Basic Trope: Someone who's Late for School will rush there with toast in their mouth.
- Straight: In the pilot episode of Elegant Gothic Lolita, Miki wakes up and realizes that she's Late for School. She grabs some toast, shoves it in her mouth, and then runs to school. She may accidentally crash into someone on the way.
- Exaggerated:
- Miki shoves an entire loaf of bread in her mouth.
- Whenever Miki is late for anything, she's shown running there with toast in her mouth.
- Downplayed:
- Miki takes a quick bite of toast before leaving the house.
- Miki isn't late to school, but she still takes toast to eat on the way there.
- Justified: Miki didn't have anything else to eat that morning, and toast was the fastest option available.
- Inverted:
- Miki only eats toast when she's early for school.
- Miki rushes back home from school while eating toast.
- Some sentient toast is late for school, and eats Miki while running there.
- Subverted:
- Miki is late, but she decides that she should at least eat breakfast first so she has enough energy to run there.
- Toast is Miki's Trademark Favorite Food. It turns out that she just likes eating toast and does it any day, even when she's not late.
- Double Subverted: She still wants something to eat while she's getting there, and thus puts toast in her mouth.
- Parodied:
- When Miki's at school, she sees a group of other students running in lock-step formation, all with toast in their mouths. She can instantly tell these are the late arrivals.
- Miki has a bag of bread labeled "In Case of Lateness, Make Toast".
- In her free time, Miki is seen making a ranking of foods by how feasible it is to eat them while running to school. Toast ranks #1.
- Zig-Zagged: Miki wakes up on her first day of school and decides to have some breakfast. She realizes that her watch is fast and she's actually late, but only by three minutes, so she still wants to eat first. Her mother encourages her to get to school early, and she takes a piece of toast to eat during lunch, but gets hungry and finishes it on the way to school.
- Averted: Nobody in the work eats toast while being late.
- Enforced: The series is a parody of anime. The writers recognize this as one of the most common tropes and figure it sets the tone, so they include it.
- Lampshaded: "Oh no, I'm late for school! I'll just have some toast, that'll be enough..."
- Invoked:
- Miki's mother gives her some toast for breakfast before she runs outside.
- Miki has a contraption built so that a toaster launches toast into her mouth, to use in case she's ever late.
- Exploited: Miki is Brilliant, but Lazy. She stayed home and enjoyed a full breakfast despite being late, but still wants people to think she just overslept by accident, so she grabs some toast and has it in her mouth before arriving at school.
- Defied:
- Miki doesn't like toast and refuses to eat it.
- Miki makes sure she wakes up early enough to have a filling breakfast and then make it to school on time.
- Discussed: "Oh, man, wouldn't it be embarrassing if I arrived late and had nothing to eat but toast?"
- Conversed: "Why does every anime start with the protagonist being late for school, then just stuffing toast in their mouth and running there?"
- Implied: Miki is talking to her friend and says "At least I got here on time, unlike that one girl who was running around with toast in her mouth."
- Played for Laughs: This scene is part of an in-universe Parody Commercial for toast.
- Played for Drama: Miki's family is poor. She doesn't have much food, and has no car to drive to school with, so this is an indicator of how stressful her life is.
Better grab some Toast of Tardiness! You don't wanna be late!
