Tokyo Tarareba Musume 2020

SP? It means SPare yourself this waste of time

I rated the original series 7/10 for its examination of female friendship. This one only gets 4, and that's down to the hard work of the female leads. The SP adds nothing to the lead character's story, but did confirm that the "KEY" character was truly awful. Throughout the entire original series he never did or said anything supportive for the FL, always snide and blaming her - sometimes deservedly so, sometimes not. In the SP, he hit a new low. When the FL was emotionally devastated by something for which she was in no way at fault, he angrily attacked her and defended the person who had hurt her. If you enjoyed the series, don't taint your memories of it by wasting nearly 100 minutes on this very UNspecial

Read More

There is no plot

I didn’t enjoy the original series in the first place but still watched this extra episode out of curiosity. I wanted to know how it ended because the original series kind of led to nowhere. This episode also led to nowhere lol. 

The girls were still at the same page like how they were 3 years earlier. They were still desperate for romance and made rushed bad decisions because of their desperation, and then regretted their choices again. At the end of the original series, they seemed to stop chasing romance and focus on themselves. And it turned out that they didn’t change one bit. At some point, I think it’s kind of realistic, and it’s a sad thing. Human beings are complicated. One moment you think you have learnt and changed about something, then the next day you might still have the same mindset as before, but perhaps at a different level.

Although it’s a still bad one, I did liked this extra episode a little bit more than the original series, partly because I couldn’t stand the cheating plot in that series. I got mad a lot while watching people cheat and pretend like there’s nothing wrong with it in the series, and it was also mentioned in this extra episode in a few minutes. 

Besides, I think I can relate to some parts in the girls’ life, as an Asian woman living in an Asian community. You get a lot of pressure about a certain age for marriage, and 30s are kind of the deadline for us. Everyone seems to be obsessed about finding ‘the one’, as they think being an old single lady would be one of most miserable and lonely things in the world. That’s a mindset set up by men for sure. Anyway, in Asian society, people put a lot of pressure on unmarried or childless women. I get where the girls are from so I understand why they are so obsessed with romance and marriage like that. I feel bad for them. A lot of women around me are married because they are forced into it when they reach a certain age and also live in misery.

Another thing I relate to in this extra episode is that 30s also seems to be a deadline in career and life in my culture. A lot of people assume that people in their 30s must achieve a certain level of success or have something in their hands to be worthy.

There’s one more thing portrayed in this extra episode that I think it might only true for Asian married couples. In our society, marriage isn’t just about 2 people, but it’s also about becoming family with their parents and even their extended family. Annoying in-laws like Kaori’s mother-in-law are very common and they can destroy one’s marriage for real. The lesson number one is always to stay away from ‘mama’s boy’.

For those reasons above, I understand one of the reasons why the girls are so problematic and messed up at making rushed bad decisions, as they also live in a society with a lot of problematic and unfair society for women. However, I don’t sympathize with their decisions because of that. The plot is still a messy hot pot that led to nowhere. And I’m actually mad that Key-kun still toyed with Rinko’s heart and didn’t give her any direct commitment so that she can feel safe in their relationship and stop chasing around other men so desperately. He didn’t even encourage or make her more confident about herself for one minute. Instead, he always blamed her and made her feel so small even though she did nothing wrong. He’s the worst type of man to date. I don’t like imagining Rinko end up with a jerk like Key. Rinko might be a little bit problematic, insecure with low self esteem. But she deserves more than that. In fact, I think he should have chosen Hayasaka-san in the original series. He was the best for her. 

I think no one would read this review, but if you did, I would really appreciate it. By the way, I adore all the cast, except for Kentaro Sakaguchi and Kei Tanaka, obviously, after learning what they did.

Read More