‼️Read THIS after the Finalé: Thoughts on "What They Learned About LOVE", Easter-Eggs etc

⭐️ Cost Effectiveness of Love

The drama officials say:
恋愛は"タイパ悪い"時代に、真逆の世界を生きる2人の純愛ドラマ
In a generation where even Love is considered to be “terrible thing at time and cost efficiency", here’s a pure love drama by two individuals who live in two different worlds.

They lived up to that, in episode 6 they did imagine living a terrible life together where even dogs barked at them and they talked about the huge wall that separates them, they did think that they can’t get over those things and the ‘cost effectiveness of love’ and they separated. Didn’t even last two days though lol. But there came a point to them that they realized that even though the hurt they’d face by being near each other is the payment for the ‘tanoshii’-ness https://jisho.org/search/tanoshii they feel with each other. They just can’t stay away from each other because of the pain they’d cause each other, because they know that all they want to do is just being near each other, it's enough and that they will get over all the heartbreak for it. They realized “We Don’t Love to Become Happy.” Love is not the antidote to life’s terribleness or unhappiness, but it is the strength one can get from it to get through life. Just exquisite!✨

The us-against the world trope done right! They are alive now and found each other, all the others see them as the parts they play in life, but ONLY they see each other for who they really are. They recognized who they are as individuals and the world can’t do nothing to keep them apart. They can’t help but struggle because it’s us against the world. This is what I want from drama viewing like give us something to root for and some an angst that feels real.❤️😭

⭐️“A Poem: Giving-Up on Ending It All”

The drama started with Manami teaching a poem to her student and in the last episode again she does the same. The poem Ichiaku no suna, “A handful of sand” is a famous poem by Ishikawa Takuboku. It says: 

大という字を百あまり砂に書き、死ぬことをやめて帰り来きたれり


“I wrote the letter 大(Big/great) more than 100 times in the sand, and I gave up wanting to die and returned home”.

In the first episode she didn’t say what the letter 大/big/dai might represent, but in the last episode she says “大 represents a dream being TOO big to se-ou” https://jisho.org/search/背負う. She also says in the last episode "I will read this poem instead of a self-introduction".

In the first episode, the poem was implicitly mentioned as the reason why she gave up wanting to die, emphasizing on returning home and giving up on even dying, because as she says in last episode: she was a coward, until she met Taiga. In the second time the poem is mentioned her voice modulation changes, and it is full of intent, emphasizing on the dream being 大(Big/great) rather than death or going home, implicitly addresses what Taiga went through, he took on a dream too big to se-ou, and failed.

Raul describes Kaworu as someone who didn’t receive enough love and didn’t have many chances to feel being loved. https://www.familyclub.jp/page/drama_movie#5220. On the opposite, Manami is someone who Kawahara of all people lmao 🤦‍♀️ recognized that got too much ‘affection’ and overprotection thrust upon her. Taiga was seen as a failure, nothing was expected of him and was abandoned to his own devices. On the other hand, there were huge expectations put on Manami and she was never allowed to fall because she was saved before falling, she was never at her own devices as she lived accordingly to other’s expectations; she even went to die because the man she begged love from, told her to do so. These two different individuals falling in love with their wounded inner children made them equal in all fronts, and their age difference meant nothing imo.

I wrote about this poem and their inner wounded child here before:
https://kisskh.at/793096-ai-no-gakko#comment-22965294

The leads are not normal well adjusted people falling in love and I love them for it. She has tried, and everyone in her life also tried to make her ‘normal’ but she just isn’t, she’s someone capable of loving deeply and can’t help that aspect of herself of being honest to a default(her friend also mentions this).

He’s definitely not the ideal ML, here’s a man who lies everyday as work, but he is extremely careful with how he conducts himself, like from the first scene he is introduced he doesn’t want to sit next to the 18 year old girl, (he also didn’t know she was a highschooler because she hid it) and he loves deeply too, he clings to a mom who abandoned him and let her be a parasite, because it's the only reason she looks for him, so he works hard for her to be comfortable, and lives in a terrible apartment. The quality of being honest is what bought these two together. He had so much human potential but he was let down by everyone in his life and she could’ve being more free wouldn’t have led such a boring life if she wasn’t imprisoned by parental expectations.

