This review may contain spoilers
Family is such a nuisance isn’t it?
This series is about letting go of the performance of the false self and living with integrity in one’s true Self: When one is performing for the mother character, the job environment, playing the "good daughter" script, true Self is obscured by a false mask. The trauma of self betrayal that originated in childhood and the family, unconsciously dictates one’s behavior and so called personality throughout life. How does one become a people pleaser who seems unable to change? It’s a trauma response and the story is a realistic story about how the eventual breakdown and healing can begin, along with the setbacks along the way. How to not live a fake life smiling in front of the parents while clutching your stomach in pain as your true Self screams? In the beginning, living a lie for survival seems easier, but the compromise and self betrayal on one’s soul makes it intolerable for one’s inner integrity. It takes great courage to live a life of honesty and integrity according to your own truth and values.
Nagi collapses in her old fake life and leaves it all behind. She finds a cheap apartment with quirky new neighbors and makes a new life there- a long vacation, free of employment, family, and her pain in the a$$ boyfriend.
Even if her ex Shinji seems like the typical ego narcissist who’s simply grieving the girlfriend that got away, there seems to be something tugging at his heartstrings deep inside. Nagi chan’s authentic true Self that is unconditionally lovable and loving and does not need to be or look any particular way to be lovable. There was this way that he looks at Gon San when he speaks about his love that is very endearing like they both share something in common with each other and that is their love for Nagi Chan.
Gon San starts off as a F-boy who’s dead inside and basically infects all the women he “hangs out with” with his zombie virus of sleeping with them and getting them addicted to him in a kind of anxiety attachment style. He’s nice but he truly lacks life force and like a parasite he feeds off the attention of women yearning and longing after him. He’s oblivious to his nature and lacks self awareness, but when the next door grandma calls him a sinful man, it was refreshing to hear that kind of honesty. He starts off merely a zombie who infects others with his zombie virus of sleeping with random women. The without understanding his own transformation by Nagi, he asks Shinji one day: “do you have any wishes? You know, I don’t think I’ve ever had one. The desire of the girl in front of me was my only wish. Because I knew what they wanted me to do, I wanted to do it for them. But right now, even if she doesn’t have any desire, I want to do something for her (Nagi).” In that sense he is a mirror of Nagi who does the same with men. Eventually he clutches his heart and says he wants to do something for Nagi Chan. He says it’s the first time he’s had this feeling. He says something beautiful later to Nagi, as he takes her hand, “You know, when I think about how I ended up hugging you and kissing you, I can’t remember those. Right now, I can’t do such things. Because I’m embarrassed. This is the limit. My past and present self… look completely different. So I think people can change if they really want to.”
It’s as if the heart of the dreamer, even if she doesn’t fit in with the shallow socializing conversations of the people around her and isn’t a “people person,” she touches them deeply with her vulnerability and her very presence, which affects them with love.
I think the theme of this show is getting in touch with your own heart. You can read the atmosphere around you and try to live to please others, doing what other people want or trying to fit into some social template but what is the heart saying deep within? Past all the pretenses, these characters show that there is a love beneath all the ego’s defenses against emotional intimacy.
Reading the air and living with a mask on and constantly regulating oneself and personality is death of the true self. It is suffocating, and both Nagi and Shinji experience a collapse based on this suffocating mask. An outside person can make you happy no matter what they do.
I don’t get why Nagi always gives her food to others and they don’t really do the same for her (except the bar guy Mama who made her a chicken and rice bowl). She needs to just cook and eat for herself and stop trying to sustain and support everyone around her.
