Bhavna

Rohan stuff is always interesting

So Rohan decides to come to France to the Louvre museum because the Japanese needs some excuse to go to Paris because they’re obsessed with French stuff, let’s just be honest. So Rohan has some kind of history with this black painting, and the lady that he knew at his grandmother‘s rental house who has really black hair. In the past, they had a weird exchange where he was trying to draw his manga and ended up drawing this black haired lady, but the lady saw his drawing and stabbed it with a pair of scissors, so that didn’t go very well. Many years later, Rohan, who I imagine was scarred by that experience ends up paying for this black painting that is supposed to be so incredibly black and so-called evil which was referenced by this black haired woman in the past. There are a lot of details that I don’t really understand which have to do with paintings and duplicates and originals and some artists that was smuggling originals behind duplicates and hiding them in some storage underneath the museum. The scene that really came alive was when this black painting was revealed in some storage basement area of the museum. This reveal of the painting that Rohan has been looking for in some form creates a kind of hallucination of people’s past sins and so they start seeing those past sins come alive. But the lesson should only be about remorse so I don’t understand why it needs to be so scary. Then there’s some strange flashback about this black haired lady and the man you married, who happens to be another version of Rohan – it’s like a double act of Takahashi in his half shaven ponytailed glory. So black haired lady gets really sick and somehow stumbles upon this really black tree sap from the sacred tree and starts harvesting it so that her double act Rohan like ponytail husband can paint a better picture than his dad who is supposed to somehow save his wife since she got sick. Well as he starts painting the trees, SAP seems to engulf the entire scene and it’s power. I don’t think the tree itself is evil, but rather it is the use of it and its powers and its sap for human purposes that felt corrupted. So back in the present moment, where everybody is being turned crazy by this black haired painting at the museum, Rohan decides to do a Heaven’s door on himself and write down forget everything which is a great thing for any main character to do in any show. I’m surprised he didn’t forget everything, including how to talk or walk. But somehow everything resolves into a nice little package at the end and everybody goes home happy.

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Still interesting

This third season of Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan is still interesting but less so compared to the previous two seasons.

The first episode is about how this shadow self of Rohan has somehow overtaken his life for the past 3 months and has been leading a double life behind his back. Then he finds on of his characters that has four eyeballs instead of three as originally planned. This pisses Rohan off to no end. He tries to find a way to reverse the weird shadow man curse and manages to do so with the help of this shadow mistress lady (played by Furukawa Kotone who is another cast member of Nagi’s Long Vacation and plays a similar mistress role).

The second episode is about this kid, a fan of Rohan’s manga Pink Dark Boywho becomes obsessed with this idea around Rohan’s three eyeball character that now has four eyeballs due to the shadow self and stuff from the previous episode. Well the kid stalks Rohan and keeps challenging him to a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors. He loses the first time but then manages to win a couple of rounds and seems to be leaching onto Rohan’s powers which becomes very annoying. Finally after clawing his way back from this terribly unnecessary game Rohan wins the game and regains his powers. This was the more interesting episode of the two, but I think they are both related in that the same weird spirits from the mountain are messing with Rohan using these characters.

I find it refreshing how this series can handle all this dark, violent, adult material without visually compromising the integrity of the drama- they don’t show unnecessary violence or physical relationships and it somehow works.

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Deeply Touching Story and Illustration of Conditions

Wow.. in just 3 episodes, this series told 3 tales of mental health disorders- anxiety, bipolar, and borderline personality disorder. Japanese series go so deep and really know how to convey the deep emotional impact and draw it out of the viewer too. I really felt like I was living in their shoes. The bipolar story had so many interesting insights in there as Gen goes to a psychiatric hospital and is looking down on the patients there, but until he fully accepts his condition, he is unable to be free of it.

The story that most touched my heart and hit close to home was the last story of Fula, the lady with borderline personality disorder. She struggled with the childhood wound of abandonment and has this deep seated rage. She is unable to keep relationships and her sense of self and self worth keep shifting along with her perceptions of others. When she comes to Dr. Yowai, at first she clings to him and when he puts up a boundary she storms off- this is the classic pattern of idolization and devaluation, with a hairline trigger of rejection and abandonment. At first she goes to this scammy clinic where the guy just cares about business and prescribing unnecessary drugs. He flatters her and enables her dysfunction. But then when things go wrong and she overdoses, she’s back at Dr. Yowai’s office. He gives her homework, a reflection exercise to become mindful of her reactions when she starts to self harm. He also recommends her to a center that teaches social skills, since she was raised in an abusive family. At the center they teach her to handle her angry customers at the bar in a different way, and encourage her with the good things she does. That positive reinforcement allows her to change and become better in her reactions to life events. She starts becoming more stable and more self aware. She then visits her parents who insist that she’s a failure and need to take on a job that they choose. Her dad is an angry monster and essentially abuses her physically, emotionally, and verbally, while the mother is the pacifier of the dad’s tumultuous anger. She realizes that she has been reacting in the same way at the bar and in her own life. Her boyfriend was essentially like her mother, a punching bag that absorbed the attacks of an unpredictable tyrant. As she becomes aware and sees herself in her dad, she goes back to Dr. Yowai’s office, and he tells her about being with her inner child- this is deep stuff! So she goes to a spot where she was abandoned as a child and sees her inner child there and hugs her. She basically tells her that the parents are not coming but they are together. That part made me cry because it really hit home for me. She then tells her parents that she will become independent financially from then on. That financial control was the last tether keeping her stuck to her parents’ abuse. Eventually she starts working in a flower shop. She has this high school friend that ditched her and now works as the assistant in Dr. Yowai’s office. It is incredible to see her healing. For some reason this friend never had the decency to apologize to Fuka even as an adult. But Fuka becomes the bigger person and makes her a bouquet of flowers, which the friend hesitatingly accepts. I was not impressed with that character- she seemed unnecessarily cold to Fuka.

