed her own views on her — that’s probably exactly why the girl grew up this free and open. What a lovely family.
お母さんがこの子の感性を否定せず、自分の考えを押し付けなかったからこんなにのびのびとしてるんだろうなー！素敵な家族だ
This kid has such a magnetic personality~ genuinely too entertaining.
この子すごい魅力的だな〜面白すぎる
The parents’ approach to teaching their child about food is really something to admire.
親御さんの食に対する教育が素晴らしいですね
The idea of wanting to eat your pet crayfish is such a fascinating way to think, and I’m amazed at how freely kids today express themselves. These bright, funny, polite Osaka kids are genuinely moving.
ペットのザリガニを食べたいなんて面白い考え方だと思うし、今の子達ってこんなにノビノビしているんですね。元気で明るくて面白くて礼儀正しい大阪のたくましい子供達に感動しました。
What a cute and grounded kid. She’s going to grow into someone who leads, and who people naturally follow.
カワイイしっかりした子だねぇ 将来は人を引っ張って、また人が付いていくリーダー的存在になると見た
Amazing — I’ve had the same thought. Souls carry forward. Like humans having children. Like the food chain. We’re all made up of countless souls we’ve received. And to think a 4th grader arrived here on her own… that’s philosophy.
すごい、同じ発想してる 魂は受け継がれていく 人間が子供産むように 食物連鎖と同じように 僕らは幾億もの魂を摂取して成り立っていると思うから、この発想は僕も同意 それを小4？で想うのが素敵 哲学だなぁ
You can only see stuff like this on Knight Scoop. Great episode!
こういうのナイトスクープしか見れへんな。面白かったです！
Give thanks for every ingredient. “I humbly receive your life” — itadakimasu (the Japanese phrase said before meals, meaning “I humbly receive”) — and “thank you for the feast” — gochisousama (said after finishing a meal). These are things we must never forget, especially now, in an age of abundance.
全ての食材に感謝をして あなたの命を「いただきます」 食材を苦心して集めて もてなしてくれて「ご馳走様でした」 飽食の時代にこそ忘れてはならないのです
She turned abstract philosophy and love into a concrete plan, and then actually went through with it. What a kid.
物理と愛情を行為に着地させ現実的に実行する。まったくすごい子供がいるもんだ
“Living on together through being eaten” — that’s a pretty fundamental truth, and I’m just genuinely impressed.
食べたものと共に生きるというのは本質的で感心しかない
To eat something is to love it.
食うということは愛するということですからね
There are actually multiple cultures worldwide where consuming the deceased was practiced as a form of tribute. For a kid not yet bound by social norms, this is a pretty natural way to think.
世界的にみれば故人を食べる文化の地域は多数ありますしね 常識に縛られない子供としてわりと自然な発想
The mom kind of gives off voice actress energy — very cute.
ママさんなんか声優さんみたいな雰囲気で可愛い
“Treasure life” — those words carry real weight in this context. That said, learning that one of the friends casually ate dead roly-polies at 9:28… even accounting for “receiving life”…
「命を大切にしなさい」 この言葉には結構な重みを感じました。 それにしても、お友達の１人が「死んだダンゴムシを食った」(9:28)とは！命を頂戴したとはいえ…
I still can’t forget the smell of the crayfish I used to keep as a pet, after it died.
昔、飼ってて死んだザリガニの臭いが忘れられない
I studied shrimp in college — a naturally dead one starts smelling absolutely horrific within just a few hours. Like, you really can’t stop gagging.
大学でエビの研究してたけど、自然死のエビとか数時間経つだけでえげつない臭いして、ゲボ止まんないよ
About 10 years ago there was an episode where a woman ran a crayfish restaurant but couldn’t stop crying while cooking because she felt so bad killing them. Would’ve loved a crossover episode.
10年くらい前の回で、お店でザリガニ料理出してるけど炙って◯すのがかわいそうって泣きながら調理する女性いたよね 再登場してほしかった
It was frozen, so the parasite situation should be fine at least.
冷凍してるから寄生虫はokやね
11:35 — the moment she leans on the detective is so sweet 👍🏼🦞✨ I really do love requests that make you sit with what it means to take a life.
11:35 探偵に寄りかかる所良いね👍🏼🦞✨ にしても、命と向き合う感じのこういう依頼好きだ。
So when she said “it was just that kind of time”… that’s what she meant 🤣
「そういう時代」の意味… そういうことやったんですね🤣
SDGs 😂
SDGs😂
This got me a little teary. I just hope she stays exactly this way as she grows up.
涙でてきた そのまま真っ直ぐに大人になってほしいです
My take
We often hear about food education programs where children raise animals in class and then refuse to eat them when the time comes — so seeing a child face that same moment and arrive somewhere this intentional and positive is genuinely remarkable. Learning to receive life with open arms, in every sense, really does matter.
Comments loosely translated for tone.