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JulyMoon

夢の中で

JulyMoon

夢の中で
Kingyo Tsuma japanese drama review
Completed
Kingyo Tsuma
4 people found this review helpful
by JulyMoon
Jun 12, 2022
8 of 8 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 5.0
Story 5.0
Acting/Cast 7.0
Music 6.0
Rewatch Value 1.0

Disappointing and giving questionable messages

When I completed the drama, I wasn't sure what to think of it at first. There are things I truly liked and some I really hated.

One thing I appreciate was how they showed the story from the wifes point of view. Each of them struggled in their marriage due to different reasons and it showed how many reasons can exist for two people in marriage to separate from each other.

The downside was that the drama failed in handling those situations the couples were in. In almost every episode I was thinking "why did they marry, they absolutely do NOT match" and it wasn't interesting to watch how remarkable the couples are in misunderstanding each other or lack a genuine talk on equal footing.
What I really hated though was how the FL Sakura was treated by many (especially women) like a bad person because she ran from her abusive husband and cheated on him. On a side note, she never intended to cheat on him, she just ran when he beat her brutally and he was the one who had repeatedly cheated on her already at this point and everyone except her seemed to be aware of that. It's easy to point fingers when you never listen to the other party and just jump to (wrong) conclusions. Sad truth is though that this moral condemnation shown is actually pretty accurate as society tends to blame/judge women harsher for infidelity than they do with men.

What really irks me (though also accurate) is the portrayal of how a woman who's being cheated on is looked at with pity for being too dumb to see what her husband does behind her back or laughed at for not being able to "please/satisfy" her husbands needs.
When she's the one who's cheating, she's the lowest kind of being and judged while a cheating man is desirable and attractive. This drama reminded me a lot that I do not condemn infidelity per se as many others do. I'm not saying nor thinking cheating is okay but I'm able to feel sympathy for the characters who cheated, yes even a tiny little bit for Takuya though I strongly despise his actions towards Sakura.
Still, I think the drama missed a big chance to not only display societies current reaction towards infidelity but also a try to make people question that judgement. Not to mention that infidelity is presented like the "solution" for each couple in the drama when in truth a honest talk would've prevented the worse and the separation of them in the first place.

Being already frustrated with the drama at this point, I binged the rest to see if the ending would make it slightly better only to find myself being utterly done with it. I hate the last events and the end as they are entirely contrary to what I hoped for or rather what I could relate to and on top of that the end is kinda open. It hints at something but for me that wasn't enough to make it "good" or satisfying. Overall I think Kingyo Tsuma is an okay watch. Not life changing and not really making a huge difference in portraying infidelity. The more I think of it, the lower I wanna rate it because I hoped it would give a fresh insight to maternal problems and portray infidelity as something else than "an easy way out of struggles in marriage". The drama might be good for a one-time watch but isn't a must watch in my opinion. Simply speaking, you miss out on beautiful shots of gold fish but that alone is not reason enough to watch it.
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