⭐️The Two Lessons Learned in ‘Ai no, Gakkou / Love’s School’:

Lesson learned by Manami is realizing that fully loving someone is enough, you don’t have to calculate before loving someone, you don’t have to become a stalker to make sure every piece of your love has reached them. She doesn’t want to be loved back now, because she has enough strength just to love someone and that is all she wants to do. She tells Taiga that meeting him taught her not be okubyou https://jisho.org/search/okubyou anymore and now she is free of other’s expectations and the ways she also had imprisoned herself hoping to meet those expectations.

Taiga realized by the end, that being himself is enough, even with all his ‘defects’ he is still enough! Manami taught and showed him that. He doesn’t have to be the class clown who talks about poop when he fails now, he doesn’t have to ‘see everything as a joke or make himself into a joke’ to deflect his pain. He can be fully himself, he can show sorrow, anger, wail and Manami will be there. She will not leave after seeing his real ugly self. Even his lowest self is loved by her. He realizes he can love freely now and he doesn't have to stop loving someone because he's afraid of being abandoned.

For Manami, Taiga will be always there to find her, he will always search for her(as she said in episode 6 and he did by end of episode 9). But I think because for his abandonment trauma, a part of him will forever want to make sure that she still wants him, if she shows that, he will be there always. But if he feels she will leave him, he will the first one to run away from her before he’s abandoned. After Manami’s dad pushed him into the wall and he fell down, the first thing he asks Manami before standing is: 

“Sensei why are you crying? are you giving up on me already?”

In last episode again he fully shows her fear of abandonment, before he fully breaks down he says to Manami: how not only his mother or school mates, but people who are supposed to his friends and possible love interests abandoned him after seeing his ‘defectiveness’, so he's 'uselessly' handsome and 'meaninglessly' tall and stands out in such senselessly manner. All his life, all the people who came into his life, abandoned him, so in his mind people  = abandonment.

“Asetta? Ore ga mienakute asetta?”  https://jisho.org/search/aseru

“Did you panic? Did you lost sight of me and panic?”

He is projecting his feelings on to her and asking her to make sure she feels scared of losing him as he does. He didn’t let go of her until she said “Yes”.

Taiga’s abandonment issues, are so so deeply embedded endlessly in the depth of his heart, he is scarred for life. Taiga is someone who wasn’t loved by someone or did dare to love someone before Manami, so his feelings are so damn unstable, but also SO pure. He didn’t want to make the woman he love so much for the first time in his life, to be disappointed of him, like he thinks he was the one who made ALL the others leave him. He self-blames himself not others for his abandonment, every attribute of him is seeing as useless by him. I have never seeing a character who has such low self-worth and self-esteem pretending to be so confident as a host. The contrast of Kaworu and Taiga is so intricate.

⭐️The Utter Pain of Changing

In episode 6 Taiga tells Manami defiantly:

Maybe you're thinking you want to change me? 
It's impossible!
Not all who want to change can change.

And by episode 10, Taiga says to his Mom, defiantly:

I am not going to see you anymore!
I want to change!

Taiga's mom was the first abuser in his life who planted the seed deep in his heart that he is indeed an idiot and his 'defectiveness' will not let him change ever. He believed in that hurt, until he slowly wanted to peek into what Manami believed for him: that he can do anything he wants.

⭐️An Incomplete Letter By Takamori Taiga:

In episode 3 , Taiga asks: 

"Will anything good come from practicing characters?"

Manami Answers:

"You can read books then, you could write letters"
"I think you're world will open up"

Taiga:

 "Will it though?"

He did read books, he did write letters and his world did open up✨

How far has he come😭In earlier episode after getting brand new trauma from Akina-shachou he scribbled nonsense as his signature, and by the last episode his writes his name so clear and prettily.😭

This letter was written by the same man who couldn’t write his own name.😭

In this letter, I heard one of the most beautiful lines in a drama ever:

“Chiwawa sensei, ore.. kanji ga kakenakute yokatta yo, kanji ga kaketara, sensei to tsukiyatte-nakatta mon na” https://jisho.org/search/tsukiau

“Chiwawa sensei, I am.. glad I wasn’t able to write kanji, if I was able to write kanji, I wouldn’t have kept meeting/dating sensei”    

I cried the first time I heard it in the preview and then a second time watching the episode.