Overall it was an incredible series, and I’m a fan of Tomoya- from Nagi’s Long Vacation. He has this chilled hippie vibe that suits this shrink character who seems aloof, a little mysterious, but kind and generous.

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Really Gone Downhill

Was this movie even necessary? This show is so obsessed with marriage and weddings and idolizes the whole ordeal and puts it up on a pedestal. And then going to get married or honeymoon (do the writers even know the difference?) in Rome? Ok but then there’s this weird side story about Bucho getting faux-kidnapped but he’s really doing dance sessions in secret while cross dressing with a guy? And Hotaru thinks he’s kidnapped and goes all over Rome trying to find the dude and then she finds him having a jolly old time at some wedding and doesn’t care that she’s risked her life for him to save him because she thinks he’s kidnapped. But he just gives her a hug.. why didn’t he tell her where he was going? This part was so weird. And then the side story of Rio, the fellow Japanese Himono Onna who has become a lying, manipulative mess of a woman because her husband and kid died in an accident, so basically she’s turned into a shell of a person, a zombie if you will. I’ve seen this theme in many of the lower tier J Dramas- the idea that if a woman loses her husband and kid, they just turn into a shell of a human being, and zombified (the other series that does this is I’m Mita, Your Housekeeper). It’s a pathetic message to send to women that without your husband and kid, you’re nothing. Anyway, then these two Hotaru and Bucho get married in a Catholic Church with a priest who they don’t understand nor does he understand them. Is the marriage even valid? And then they come back home and Hotaru seems to be pregnant. YAWN. Same tired old story trying to glorify marriage and breeding. What garbage. Not impressed.

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A Nice Series to Live with for a while…

When I see the romantic notion of marriage that the Japanese dramas create, I need to remind myself: Life in this world is not like that- people stay miserably married while claiming a “Happily ever after” on the surface. To be honest I never understood why or how “Bucho” fell in love with Hotaru- to be clear, Hotaru is like a mirror of myself. I can relate to her lifestyle (except for the beer part), but the need to be free in solitude and recharge my battery on my own. Honestly I don’t think she needs a man, not emotionally at least. She’s fine on her own and doesn’t like to think too deeply about things. She knows how to take care of herself- keeping a polished image at work, while being her true honest self at home. To have a man who sees that true self and genuinely falls in love with her- well, I can say it only happens in the J drama universe. And that’s why I’m here for that. Sometimes Hotaru really annoys me in this series- like how she misses so many engagements with Bucho and then apologizes each time. And she often doesn’t keep her promises. She talks a big talk and then fails to deliver. She’s constantly disappointing her fiancée in that way, to the point where at one point when she blew him off 3 times in a row he left the house to stay in a hotel to get space from her. Why? Because she’s annoying! Her way of living only works for her, so I would advocate that she should be alone and happy and free. She would be just fine alone. I think putting her in a marriage box and making her conform to the manager’s expectations is doing her sovereign lifestyle a disservice. Here are a couple more things I found annoying:

-Why is one of the tracksuit pockets always turned inside out like a floppy kidney hanging from her hip! It’s so gross and it annoys me to no end! Hotaru is lovable but she’s also annoying! How is that possible…

-How does Hotaru not have a potbelly after drinking all that beer? And does Bucho cook every single day and night, because Hotaru seems incapable of making edible food..

-Hotaru goes to Hong Kong for 3 years and doesn’t answer a single letter or email from Bucho like what on earth? But this just shows that she is more suited to live a free and single life rather than with some dude.

-How she keeps saying “Bucho” for every reply- sometimes in a scene, (I guess for humor) all she says is “Bucho” and while she is sovereign and free, she comes across as a clingy child who’s worshipping this manager- and it just sounds like an employer-employee relationship even at home. And the way she says it grates on my ears.

