On His • Jan 29, 2024
Title His Spoiler
this began quite well and promised positive development then after half way and the focus on the divorce settlement went completely down hill ruined by Nagisa's character： maybe the intention was to show his magnanimous character so everyone would live happily ever after、 actually for me it showed his real character as completely selfish and self indulgent not to say narcissistic、 that is if we look at the history of the story： first he abandons Shun then appears from the blue and with the child of his marriage ! expecting to be taken back years later〜this may just be credible if we assume Shun could not surrender his love but it says nothing good about Nagisa's character but、 then having settled Sora in a happy household we have the unbelievable denouement in the divorce court： the mother cannot give up her career gets drunk and Sora is picked up on a busy road maybe just avoiding accident it is exposed in the court but then Nagisa who all the first part of the movie shows as a deeply caring father apparently has a dramatic attack of remorse towards his wife based on having taken care of Sora without giving her a fair share in Sora's upbringing！ this is literally incredible nonsense of a story 、of course the reason for that situation was not his selfishness but hers wanting to pursue a career、 so his ：magnanimous： gesture giving up Sora is both stupid and selfish because he is not thinking of the vulnerable child but the ineffectual wife and maybe it's also self-hating if ーwhich the arguments in the court case heavily portrayed ーhe accepts the homophobic premise that a gay family is weird unconventional and will make it difficult for Sora to grow up。 sorry but if this was part of his motivation ー which I think if we think deeply about it the denouement implies ーit is just an exercise in reinforcing discrimination when the movie could have shown a positive outcome of a happy family based on a gay relationship。 I cannot avoid the suspicion also that it suits Nagisa's selfish character very well to be relieved of the burden of looking after his child to indulge in a "straight gay" relationship [if I may underline with oxymoron]。as noted above the denouement is also based on the completely ridiculous idea his wife would undergo a transformation into a loving and caring mother when she realises Sora is doing badly in her first weeks back with her： completely unrealistic we are not told what happened about the career demands they have magically disappeared it seems with no idea how she will now support herself and her child、 this just does not happen in real life only saints undergo overnight character and personality changes。 in short the whole movie falls apart in a confusion of contradictions and unrealistic impossibilities when it had the chance to make a real contribution to showing a positive picture of a gay family overcoming social discrimination〜 why show acceptance of the relationship by the very conservative village people and then having their support break up the family?? it does not make sense unless lacking the courage to live and work out a happy life as a gay family as part of the society ー courage lacked by Nagisa because I note it was Shun having the courage to declare his love before the villagers but Nagisa who ultimately broke up their family。of course a more positive outcome does not mean taking Sora completely away from her mother but giving her the happiest safest background to grow up in、 but then given the selfish character of Nagisa as ultimately confirmed by the outcome perhaps he could not after all have done that、 but the turnaround completely contradicted the more positive first two thirds of the movie。 I do not know if the writer thought this was some clever artistic twist in the story but it was a complete failure of artistic touch as well as a sell-out reinforcing the homophobia LGBTQ people must still continue to fight against even in western society and still more in Japanese。
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