Bhavna

I normally like Haruka Ayase and is one of my favorite actresses, but… she was extremely annoying in this one and I honestly couldn’t stand her face at some point. This is a thin storyline stretch beyond its limit. It feels like this series is trying to act more profound than it really is, or maybe I wanted it to be deeper than it was.

It seems that most of the characters have a one dimensional fixation on romance, dating, and marriage. They all place romantic relationships on a pedestal and idolize it so much when it’s not that much to begin with. It begins and ends with chemistry, sparks, emotions, feelings… but none of it lasts. That’s why there are so many ups and downs like a rollercoaster. Drama.

She’s lived with her parents for 30 years, has a drunken one night stand with a college student 9 years younger than her who looks like a F-boy, and all of a sudden he is “serious about her,” and they’re dating? Losing her virginity like that on her birthday sounds terribly depressing and traumatizing. I don’t understand how they’re dating or how it’s a serious relationship when she can’t even remember her drunken first night. The college kid just broke up with a previous girlfriend and immediately falls into this one night stand with Hanae, and it’s serious all of a sudden? And he calls all the shots- he decides when they’re dating, when they break up, when they reunite, when they live together, when they call off living together, etc. She literally goes along with whatever he says as if he’s the boss. And she’s so dull in the relationship- she just says “Yes, you’re right. Yes true” with her annoying fake smiles. She tries so hard to please while the kid is more natural as himself. She’s trying to perform and impress as the “good girl” who’s always agreeable so she doesn’t get dumped. The problem is she doesn’t even know who she is and is trying to earn her way through this relationship as if it’s a project of getting good grades, so she hides her true self. Not just to him but to everyone she meets. Red flags all over the place. Then when the couple has a fight over the fact that a girl his own age likes him, and they take a break for a while, the first option back on the table is to.. live together? That sounds like those unstable romantic relationships that break up and get back together over and over. Meh… it doesn’t make sense and it feels like the poor heroine is trying too hard to be “normal” and be like everyone else to prove that she’s someone with “value” because she’s dating someone, and having a boyfriend and a romantic relationship is apparently the only important thing in life. It’s all so primitive and boring. She happens to be naturally different from most people, and instead of forcing herself to be like everyone else, she needs to just chill, be herself, and let life happen naturally. There seems to be nothing natural about all this forced setup I’m afraid, where she’s constantly saying “it’s time I do this and this.” I’m over it.

All this romance script, it bored me. Oh, and the lead pair have zero chemistry. Asao and Hanae have better chemistry than her and Tanokura.

There were moments that were emotional and relatable like the birthday and the emotions she goes through after her first night with the college dude… but I just don’t understand many things such as:

-They act totally close and then totally cold the next moment.. it’s exhausting to watch.
-The CEO guy only has romance with Aoishi San on his mind 24/7. Does he do or think of anything else?
-Does Hitomi do anything else except aggressively pursue men/CEO 24/7? She’s so one dimensional. Does she have nothing else in her mind or personality?
-Does the young baby faced guy in the office do or think of nothing else except romance with Hitomi 24/7?
-Does the young college girl Hirono do or think of nothing else except Tanokura San 24/7?

This is what I mean by the characters are all very one dimensional and obsessed with romance. It makes the series quite boring and draining to watch. How much do we need to exhaust this romance topic over and over?

In episode 8, when after Oshiro sees her and the college guy together, she freaks out and is constantly having a nervous breakdown at work and acting so suspicious in the office like she’s down some crime, and it’s not cute. In fact it’s really annoying. She acts like her romance is the center of the universe and it’s not. She doesn’t even care about herself anymore, just the romance, and protecting it, and somehow making it a secret while deciding to live together? How is that even possible? Why all the secrecy? It’s all so annoying and melodramatic and unnecessary and stupid.