-What’s up with the other lady with the kid - the ex-girlfriend of Bucho? Like what in the actual heck is up with her? She continues to encourage Hotaru and Bucho’s relationship while actively sabotaging it by coyly asking Bucho to tie her Yukata, trying to sleep with him, and seduce him every chance she gets- like tie the yukata yourself you indecent woman! She really annoyed me. And then her kid turns out to be another version of herself, as she manipulates Bucho into staying the night with both of them, and then Hotaru comes to their cabin and sees Bucho lying there with this ex-girlfriend lady practically sleeping on top of him. What on earth?! How is this okay? Why wasn’t it addressed by anyone? Why didn’t Hotaru get mad and demand an explanation? Why didn’t anyone hold this sly woman accountable for her actions? And yet Bucho acts so jealous and rigid when it comes to the young crush guy that likes Hotaru even though they never did anything. Which leads me to…

-The young guy who likes Hotaru.. I feel like being a Himono-otoko himself, he could have understood Hotaru in a better way and I wish they could have deepened their relationship more. Like ditch the manager for a few months and date this guy for a change. But who knows, maybe it was just an ego thing for him, like wanting to compete with the manager to steal his woman.

Anyways in the end they show how Bucho accepts this offer in Taiwan for 3 months and she starts becoming disciplined. That was nice to see.. and then in the end they’re planning to marry I guess. Now I have to move on to the movie and see what other young crush comes along to steal away Hotaru… With that said, the actress who plays Hotaru (she’s also in Hitori de shinitai/I want to die alone)- and I think she has such a beautiful, exquisite face. I do see a pattern in her themes though, and I like it!

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Makoto is NOT Worth the Trouble

In the initial episodes, Hotaru was rather endearing and “real,” but she was often a caricature of herself. I mean why does she need to have her track pants’ pockets inside out like it’s a requirement for her dress code? And then she misses her first date because she’s so stupid that she chants “Beeru! Beeru!” All the way home? Wtf kind of stupid reason is that? Is she that dense? Halfway through I started to not like her because she just seemed to be annoying just for the sake of being annoying.

But my bigger issue with this show is, the director has a chauvnistic streak where there is a “ideal woman” type called Yuka, and anyone who doesn’t fit that incredibly narrow definition of a perfect woman is basically discarded as trash. And Hotaru is called a Himono Onna or dried up fish woman and it’s a way to scapegoat and attack women for not being some dreamt up ideal by a misogynist. No good. And why is everyone obsessed with this BOT called Makoto? Yuck. He’s this dud that “returned” from London probably on a 3 week vacation and acts like he’s all that. But his acting and his lines are like a bot. He doesn’t know how to communicate- in the beginning, all he could say to Hotaru was “hai” “hai” and “hai.” I’m like which idiot wrote his dialog? And the actor plays the character with the most grating lack of expression ever. He looks like he’s not even interested in being in the show. On top of that, Makoto is a male chauvinist. He goes up to Hotaru and kisses her without her permission while she’s taking a nap, then decides that he likes her and calls all the shots. He decides when the relationship starts, and when it ends. It’s all on HIS terms, even though he literally has nothing to offer her. He never makes conversation with her, and just looks bored when they’re together, making Hotaru anxious and she starts compensating for his lack of effort. But he keeps saying he likes her as a way to keep her hooked in. Then he decides on a whim that she should move in with him. Then when he gets insecure and jealous like the usual fragile ego misogynist, he dumps Hotaru via email and says one morning “It’s over. Pack your stuff up and leave.” Wow what a cold bot this Makoto is. Hotaru would have been happier being in relationship with AI! When he was living with Hotaru, half the time he communicates with her by writing notes, or text messages. He doesn’t try whatsoever, and meanwhile Hotaru is bending over backwards. And where is she supposed to go when Makoto kicks her out on a whim? The manager’s house is about to be demolished- where is she supposed to find an apartment on a moment’s notice? And why is everyone including Yuka initially in love with Makoto? He’s not good looking, is incredibly dull as a personality, and is a chauvinist and has an extremely fragile ego. Poor Hotaru. She went through all that trouble for this disgusting person. She should have seen right through him once she saw that the whole relationship was only on his terms, and based on his whims and mood swings. He crosses her boundaries and clings to her when he wants to possess her, and then when he feels threatened he throws her away like trash. What a bad character she got involved with. At the end about a month later when she’s living in a weekly apartment, Makoto who strategically says he wants to get along with her at work (especially since she has moved up the ladder and has more influence now), is working at his desk when Hotaru comes up to him and says thank you and bows to him and says she fell in love with him and she’s changed a little. He has no expression, never initiates such meaningful conversations, and looks like he couldn’t care less about her heartfelt gesture. The manager, though he was a chauvinist in his own way, calling her a dried up fish woman, and saying her life is done as a woman, at least grew to appreciate her over time. But honestly, none of the men in this series were worth the trouble. There is nothing loving or romantic about any of these relationships. But as the men - the manager, Makoto, the other guy that likes Yuka, and the other guy that’s the manager’s divorce buddy are all talking, they discuss how Hotaru is living alone and Makoto said he thought she would go back to living with the manager. And they interpret it as a great thing that she lives alone and doesn’t go to the next guy (the manager) as soon as she is dumped. Then the manager calls her selfish, and then the other guy says “we always attract such selfish women don’t we?” They are all red flags. Hotaru is better off alone.

