Azul Food

Azul says that, as a child, his grandmother would welcome him home from school with “a whole table loaded with a variety of snacks and drinks” for him, his birthdays would be celebrated with the largest table at his mother’s restaurant stacked high with his favorite foods, and his family “was most insistent (he) cleaned (his) myriad plates.”

In a photo from Azul’s childhood, Ruggie describes Azul as “twice as wide” as other children in his class, while Grim says, “Azul, you were THIS round and fat back then!?”

Azul never explicitly says that his appearance was one of the things he was bullied for as a child, but it was possibly a factor.

The insecurities he states openly are being hopeless in both studies and athletics, and always being alone.

Azul reflects on how he did not belong with other mermaids, he was an octopus (“unlike other merfolk”) and he was an introvert who never asserted himself.

We see a flashback where mermaid children comment on child-Azul creating ink when he cries, being slow and being boring to play with. This seems to have been the catalyst in Azul becoming who he is present day: he resolves to turn his disadvantages into strengths and get revenge, saying, “I never forgot for a second the sight of those who mocked me. Those who bullied me.”

He creates his own unique magic, an ability to take the talents and strengths of others: “I’m not the same silly, lonely little octopus I used to be.”

But it seems that his pre-self-transformation past is still a delicate subject for Azul: he acquires all the yearbooks from his former classmates and photo negatives from their photographer. When he is unable to legally dispose of a class photo on display in a museum he tries to acquire it through Jack, Grim and the perfect in Book 3.

Azul explains, “I thought that if I could erase every photo of my past…I could erase my past itself.” While he says that he wants to be like the Sea Witch who “never hid her past misdeeds. She worked to restore her reputation, and earned the people’s respect that way” in Book 3, the topic seems to remain sensitive for him: he silences a Book-4 Grim who comments on child-Azul being “round.”

Fear of returning to the way he had been pre-NRC seems to be a strong contributor to Azul’s overblot. After Leona dissolves his contracts Azul’s response is to cry, “Without that, I…I…I’m back to being that ‘silly little octo-twerp’ again! That’s the last thing I want… I refuse, I refuse, I REFUSE! I don’t WANNA go back to being my old self again!”

An overblotting Azul decides to protect himself from his own past by forcibly draining power from those around him (“I’m going to revert back to my old self if I don’t act now!”).

In Azul’s dream of Book 7 he surprises everyone by becoming a star player of a high school sports team, and Jade observes, “the Azul in this dream is an Azul without a past he wishes he could erase:” Azul’s “cautious personality” and unique magic were born from negative emotions (“loneliness, sadness, resentment, envy, and the like”), and without that background he became “super popular” and “the total opposite of how he really is.”

In Azul’s dream of Book 7 he invites Jade, Floyd, and the group of “land dwellers” to his mother’s restaurant, forcing the non-mermaid members to wear sea anemones on their heads in what he claims is a fashion statement (later proven to be a malicious joke).

After the first-year students are invited to dance and fall over themselves Azul joins other mermaids in laughing at them, calling them “sad, pathetic creatures,” having himself become one of the bullies he hates.

In the abyss of Book 7, however, Azul is met with his overblotted self swearing revenge against the bullies of his past (“I never want to go back to the weak person I used to be”) and observes, “You’re adorning yourself with things stolen from others…and now you’re immobilized by the sheer weight of it all…I’m consumed with vanity and refuse to accept who I really am.”

Azul says that he is careful about what he eats, never touches “oily foods like mayonnaise,” and prefers “having a well-defined figure.”

Azul has multiple lines in the game about tracking calories, mentioning not wanting to exceed his “daily caloric limit,” saying, “I wish the cafeteria would advertise how many calories everything has. It’s hard for me to keep track,” and, “I used to eat a lot of designer health foods, since it’s so easy to count calories that way. Until I got sick of them, that is.”

In Book 3 we see Azul wanting to avoid an “all-carb” meal for being “nutritionally lopsided” and not wanting to gain weight (in a line that was changed to not wanting to “feel tired” in the EN manga).

In Ruggie’s dream of Book 7 Azul is shocked by Grim eating a doughnut “piled high with chocolate and cream” (“Can you imagine how many calories are in just one of those concoctions?!”), but after Ortho points out it is “technically worth zero calories in the real world,” he asks for the same doughnut for himself.

