When anime and manga creators go to make a new character, they have a lot of basic personality types to work from. They could make a new female character a 無口キャラ mukuchi-chara or “silent girl” who almost never talks, or a ドジっ子 dojikko who’s clumsy in a way that makes her charming, or perhaps a twin-tail childhood friend in a wheelchair who works as a blind robot maid and who’s secretly the ghost of a fox-spirit. In Gundam Build Fighters there’s a new type of character, one who has a great passion for Japanese food, a genre I’ll name 和食っ子 washokukko (“girl who likes Japanese food”), in case it turns into a thing. Aila Jyrkiäinen is a Gunpla fighter from Finland who loves the food of Japan, from bento to takoyaki to nikuman steamed meat buns (which are Chinese, but whatever), and much comedy ensues when she has to battle Aria for ownership of some food they both want.
Aila Jyrkiäinen is a girl who takes Japanese food seriously.