In the end, Hotaru doesn’t join the Christmas party of bots, but is sleeping alone at home. She tried the relationship thing that everyone harped on about, and it ended up being a disaster. And when she’s back at home, the bots go back to criticizing her. That’s why they’re not worth her time. Hotaru IS the light. She doesn’t need any bot to complete her. In the end she looks much more confident.

In the end, she comes back to the manager, well they have more chemistry together than Makoto bot.
Now I realized there is a season 2! Will it go up or downhill from here? Will find out….

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Takane No Hana

I find this concept of the flower atop a high mountain, the beautiful, unattainable woman, to be so intriguing. The main character is raised by a master flower arranger and she is expected to be the best of the best and carry on the family name and school. But her heart is yearning for something outside of the glass walls, and she meets this guy in a bicycle shop who looks like a muppet who has a heart of gold. She is basically the flower that came down from the mountain to hang out with the chickens. But I can understand her need for freedom, and in order to master something great, one has to open their heart. It’s just that I wasn’t really buying into their romance. It had this 90s Hollywood romcom feel to it that renders the romance as fake, melodramatic (mostly on the part of the female), and unnecessary. My opinion is that she should have stayed as the unattainable woman and found her true value from the divine source within. But oh well. The aesthetics were amazing. An interesting fusion of the traditional culture and the wild heart that wants to break free of it.

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Better than the Special!

I loved this movie even more than the first, and it’s because I saw a side of Shiro San from beginning to end that was vulnerable and expressive of his love to an extent that I hadn’t seen in the episodes or the first movie. It’s like his heart was cracked open- from the Kyoto trip with Kenji to staying at home for New Years to be with Kenji and standing up to his parents, saying that their withdrawal of their welcome of Kenji was “unbelievably cruel..” and then his “investigation” of what was going on with Kenji when he went to the hospital etc. to get his thinning hair situation checked out, and Shiro’s fearful assumption that Kenji was dying, and thus his pouring out of feelings in those last scenes, I was genuinely impressed. It’s very rewarding when the stoic man who doesn’t hold hands, kiss, or hug is blooming with emotion. Not to mention, his look in the sunglasses at the end, Kenji said out loud what I was thinking from the beginning: that Shiro San looks like Tom Cruise (except better).

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Interesting but…

I should have written this review right after watching the series instead of moving on to the special. The special single-handedly wiped out any of the good feelings I had at the end of the 10 episodes season. But I do remember tearing up at the wedding scene at the very end. Yes the show is unrealistic and naive, but showing someone as incompetent as Kahoko as capable of going to college and graduating and even finding a super hot guy like Hajime is just too much. The woman can barely tie her own shoes and falls asleep mid-conversation after dinner, like what?! At first I found it cute, but like I said, because I watched the Special and am scarred by the effects of it, my impression of the entire series has gone down. But I did enjoy the series. I thought it was endearing. The only trouble is that Kahoko has no chemistry with Hajime whatsoever and Hajime does an amazing job of acting like he’s attracted to her but it’s just an impossible scenario, because it just looks like a boy who feels sorry for a toddler who has lost its toy and is crying while wagging her hands up and down. His “love” is more like sympathy. Then Kahoko tries to get married or have babies just for the sake of making her grandma happy, or intervenes in her cousin Ito’s life even though Ito wants nothing to do with her and she basically forces her aunt and uncle not to get a divorce and get back together because “Kahoko sad!” What on earth.. I’m wondering if a baby actually directed this show? And what’s the deal with ”Kahoko always tried harder than anyone else but sucked at everything anyway!” I don’t get it. As someone with a helicopter mom myself with a very similar situation, I could relate to many of the things, but a lot of it was irritating too. Realistically, Kahoko would not be getting married to this handsome young man- realistically she would be in an adult diaper still unable to tie her shoes and falling asleep drooling in her mom’s lap while watching baby videos of herself. She’s unable to take care of anyone including herself, so unless she’s mentally or physically handicapped, artificially handicapping someone like that is basically abuse.

I wish they had explored more of the dynamic between Hajime and Kahoko and how it changed her at a much deeper level. Instead it focused on Kahoko’s annoying family and it just made it more boring. I didn’t care about Ito or her parents or the other two aunt and uncle and the aunt’s shoplifting tendencies. I didn’t care about the grandma dying or the grandpa. The parents’ dynamic with Kahoko was interesting enough, but what needed to be explored in more detail was how such a sheltered child developed a romantic relationship- kind of like Tangled. They needed to show more about Hajime, because this actor did such a great job acting like he was in love with Kahoko, but it still felt unrealistic because Kahoko was always running away and answering phone calls from her parents. Such a strong relationship cannot develop on such a thin foundation. They needed to build their relationship up a LOT more, because to deal with such an annoying extended family and overbearing mother/parents is not worth it unless the relationship is truly something deep. And they missed the opportunity to showcase that, so their relationship looked more surface level. If it wasn’t for the intensity of Hajime’s character and his acting, I wouldn’t have believed in their relationship at all, based on Kahoko’s stupid facial expressions and falling asleep mid-conversation. To me she seemed like an extremely self centered big baby.