I am a diehard romantic but I only believe soulmates in a very realistic way, like two individuals need something tangible to keep connecting and needs time to recognize each other. What Taiga says here is just that. My thoughts and writer’s aligning made me cry so much and I didn’t know it was possible, but I fell with this drama all over again after hearing it, that too with Raul/Taiga’s perfect melty yasashii voice. It is true, if they weren’t this broken there would be no reasons for this soul connection to be felt by each other. He recognized that his disability was the same thing that linked them in this life and his disability was the same thing that gave him the ability to love and appreciate and see Manami’s best qualities: sincerity, wholeheartedness and earnestness wishing to teach him so he can progress in life without ever wanting anything from him.

After hearing his inner thoughts through this letter, we can clearly see he has now come to terms with his inability and won’t run away from facing reality. He has turned the worst aspect his life in to a positive, how confident has he become.

Taiga recognizing his disability is what connected them and how courageous has he become to see some positivity of all his wounds by this disability shows his strength in his heart. Powered by of LOVE™️ lol. The whole letter is one of the most beautiful and romantic things in this drama. Manami also talks about how her love making him grow in life is enough of a reason to love him, how selfless is she? gosh I adore Manami as a character.❤️

So now he has learned it’s ok to fail, he will not be abandoned, he has confidence that he can’t be forgotten by his Chiwawa-sensei. He was almost happy he wrote her name wrong, so now he will fail happily and will correct those mistakes with LOVE with Manami a hundred times without tiring.

The other most important part of this letter is:

俺にとってホストが居心地よかったのは嘘の世界だったから。
Why I felt so at home as a host was because it was a world of lies.

ほんとの気持ちを言ったら、みんな目の前からいなくなるっていても思ってた。
でも、先生にはほんとが言えた。初めてだった。

I thought if I said my true feelings, everyone would just disappear before my eyes. But I was able to say the truth to sensei. It was the first time I've done it.

先生に会って、俺はずっと誰かにほんとの気持ちを言いたくて、生きてたのかもなんて、ガラにもなく思ったま。

It feels unlike me to say this, but I truly feel that I lived life wanting to show how I really feel to SOMEONE.

The host world was cozy to him because he taught himself to become the class-clown from an earlier age and clowning is what a host essentially is. This part of the letter also voids the existence of Kaworu, he was always a lie, a persona, a safe-haven for Taiga to feel pride and to become someone or anyone of worth, because Taiga thought to himself that he can never be someone with pride or confidence in himself as the whole world pushed him into a corner starting from his mother, and it made him feel nothing but a lowest form of self-esteem possible, until Taiga met Manami.

See how prideful now Taiga is of himself saying: 

“I was sure you would come, because I know you can’t forget about ME”. 

Manami leaving the police station realized the reason why she wanted to teach him to write was because she wanted him to live his life in a 'munewohatte' manner. https://jisho.org/search/munewoharu. Her wish is now fulfilled, he is fully confident now, even overconfident as she barked back at him after hearing how he just expected her to come. “THIS jishinka" https://jisho.org/search/jishinka”

I love when they meet there’s this quiet acceptance and affirmation, and they both get confidence and confirmation that they will always find each other.

⭐️“We Meet 30,000 People and 'Surechigau' with Almost All”

In another life, where Manami isn’t overprotected or expected so much of her being a certain way, and Taiga living the school life he always wanted like he said in their pretend classroom in episode 6 near the beach, you know get appreciated by teachers and get 😍 by girls etc, they could have met each other but definitely will surechigau https://jisho.org/search/surechigau and have surely never fallen in love. Manami points at this too that we meet people that we don’t even realize we surechigau-ed. But she also says she believes that we will lock-eyes with that one person we will not surechigau.

IRL we all met that one person, we feel a connection to them and we both stop and recognize each other, but we realize we don’t have a common thread to connect upon and there’s nothing to go on, so we move on in life. If our protagonists were well adjusted people, they’d surechigau. That’s reality.

So Taiga recognizing his disability was what connected them, indicates that he finally have the courage to face the ‘defectiveness’ that stole all possibilities of a ‘normal childhood and life’ and now he sees some positivity in his disability. He finally sees a way to move past his disability and ‘defectiveness’ and his believe of utter ‘self-worthlesslenss’ and has strength in his heart to keep changing with the power of Manami’s love.

GAH this drama destroys you, at the same time fulfills and heals you with its wholesomeness, I don’t know how they did it. 😭

✍️Editing

✍️Editing