It’s no wonder the at Nagi turned out to be an incessant people pleaser because her mother is highly narcissistic and manipulative, and her father is nonexistent, so she constantly had to read the air to survive as a trauma response from childhood. It led to her not knowing what she really wanted in life and simply drifted to whoever paid attention to her and seemed interested. She didn’t know what she was truly interested in for herself because she was never given the emotional freedom to explore such things. She doesn’t listen to music, doesn’t have any hobbies, and doesn’t really know what to write for her wish list. Gon San is a mirror of this because he too reflects the desires of the women who are in front of him and doesn’t know what he wants for himself. Until Nagi lit a spark in him. All the people who are simply going through the motions of reading the air and surviving these stock social interactions are living hollow lives and dead inside. Even when Nagi goes to visit her mother, despite living with her natural hair for so long in her vacation, she transforms back into her straight haired corporate doll version, which is disappointing to Shinji as well who knows all too well how the family creates expectations to wear such masks and perform for survival. He tells her she’s already lost the battle if she goes and visits the mother looking like that. Nagi’s mother plays the perfect narcissist when she tries to manipulate Nagi into visiting her and covering the costs for the renovation of her house using her amazing nonexistent Tokyo job salary.. and when Nagi expresses that there’s something she wants to spend her money on (starting the laundromat business), and will support with whatever funds are leftover, the mother defaults to the manipulative line “it’s ok I will just beg around and try to borrow some money from others.” Ah typical narcissistic mother! This, the mother, the family mask and its conditional love based on Nagi’s performance was the origin story of her suffocation and drowning feeling. Upon visiting her mother and the mother using the line “I’ll just beg around for money and pay them back penny by penny,” Nagi immediately picked up the corn (which she hates) and ate it, and then immediately transferred 700,000 yen to the mother. This is how the narcissist always got what she wanted. Even after her long vacation and liberation, it felt like she fell back into the old traps of childhood trauma and motherly gaslighting. The mother is a parasite and robbed her daughter of her savings money even though she has no job. That was very sad to see. All of a sudden, her new friends like Sakamoto and her new laundromat dream don’t feel real anymore.
It seems that all three - Nagi, Shinji, and Gon are struggling with the same thing- trying to gauge the moods and atmosphere of others and then adjust themselves to that as a trauma response- no wonder they’re in this triangle together. But they’re in a healing phase and it takes time. It’s better not to go back to those old family systems while the soul is healing. Sometimes it feels like 2 steps forward, 1 step back, but progress is inevitable.
When a traumatized mind is healing from the effects of narcissistic abuse, it can be hard to understand why this person seems to regress and go back to old ways of people pleasing and money transferring. It was frustrating to see Nagi give all that money to her evil mother. But if seen through the eyes of compassion, I can see a wounded child that needs love and is trying to bargain and earn it still and needs to learn that this kind of family love is conditional and not real.
It was interesting to see Shinji immediately revert back to his family performance role when he sees Nagi’s narcissistic mother, and he starts shucking and jiving by making up lies about Nagi’s situation to please her in attempt to save Nagi. Again a trauma response. Seeing the two of them together in front of the narcissist mother was very telling that these are two children who have grown up reading their parents’ reactions and trying to survive. Shinji’s description of Nagi’s mom and her smile as “scary” was exactly it. It’s all about lying and keeping up with appearances. This is the life that the family teaches them to live. Sad sad and pitiful. But I know it all too well.
One of my most favorite scenes was the family breakdown- where the truth is revealed about both sides- that Nagi quit her job and works in a bar, and Shinji’s brother doesn’t work in America but in Japan and has written a tell all autobiography- he comes to crash the party and drop a few truth bombs like how Shinji’s dad has another family and how their mom got more plastic surgery. Seeing Shinji working so hard to keep the lid on, Nagi in that moment realizes that they are both the same, suffocating underwater, trapped in the family hell of lies. Ultimately Nagi’s narcissistic mother has this to say after the family lies fall apart like a house of cards: “I knew it, this is the kind of person you chose, Nagi. It’s always been like this. Even if I let you do anything your way, you would never do it properly. You’ve never met your mother’s expectations! Not even once. And the last one, it’s this.” And for the first time Nagi opens up while the truth has taken the stage: “I hate you. I’ve always hated you. For forcing me to listen to you and making me feel guilty for pretending to be a good person outside, for expecting me to do things you cannot do yourself. I hate you… I’m sorry, I cannot live for you, mom. Just life by yourself. I will also live for myself, by myself… although I can’t meet your expectations, and look this terrible.. I feel really happy to live this way.”