I don’t like the message that “Family is the best and you must stick with them no matter what! Do not get a divorce no matter what! Stay together to live up to Kahoko’s ideal family fantasy!” I find it highly toxic. Family = dysfunction. The best part of the series is the “Family Song” that plays at the end of each episode.

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Kahoko is a Hot Mess. Same old nonsense amplified

So after the wonderful birthday parties, weddings, and big moments are over, comes “Ordinary time” where Kahoko, Hajime, and the family have to live their regular boring lives. There’s only one problem- Kahoko talks a big talk but can’t back up any of her words with any real action that keeps her daily life or family going. Her day care business is a failure and in debt, she can’t cook, clean, or do anything except fall asleep like a big baby mid-task, just like the first series. And seriously what is up with her clothes? Why does she still dress like a cross between a 1 year old baby and a grandma? How does a fine young man like Hajime fall for a mess like Kahoko? Besides, the two have zero chemistry- they’re more like brother and sister than romantic partners.

This “Special” is dedicated to showing how life after the romance, honeymoon, wedding, “happily ever after” big dramatic celebration moments falls apart because it’s the boring mundane stuff of the everyday, which Kahoko and the rest of them are terrible at. After the “big wedding” or the “big birthday bash” is the time when they say “What now?” And they simply can’t sustain it. If the characters get bored for five minutes, they stir up drama like kahoko’s parents getting a divorce. Why? Just because! Every time Hajime is having a serious conversation with Kahoko, she gets a call from someone in her extended family who’s having a meltdown and she needs to run away mid conversation and give them a wide-eyed pep talk to make them come to their senses, and then all of a sudden her mom and dad who were hell-bent on handing in the divorce papers, are now lovey dovey again. These characters really resemble 2D cartoon characters and at some point -I think it was the airport scene with Ito and her parents, I realized that I don’t give a **** about any of these characters anymore. Maybe a different director made this special because it’s like the original series on steroids, but more annoying, superficial, and more unrealistic in a bad way. Kahoko gets more and more annoying and incompetent and big baby like and I really don’t see what Hajime “sees” in her at all- she’s totally self centered like a toddler and only cares about putting out ridiculous dramatic fires in her family one after another because her grandma told her to keep the family together and keep having birthday parties, without the regular care or need to tend to her relationship with Hajime- he’s essentially an afterthought and a side character in her extended family drama. She does things like get married or have kids just to make people in her family happy or “make her grandma happy” like in the series, and it’s ridiculous. Her mindset is so immature it’s annoying to watch. And for some reason, whenever anything in the show falls apart like the daycare center they started, or Kahoko’s parents’ marriage, or her own marriage with Hajime, or Ito’s plans to go to Vienna, or Tomatsu the foster kid- all it takes is for Kahoko to run over to each like like a large baby and start talking really fast about “how they should keep going because… ganbatte!” while hyperventilating like a toddler and either passing out or falling asleep mid-sentence and then all of a sudden the problems are all fixed. Kahoko keeps intervening in different situations that are none of her business just because she doesn’t want her idyllic world to fall apart, and she doesn’t want other people to get divorced because she will be sad! So she nags at everyone to keep going with whatever nonsense isn’t working just to keep her own mental ideal of them intact. What on earth am I even watching? And then she has two babies at the end, because they needed the perfect next big dramatic moment to punctuate the end of the show. This show is like a Facebook highlight reel of the “big moments,” where the little everyday moments are really not working at all and at the end of any “real” everyday conversation is “Well then maybe we should break up!” If Kahoko’s mother wasn’t there to take care of the entire family, the whole family would be f***d. Kahoko the overgrown toddler isn’t capable of sustaining a marriage, a family, a house, or anything for that matter. They should just call her “Incompetent Kahoko.” In the first season she was a bit endearing because the concept was kind of new, but to see her try to sincerely break out of her infantile state while succumbing to her impromptu naps was at least somewhat entertaining. But this special was just bad. It was the same Kahoko if she was a few years older and was the same and can’t do anything properly except fall asleep mid conversation. It shows how she’s utterly incapable of sustaining and relationship and should have never gotten married, but marriage to her is just a “big moment to make people happy!” What over-simplistic garbage. I say Hajime needs to find a better partner.

It’s funny because the series seems to be about “family is the best no matter what!” But it just shows how dysfunctional the whole family experience is, and is more like a cautionary tale to be careful when making the decision to get married and have kids instead of just falling into it because “that’s what everyone does.” In the very last scene, Kahoko’s grandpa (the dad’s dad) says to Hajime how much he is going to suffer with kids. The hint underneath the “wonderful family picture” is basically torture and suffering that people just “check out” like that grandpa.