Azul overlaps with doughnuts again during Tapis Rouge, reacting strongly to a ring puff doughnut (along with Vil) due to the “huge amount of high-calorie cream.” After seeing Vil and Azul’s reactions, Jamil decides to not buy the doughnut.

Azul does eat a croissant during the Glorious Masquerade event, but whereas Epel and Deuce go back for seconds and thirds, he refuses (“I prefer a more systematic approach to my energy intake”).

Azul tell Riddle directly of his regrets about “eating whatever (he) liked” prior to NRC (“Wasting time while accumulating calories”), and Floyd says that Azul “only ever picks at his food these days,” and that he should eat more.

Jamil makes a similar comment during Halloween, but instead of making the connection that Azul is counting calories he seems to suspect Azul of plotting something (“For as little as you’re eating, you’ve been going around eyeing everything. Is there a scheme in the works I should know about?”).

Azul responds, “Can’t an honest businessman scope out the catering without being painted as some kind of villain?”

Azul’s favorite food is kara-age (localized as “fried chicken” on EN), and he says he has tried recreating it with healthier alternatives (using oven-fried chicken and soy meat as examples), but “nothing quite meets (his) expectations…”

When Trey uses his unique magic on Sally’s soup during the NBC event, however, Azul says that his tastes “as savory as a juicy steak.”

Azul says, “Birthdays are the one time you can get away with eating whatever you like!”

During Glorious Masquerade Azul scolds Deuce and Epel for being more interested in food than a history lesson about the city, until his stomach growls, at which point he asks Rollo to recommend local bread (Epel: “He sure changed the subject quick…who knew Azul’s stomach could be that loud?”).

After seeing Ruggie carrying seven plates of food at NRC’s Halloween party Azul says, “I get heartburn just watching Ruggie eat.” Jade responds, “I believe you could put him to shame if you felt so inclined—“ (Azul: “Not another word.”)

After Trey uses his unique magic on Sally’s soup during NBC, Azul follows Vil’s lead and asks for seconds, and he also eats one of the food packs they find at STYX in between battles in Tartarus (“I typically try to avoid this kind of stuff…but you’re right, I’m going to be burning more energy. I can’t afford to be picky.”)

Jade describes Azul as “a true gourmet,” and our earliest example of this might be in Azul’s dorm vignette: despite not wanting to “put anything that dubious into (his) mouth,” he concedes to trying the school store’s “Mystery Drink” in order to “form an effective countermeasure.”

He is able to identify not only the ingredients used in the drink based solely on taste, but also the different regions from which they were harvested.

Jade says, “Does his ability to so accurately analyze ingredients based on taste alone come from his upbringing, I wonder?…I imagine that growing up in a restaurant allowed him to try many different foods and keenly develop his sense of taste.”

Azul says that, while he has “impeccable taste,” he is “well out of (his) depth when it comes to actually preparing food.

Azul describing food is a common theme (Jamil: “Must you be so hyperbolic?”), seen in Master Chef, Glorious Masquerade, Tapis Rouge, and Book 7.

After eating with Vil’s father during the Tapis Rouge event Jamil says, “The second we got out of the restaurant Azul started rating every little thing about it. What does he think he is, a food critic?”

Azul impresses Ace with his “discerning palate” during the Stitch event, and when Lilia presents him with a “gold and shiny” fruit that he describes as “highly nutritious” Azul declares he is “delighted to have the chance to dine on such a sought-after superfruit.”

After tasting it, however, he passes out immediately. Ace reflects, “Azul’s got a sensitive enough palate to identify water by taste, so I can only imagine what this must’ve done to him…”

When faced with the thread of spending an entire year in Halloweentown during the NBC event, Azul says that the “real key issue” is that he could “never endure a whole year eating the awful slop they call food!”

When Sally offers him a soup later in the event are refuses, saying, “I have a very sensitive palate!”

Vil: “That’s rather rude.”
Azul: “You’re welcome to have some instead, Vil.”
Vil: “No! What if I break out in hives?!”
Azul: “That seems rather rude to me!”