Even though both men ended up being very sweet in the end, I was really hoping that Nagi wouldn’t end up with either of them, and would just go off into the sunset alone in her True Self. Her transformation and power at the end is undeniable and it’s perfect that she ends up living in this new found power instead of partnering herself with some dude as the “happy ending.” The ultimate happy ending is this. She is happy with herself and being in her own skin. And I loved how her apartment building was demolished as a symbol of its purpose being finished. It was truly the perfect and healing series.
Nagi collapses in her old fake life and leaves it all behind. She finds a cheap apartment with quirky new neighbors and makes a new life there- a long vacation, free of employment, family, and her pain in the a$$ boyfriend.
Even if her ex Shinji seems like the typical ego narcissist who’s simply grieving the girlfriend that got away, there seems to be something tugging at his heartstrings deep inside. Nagi chan’s authentic true Self that is unconditionally lovable and loving and does not need to be or look any particular way to be lovable. There was this way that he looks at Gon San when he speaks about his love that is very endearing like they both share something in common with each other and that is their love for Nagi Chan.
Gon San starts off as a F-boy who’s dead inside and basically infects all the women he “hangs out with” with his zombie virus of sleeping with them and getting them addicted to him in a kind of anxiety attachment style. He’s nice but he truly lacks life force and like a parasite he feeds off the attention of women yearning and longing after him. He’s oblivious to his nature and lacks self awareness, but when the next door grandma calls him a sinful man, it was refreshing to hear that kind of honesty. He starts off merely a zombie who infects others with his zombie virus of sleeping with random women. The without understanding his own transformation by Nagi, he asks Shinji one day: “do you have any wishes? You know, I don’t think I’ve ever had one. The desire of the girl in front of me was my only wish. Because I knew what they wanted me to do, I wanted to do it for them. But right now, even if she doesn’t have any desire, I want to do something for her (Nagi).” In that sense he is a mirror of Nagi who does the same with men. Eventually he clutches his heart and says he wants to do something for Nagi Chan. He says it’s the first time he’s had this feeling. He says something beautiful later to Nagi, as he takes her hand, “You know, when I think about how I ended up hugging you and kissing you, I can’t remember those. Right now, I can’t do such things. Because I’m embarrassed. This is the limit. My past and present self… look completely different. So I think people can change if they really want to.”
It’s as if the heart of the dreamer, even if she doesn’t fit in with the shallow socializing conversations of the people around her and isn’t a “people person,” she touches them deeply with her vulnerability and her very presence, which affects them with love.
I think the theme of this show is getting in touch with your own heart. You can read the atmosphere around you and try to live to please others, doing what other people want or trying to fit into some social template but what is the heart saying deep within? Past all the pretenses, these characters show that there is a love beneath all the ego’s defenses against emotional intimacy.
Reading the air and living with a mask on and constantly regulating oneself and personality is death of the true self. It is suffocating, and both Nagi and Shinji experience a collapse based on this suffocating mask. An outside person can make you happy no matter what they do.
I don’t get why Nagi always gives her food to others and they don’t really do the same for her (except the bar guy Mama who made her a chicken and rice bowl). She needs to just cook and eat for herself and stop trying to sustain and support everyone around her.