The best part of the series is the “Family Song” theme song by Gen Hoshino- it’s very addicting and breathes life into an otherwise long dead story.

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One Big Meh.. Could Have Been Better

Ok let’s get the good things about Silent out of the way before I air out my grievances. There are so many silent moments in this J drama of just talking in sign language and it forces me to focus on the conversation as if it’s happening to me, as if I’m really there in the scene. The use of silence is nice and oftentimes there’s either total silence or a soft piano in the background and it makes the experience feel quite real.

With that said, there were many cons I found in this series. The characters were very one dimensional, their relationships, conversations, and scenarios felt repetitive and shallow, and it felt like the story wasn’t really moving at all- not to say a slow moving story is a bad thing but a slow moving story needs depth, and this series was stuck in the shallow kiddie pool for 11 episodes. If I’m going to dedicate my time to watch 11 long episodes, I’d like some more deeper exploration like character development, maturation of the characters or deep changes to happen over time. I felt like the main characters especially Sakura-kun didn’t change much from beginning to end. They were terribly boring, including their contrived yawn worthy high school story. Yes Sakura kun started to open up and became a little happier and more expressive but it was all surface level and I didn’t feel anything while watching it. He also seemed quite rigid in his thinking and was fixated on hearing Tsumugi’s voice. Something about him seemed really wooden- was it his acting or his emotional toll from the loss of hearing.. I don’t know. I guess it’s unfair to expect a hero’s journey when he’s just a regular dude going through hearing loss where he’s stuck in the past. I didn’t find his or Tsumugi’s character to be interesting at all. They were like NPCs that I don’t care about no matter what song they play on their iPod or how many CDs they arrange in their room. It felt like the whole show was a lot of regular small talk which I would yawn at and get bored with. Even after the whole show is over, I’m left with the thought- “Ok but why should I care about this relationship?” I simply don’t care- like Minato says in the end- “I don’t care if you get with SO or don’t get with SO, whatever it is just get on with it.” (My version)

On the other hand, the side characters like the sign language teacher, or my favorite Nana were far more interesting than the leads. Minato and Nana were very giving, always sharing and helping others from the heart, but weren’t really appreciated much. Minato’s relationship with Tsumugi in the beginning seemed fine and boring but as soon as Sakura kun came along he turned into an insecure mess- I guess the most badass thing he did was break up with her, but after that it felt like his character just froze and was looping and spinning his wheels like an NPC in the same ditch from beginning to end. Tsumugi was grieving for a whole 2 minutes about Minato and then the script simply dropped him and they became like wooden strangers while she moved onto the next dude as planned. So weird, predictable and …yawn! I don’t care.

I loved the story of Nana and the interpreter teacher- they were both so sweet and so was their backstory, how the guy wanted to see her smile and do more for her. And yes Nana’s smile is so bright and beautiful and I found her to be the most interesting and dynamic character in the whole series. Even though she was the only one who was deaf from birth, she was an expressive communicator and usually direct and brutally honest with what she wanted to say. I loved that about her. She was far ahead than the others. She wore her heart on her sleeve even though she got hurt twice with two different men- Sakura kun and the interpreter guy (although there is hope for them two). How is it that everyone else pretty much sucks at communicating except for Nana? Even at the end at the final scenes of the last episode on Christmas, she buys a big bouquet of flowers to give to the sign language dude (shouldn’t he be buying her flowers? She also sent him a handwritten letter!) and then gives little parts of the bouquet to Minato (who in turn gives it to Tsumugi) and to Sakura-kun. Then at the very end they both share Nana’s gift to each other. Like seriously Nana being the one who cannot hear from birth is the one who shares her heart most expressively with everyone, from her smile to her sharp words, to her flowers. I just loved Nana. And let’s not forget that she is the one who pulled Sakura-kun out of his frozen state after his hearing loss and listened to him and healed him and taught him sign language. And she was also the one who inspired the interpreter guy to become an interpreter who ended up teaching Tsumugi, so basically she is the force behind the entire series that moves everything along. They should just call the series Nana. I wished she could be happy always for being so honest and expressive. Everyone else is stuck and frozen in their characters and spinning their wheels, with repeated conversations like it just gets boring and by the end I just wanted to see if Nana would get with the interpreter guy. I didn’t care about Tsumugi and Sakura-kun because they just bored me to death with their tired old conversations and shallow high school cliche relationship. I’m all about the slow burn, but this series was more like a slow groan.

If it weren’t for Nana and the interpreter guy, I would have switched this off several episodes ago. At the end I don’t feel satisfied, just bored having watched that. Meh. Like having eaten a lot of calories with zero satisfaction and nutrition. I rate it one big MEH.

