56 pages • 1 hour read
Banana YoshimotoKitchen
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 1988A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Quiz
Reading Check, Multiple Choice & Short Answer Quizzes
Reading Check questions are designed for in-class review on key plot points or for quick verbal or written assessments. Multiple Choice and Short Answer Quizzes create ideal summative assessments, and collectively function to convey a sense of the work’s tone and themes.
Section 1: “Kitchen”
Reading Check
1. Why does Mikage move in with Yuichi and Eriko?
2. How does Yuichi know Mikage?
3. Why did Yuichi’s maternal family disown Eriko?
4. What comforts Mikage after she breaks down crying on her bus ride?
5. Why is Yuichi so shocked by Mikage’s dream?
Multiple Choice
1. What reason does Mikage give for living with Yuichi and Eriko?
A) She is desperate for a place to stay.
B) She recognizes that she and Yuichi share a worldview on loneliness and loss.
C) She sees Eriko as a role model.
D) She longs to erase the memories of her old home.
2. Why are people at university gossiping about Mikage, according to Sotaro?
A) because they think she is in a relationship with Yuichi
B) because she has ignored her classes
C) because she is living with Eriko, a transgender woman
D) because they think she must have inherited a great deal of money
3. What concern does Eriko have about Yuichi’s temperament?
A) He’s cruel to people.
B) He’s too sensitive.
C) He’s too distant with people.
D) He’s lacking direction in life.
4. How does Mikage respond to the gift of a banana glass?
A) She vows to move out quickly to prevent a feeling of obligation.
B) She is deeply moved by the generosity.
C) She realizes these people aren’t her real family.
D) She is reminded of a similar glass from her childhood.
5. What does Eriko recommend to Mikage in order to cope with difficult times?
A) Invest in your own comfort.
B) Find a meaningful vocation.
C) Raise something.
D) Always keep moving.
Short-Answer Response
Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Why does Mikage like kitchens so much?
2. What does Mikage think of Eriko?
3. What does Mikage ironically realize when she is making new address cards?
4. Why does Mikage wake up from her dream?
5. Why is Mikage’s assertion that she will have many more dream kitchens in her life a significant statement?
Section 2: “Full Moon”
Reading Check
1. What happens to Eriko?
2. What does Mikage do for Yuichi when she first comes back into the house?
3. Who is Okuno?
4. What does Mikage do for Yuichi while she’s in Izu?
5. How does the story between Mikage and Yuichi end?
Multiple Choice
1. What does Eriko’s letter reveal about her intentions in life?
A) She has carefully chosen to be beautiful.
B) She regrets how she treated her wife’s family.
C) She only wanted to raise Yuichi well.
D) She knows that some of her behavior was selfish.
2. How has Yuichi been coping with his circumstances in this part of the book?
A) by cooking extravagant meals
B) by drinking heavily
C) by jogging every morning
D) by spending all his time out of the house
3. What does the pineapple from Eriko’s story help her understand?
A) She is unfit to take care of things besides herself.
B) Small things in life can grow into the most meaningful things.
C) She was totally unprepared to deal with grief.
D) The world does not exist for her comfort or benefit.
4. What does Chika realize about Yuichi when she speaks to him?
A) that he’s in love with Mikage
B) that he intends to kill himself
C) that he is transgender
D) that he intends to leave Tokyo for good
5. Why does Mikage see urgency in her decision to leave Izu and see Yuichi?
A) because she believes he will begin to ignore her again
B) because he needs comfort the same way she needed it when her grandmother died
C) because if she does not act, they will remain friends instead of becoming lovers
D) because he may leave and decide not to return
Short-Answer Response
Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. Why hasn’t Yuichi called Mikage?