It’s no wonder the at Nagi turned out to be an incessant people pleaser because her mother is highly narcissistic and manipulative, and her father is nonexistent, so she constantly had to read the air to survive as a trauma response from childhood. It led to her not knowing what she really wanted in life and simply drifted to whoever paid attention to her and seemed interested. She didn’t know what she was truly interested in for herself because she was never given the emotional freedom to explore such things. She doesn’t listen to music, doesn’t have any hobbies, and doesn’t really know what to write for her wish list. Gon San is a mirror of this because he too reflects the desires of the women who are in front of him and doesn’t know what he wants for himself. Until Nagi lit a spark in him. All the people who are simply going through the motions of reading the air and surviving these stock social interactions are living hollow lives and dead inside. Even when Nagi goes to visit her mother, despite living with her natural hair for so long in her vacation, she transforms back into her straight haired corporate doll version, which is disappointing to Shinji as well who knows all too well how the family creates expectations to wear such masks and perform for survival. He tells her she’s already lost the battle if she goes and visits the mother looking like that. Nagi’s mother plays the perfect narcissist when she tries to manipulate Nagi into visiting her and covering the costs for the renovation of her house using her amazing nonexistent Tokyo job salary.. and when Nagi expresses that there’s something she wants to spend her money on (starting the laundromat business), and will support with whatever funds are leftover, the mother defaults to the manipulative line “it’s ok I will just beg around and try to borrow some money from others.” Ah typical narcissistic mother! This, the mother, the family mask and its conditional love based on Nagi’s performance was the origin story of her suffocation and drowning feeling. Upon visiting her mother and the mother using the line “I’ll just beg around for money and pay them back penny by penny,” Nagi immediately picked up the corn (which she hates) and ate it, and then immediately transferred 700,000 yen to the mother. This is how the narcissist always got what she wanted. Even after her long vacation and liberation, it felt like she fell back into the old traps of childhood trauma and motherly gaslighting. The mother is a parasite and robbed her daughter of her savings money even though she has no job. That was very sad to see. All of a sudden, her new friends like Sakamoto and her new laundromat dream don’t feel real anymore.
It seems that all three - Nagi, Shinji, and Gon are struggling with the same thing- trying to gauge the moods and atmosphere of others and then adjust themselves to that as a trauma response- no wonder they’re in this triangle together. But they’re in a healing phase and it takes time. It’s better not to go back to those old family systems while the soul is healing. Sometimes it feels like 2 steps forward, 1 step back, but progress is inevitable.
When a traumatized mind is healing from the effects of narcissistic abuse, it can be hard to understand why this person seems to regress and go back to old ways of people pleasing and money transferring. It was frustrating to see Nagi give all that money to her evil mother. But if seen through the eyes of compassion, I can see a wounded child that needs love and is trying to bargain and earn it still and needs to learn that this kind of family love is conditional and not real.
It was interesting to see Shinji immediately revert back to his family performance role when he sees Nagi’s narcissistic mother, and he starts shucking and jiving by making up lies about Nagi’s situation to please her in attempt to save Nagi. Again a trauma response. Seeing the two of them together in front of the narcissist mother was very telling that these are two children who have grown up reading their parents’ reactions and trying to survive. Shinji’s description of Nagi’s mom and her smile as “scary” was exactly it. It’s all about lying and keeping up with appearances. This is the life that the family teaches them to live. Sad sad and pitiful. But I know it all too well.
One of my most favorite scenes was the family breakdown- where the truth is revealed about both sides- that Nagi quit her job and works in a bar, and Shinji’s brother doesn’t work in America but in Japan and has written a tell all autobiography- he comes to crash the party and drop a few truth bombs like how Shinji’s dad has another family and how their mom got more plastic surgery. Seeing Shinji working so hard to keep the lid on, Nagi in that moment realizes that they are both the same, suffocating underwater, trapped in the family hell of lies. Ultimately Nagi’s narcissistic mother has this to say after the family lies fall apart like a house of cards: “I knew it, this is the kind of person you chose, Nagi. It’s always been like this. Even if I let you do anything your way, you would never do it properly. You’ve never met your mother’s expectations! Not even once. And the last one, it’s this.” And for the first time Nagi opens up while the truth has taken the stage: “I hate you. I’ve always hated you. For forcing me to listen to you and making me feel guilty for pretending to be a good person outside, for expecting me to do things you cannot do yourself. I hate you… I’m sorry, I cannot live for you, mom. Just life by yourself. I will also live for myself, by myself… although I can’t meet your expectations, and look this terrible.. I feel really happy to live this way.”
Even though both men ended up being very sweet in the end, I was really hoping that Nagi wouldn’t end up with either of them, and would just go off into the sunset alone in her True Self. Her transformation and power at the end is undeniable and it’s perfect that she ends up living in this new found power instead of partnering herself with some dude as the “happy ending.” The ultimate happy ending is this. She is happy with herself and being in her own skin. And I loved how her apartment building was demolished as a symbol of its purpose being finished. It was truly the perfect and healing series.
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