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Chemistry Not as Magical as Cherry Magic

Being a HUGE fan of Cherry Magic (I’ve watched the J drama, movie, and anime versions multiple times), I can’t help but compare this BL office romance with it. Honestly even if they come up with 10 more with this exact same story, I’m here for it. It was refreshing that this series only has 5 episodes, so it leaves the rest up to imagination. I didn’t like the fact that they keep harping on the older guy’s age as if 40 is on your deathbed. Carl Jung has said that 40 is when the true life really starts. Anyway I actually liked the younger guy’s acting much better. The protagonist Nozue (the 40 year old) seemed lackluster till the end, and even when he said he liked Togawa (the 30 year old), I didn’t quite believe him. He looked a bit constipated in his emotions, but Togawa was really into it. He was the “Kurosawa” character from Cherry Magic, but the protagonist- the one who feels stuck, unworthy, uninspired (the counterpart of Adachi) was neither as cute or interesting as Adachi was. I think if they had cast someone else as the lead, the chemistry could have been much better. This is what was lacking- the chemistry. Nevertheless, I still liked it, and perhaps my favorite part of the series was the intro/outro song Blue Blur" (feat. Mabanua) by Ryu Matsuyama really set the vibe- it was super romantic.

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Tries to be more interesting than it is…

This is the lowest rating I’ve given for any Jdrama- I feel like this drama tries too hard to be deep or profound. It paints the Mary Magdalene figure not just as a “sinful” woman but a serial killer, mixes some Adam and Eve in there, with the last supper. All of it divorced from their true archetypal meeting and flattened to glorify this random Maria woman. Mary Magdalene is once again trashed in pop culture with falsities. They have no depth or context for any of these Christian symbols and simply throw it all together into one big messy soup. And it tastes weird, sour, and bitter. It tries so hard to be mysterious, scandalous, dangerous, and interesting, but the show is just bad and boring. The acting is uniformly bad and the director of the show has no purpose for the story whatsoever other than to run around in circles and waste time. I watched it till the last episode hoping to find something interesting or some kind of depth or something that would “make it make sense,” but it was just utterly stupid. People die and then don’t die, Maria is glorified as this serial killer whom Akechi keeps saving, kisses in a burning building for no good reason, and falls down this deadly hole with. Akechi makes no sense either. His primary monotone dialog is “warukunai” (not bad) when tasting food and “Maria..”They try to be deep and interesting but in the end it just all falls flat and hollow. I’m not impressed with this. The lady who acts in “Marry my Husband” is also in this but far less likable- she’s annoying and screechy. Perhaps the only thing that’s good is the Utada Hikaru song that plays at the end of every episode. In the end it’s utterly pointless and left a bad taste in my mouth.

The only thing that redeems Tomoya Nakamura is that later I found out he was the same actor who plays Gon San in Nagi’s Long Vacation. I was surprised because I didn’t recognize him at all- shows how the director/screenplay determines the quality of acting.

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Can’t Get enough of these two!

Within 3 days I finished the whole Cherry Magic 12 episode series + 2 SP and the movie. Turns out I can’t get enough of these two as a couple. They are so very sweet together. They are kind and respectful towards each other, show patience, genuine care, and don’t play games. They have their moments of hiding how they really feel but it’s not done out of game playing. They are both sincere. Especially Kurosawa- his love from the beginning is inspiring. What I like about this movie is that even though there are hurdles along the way like Adachi being transferred for 8 months to Nagasaki to become a sales manager and start up the company branch there, and gets into an accident, it all serves to strengthen their bond and relationship. It isn’t drama just for the sake of having conflict. In fact, other than these two things and meeting each other’s family, the movie doesn’t have a whole lot of conflict- in other words, it depicts a good relationship that is blossoming and blooming without drama. A relationship without drama is a good sign! That’s actually what I love about this movie. Even Adachi being sent to Nagasaki for 8 months served to make him more responsible and take on more responsibility and step up to the plate, and Adachi’s accident (though he wasn’t physically hurt) also served as a reminder of impermanence and just the fact that they didn’t contact Kurosawa upon hearing the news, and that motivated them to take the next step forward to meeting each others’ families to become part of each others’ families. I was almost bracing for some horrible conflict like someone dies, and for me to be left clutching my heart J drama style, but that moment never came- it was smooth sailing and even ended on a wedding- like scene even though I don’t think gay marriage is legal in Japan, well this is an anime story so it’s legal in this world! I love it. I love their romance, their love, their relationship.

Cherry Magic gives you something this world rarely offers:
a vision of love without chaos.
No trauma bonding.
No narcissistic hooks.
No ego theatrics.
Just two people who show up for each other without forcing anything.

I saw the power in that and sensed what it means for a relationship to deepen through gentleness instead of crisis.
And because this world is characterized by egoic love, seeing a story that doesn’t do that feels almost unreal, like a parallel world with different physics.