2. What is the central tension between Mikage and Yuichi in the second part of their story?
3. Why does Mikage want to live with the awareness of mortality?
4. What does Mikage realize when Okuno confronts her?
5. What is represented by Mikage eating delicious katsudon while Yuichi can find no good food?
Section 3: “Moonlight Shadow”
Reading Check
1. What did Hitoshi carry with him everywhere?
2. Why does Satsuki drop her thermos in the river?
3. What has Hiiragi begun doing to cope with his grief?
4. How does Urara say she found Satsuki’s phone number?
5. What does Satsuki see when she meets Urara at the river on the appointed day?
Multiple Choice
1. Why does Satsuki take up running in the morning?
A) She is worried about her health.
B) She cannot sleep due to her grief.
C) She longs to see new parts of the city at dawn.
D) She knows that Hitoshi loved to run.
2. Why does Satsuki hope to run into Urara again?
A) She is curious about the look on Urara’s face as they parted company.
B) She thinks they will be fast friends.
C) She is eager to get a replacement thermos.
D) She is curious about Urara’s easy openness with her.
3. What stops Hiiragi when Satsuki sees him walking alone on the street?
A) tennis equipment in a store window
B) an umbrella stand
C) a newsstand selling manga
D) a young woman wearing his deceased girlfriend’s school uniform
4. What does Hiiragi make Satsuki promise him when he brings her KFC?
A) to not go mad with grief by indulging Urara’s visions
B) to try to move on from her loss
C) to reach out to him when she needs someone
D) to live well in honor of Hitoshi
5. How does Hiiragi know he hasn’t dreamed the vision he saw?
A) He knows about the Weaver Festival Phenomenon.
B) His uniform is missing.
C) He had the same vision Satsuki had.
D) His mother saw it, too.
Short-Answer Response
Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. How is this section thematically linked to the story of Mikage and Yuichi?
2. Why does Satsuki think Hiiragi’s pain is greater than her own?
3. How are Satsuki’s running and Hiiragi’s cross-dressing the same thing, according to Satsuki?
4. How does Urara’s promise to see something at the river affect Satsuki?
5. What does Satsuki realize about herself at the end of the story?
Quizzes – Answer Key
Section 1: “Kitchen”
Reading Check
1. Her grandmother died.
2. He worked at the flower shop Mikage’s grandmother visited often.
3. because she is transgender
4. seeing an active kitchen
5. He had the same dream.
Multiple Choice
1. B
2. A
3. C
4. B
5. C
Short-Answer Response
Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. They are a source of creativity, care, and comfort.
2. She is stunningly beautiful and is a free-spirited woman.
3. that she should move out as soon as she can
4. She thinks the singing in her dream will wake up her grandmother.
5. It is an admission that she will move on from her grief and continue going forward.
Section 2: “Full Moon”
Reading Check
1. She is murdered by a fan.
2. She makes him an extravagant meal.
3. Yuichi’s girlfriend
4. She orders him katsudon and travels to bring it to him.
5. He will pick her up from the train station and they will likely begin a life together.
Multiple Choice
1. A
2. B
3. D
4. A
5. C
Short-Answer Response
Answer each of the following questions in a complete sentence or sentences. Incorporate details from the text to support your response.
1. He thinks calling her will make his mother’s death real.
2. They realize that they have romantic feelings for one another.
3. because that is the only way she can feel that the life she is living is meaningful
4. Since Okuno does not know the whole story, her pain is legitimate.
5. what it means to be in different stages of grief; the way that she has been unable to care for him in the way he needs
Section 3: “Moonlight Shadow”
Reading Check
1. a small bell
2. She is startled by Urara.
3. dressing in his deceased girlfriend’s school uniform
4. She willed herself to know it.
5. a vision of Hitoshi
Multiple Choice
1. B
2. A
3. A
4. C
5. B
Short-Answer Response
1. They are both about struggling to hold on to relationships during a time of grief.
2. He has lost a brother and a girlfriend, whereas she has only lost Hitoshi.
3. They are both attempts to “lend some life to a shriveled spirit” (Page 120).
4. She feels hope for something for the first time since Hitoshi’s death.
5. that she cannot help but move on from her grief, though she hopes that a part of her will remain with Hitoshi