My only gripe is that they didn’t show the two kissing- no smooching needed, just that still kiss they do in the Japanese dramas, but alas there was none. I get that either the actors (especially Eiji Akaso) were uncomfortable with it, or it’s maybe a censor issue in Japan for a same sex couple to kiss? But that’s what we BL fans are here for! That elevator hidden kiss at the end of the series as the doors were closing was iconic. Kurosawa is so badass, and Adachi is so handsome and sweet. Ahhhhh. The lack of overt kissing, the soft, almost shy portrayal of intimacy: Japanese dramas excel at this. They understand that the sacredness of a connection doesn’t need to be shoved in your face. In a way, it keeps the romance suspended in that pure emotional frequency that I love so much, even if part of me wanted just one more quiet kiss to seal the moment.

And it was refreshing to see that the families accepted their son’s partner eventually- they didn’t storm off in a tantrum.. even that part was compassionate and those characters show restraint and emotional maturity. The families in Cherry Magic behaved in a way the world rarely does: they didn’t weaponize shock, they didn’t collapse into melodrama, and they didn’t turn love into a battlefield. They felt the discomfort, processed it, and then chose connection over ego. That restraint, that quiet willingness to grow, carries an emotional dignity I’ve rarely seen reflected in this world. That’s why this pure love lives in an alternate universe and I’m here for that.

For someone who has given up on human love and romance long ago, this Cherry Magic story has turned me into a pile of mush- this is like an alternate reality that shows that in some other reality, this kind of pure love is possible, and I am inspired by that. Daisuki!

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The Predecessor to Doctor X

The Pride of the Temp is a predecessor to Doctor X since it came out in 2007 (and Dr. X in 2012) - a kind of prototype story, where a woman, a lone wolf works outside of the existing hierarchical system that focuses on power, corruption, status, money, and image- as a temp or freelancer. She joins the system via an agency while remaining an outsider, where her agent declares the terms of her contract- a list of “I will not do…” aka Itashimasen. I noticed many similarities between Pride of the Temp and Doctor X. Daimon Michiko and Omae both retreat into foreign Spanish/portuguese speaking lands (Spain, Cuba, Brazil etc) where they have an unknown, mysterious past. They both also dance in their after hours- Michiko in the club with her manager Akira San, and Omae as a flamenco dancer in a restaurant. They are both blunt, assertive, and only do what is necessary for their jobs, and leave strictly at 5pm, with exact timing for lunch breaks and no overtime. They both eat alone and don’t entertain personal friendships or romances in the workplace. And both share the same drive of compassion for helping others, through their superhuman qualities and skills that can save entire companies and hospitals. It’s as if the divine is acting through this archetype, and the existing patriarchal systems of old men at the top can’t stand this woman. So they try to diminish and sabotage her despite how much she is doing for the company. They both know “powers that be” at the top who propel their opportunities forward. They both share a kind of loneliness as they operate outside of the system, but they have an inner circle that they can rely on and turn to. There is one difference however which makes me favor Daimon Michiko more. Omae is shown to harbor a kind of loneliness as if she secretly wants friends and romance despite her hardened exterior. When Shoji and Satonaka fall in love with Omae, on the outside she rejects them, but it seems that she is hiding feelings on the inside for “Mr Curly haired” Shoji or Satonaka while trying to act tough. They also make Omae unnecessarily robotic like an AI bot as if she is inhuman, which is unnecessary. Daimon Michiko on the other hand is a more evolved version of Omae- she is a lone wolf that is truly comfortable with herself and her aloneness, and is not secretly crying on the inside out of loneliness. It’s like Michiko has fully met her inner demons and conquered them so nothing can stop her, and her only vulnerability is protecting those she loves and is close to. Michiko is also a lot of more charismatic, childlike, and gorgeous compared to Omae, and is very self assured. She has a loud and brash style of speaking, whereas Omae is quieter and more secretive. Michiko has a childlike innocence in her- her only interests are “surgery and food.” And of course Mahjong and public baths and dancing in the club. She dresses like a supermodel and struts through the hospital in heels. Omae doesn’t have those qualities and doesn’t need to, but the most striking difference I see is that they left the romance angle out of Doctor X, and meanwhile that hinders Omae. And yes even Michiko does like Hachisuka towards the end of a season and vows to save his life, but that romance doesn’t go anywhere and the writers are not that interested in giving up her storyline to that romance so they end it in a comedy of errors. The story of Doctor X is a lot more polished, and is like an upgraded version of The Pride of the Temp. It’s like they took a good story and elevated it to the next level. So Pride of the Temp is a less evolved version of Doctor X, but still worth the watch.

Satonaka was incredibly handsome and good looking in the first season, but 13 years later in the second season, while Shoji still looks about the same, Satonaka has aged quite a bit and his hair- what happened to his hairstyle in the second season? In the first season he has this cute punk like hairstyle which turns into a grandpa hairstyle in the second season. Please someone fix Satonaka’s hair! I liked his character in the first season, but in the second season with his looks fading and terrible hairstyle, he seemed to just come across as a people pleaser. But in the end he finally found his voice and strength and does his own thing. As for Shoji, he still has a selfish and narcissistic streak in him, though he starts to genuinely appreciate Omae. They are both more like fans of her than romantic interests.

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