Then she and Oshiro go get drinks so she can bribe him to stay quiet about her relationship with the college kid. Then she starts to get more romance advice about marriage and imagining that hitting the bullseye in the darts game means she will get married. She’s already done this nonsense before with the claw machine trying to get a stuffed toy. She starts obsessing over her age and the kid’s age if they get married and he comes out of graduate school. Seriously let the kid go and stop obsessing over this dumb relationship. As if it’s so strong and a soulmate connection. It’s not. It’s short lived, fast moving, but also constipated with red flags all over the place and somehow with the added intense pressure to get married. It’s just all a disaster. Hanae constantly obsessing over their age difference and marriage is incredibly annoying. Having a girlfriend who’s so uptight and obsessed with marriage all of a sudden puts too much pressure on the kid. She’s chaining him to her own biological clock, while he goes on planning graduate school, then going to the US to get a MBA and then start a company- his vision for his life doesn’t include her, and he lives for himself and his own goals, while having a little romance on the side. They should break up ASAP. As I write more about it, I’m getting more annoyed at her for clinging to this kid, and annoyed at the story obsessing over marriage as an idol as if it’s the highest goal in life, despite the intense misery and imprisonment that inevitably comes which these J dramas also explore so well.

Then as if this Hanae character couldn’t get any worse, she delivers one of the worst lines I’ve ever heard from a heroine in a J drama- to her boyfriend’s mother when she meets her for the first time, “With regards to Tanokura (her bf), I’ll financially support him for as long as I live! And so Tanokura can devote himself to his studies!” Then her boyfriend corrects her and says oh this conversation isn’t about marriage, it’s about graduate school, and his mother sighs in relief. So Hanae offered herself on platter saying she would support him until she dies and she still gets rejected as the boyfriend says he’s not even thinking about marriage. OMG. It’s this kind of insecure doormat behavior that gets a woman into a situation where she’s taken advantage of in every conceivable way - turning herself into a wife/bangmaid, and then financially supporting the man too? Is she his adopted mother? This is the low point of the series, but I’m only on episode 8 so let’s see if it gets any lower. Then at the final moment, her voiceover says “I’m hanging out with my boyfriend and even if we can’t get married, I’m the happiest person in all of Japan… I’m the happiest person in all of Asia! Our first kiss outside- I’m the happiest person in all the world!” Why lie to yourself? I’m docking another star for that line and her desperate, insecure behavior that lowers the value of a woman. Then randomly Tanokura who promised his graduate school professor and college that he would quit his job, decides to keep the job and marry Hanae instead! Or at least that’s the plan for episode 8- I can almost guarantee that it will flip to the opposite in episode 9.

Episode 9: another irritating dialog from Hanae: “An exclusive outdoor onran in a private room is something I’ve only seen in TV and magazines the place that I launched to visit alone, but never expected to come with my boyfriend has brought extreme happiness. I won. I’m a winner in life. Outdoor onsen. Outdoor onsen!… Tanokura is my God in every respect!” SMH who writes these dialogs? “I won? I’m a winner in life?” These lines are so cringe. Then after puffing herself up so much, her boyfriend gets in the onsen bath too and she shrinks into a people pleasing doormat once again. Then after the onsen she turns back into her gloomy insecure self acting all weird trying to “repay his kindness” to the point where even Tanokura has to ask her why she’s acting strange. Her parents also wonder why she looks so gloomy after her onsen trip, and she’s obsessing over “repaying him” like a transaction, while all her efforts just turn up as inauthentic, performative, and contrived. Her inner monologue is highly irritating to listen to.

After his graduate school assistant tells her that she’s disappointed that he won’t pursue graduate school and does a guilt trip on her, Hanae starts sensibly by telling Tanokura to go to graduate school and not give up on his dream. but she derails into saying “I don’t have feelings for you anymore. Actually I’m dating Asao instead!” And does another fakery of “I’m the nice sacrificial martyr woman who’s faking this lie to push him away so that he will pursue his dreams! I’m such a saint!” She breaks up with him. Omg she is so annoying. Then she goes back to being her gloomy self and spreading misery all around her. And then makes her parents miserable by delivering the news. She broke up with him by lying and hurting him instead of repaying his kindness, she did it to herself and then acts like the world is so dark and gloomy. And then starts sobbing to her mother. Ugh. She seems desperate for attention in the form of sympathy. Then she tries to make up this elaborate manipulation telling Asao to act as if he’s her boyfriend so that it would push Tanokura away more and she can continue to feel sorry for herself like a martyr. She has no integrity and is so annoying. But Asao who has more integrity than her tells Tanokura the truth - that they are not dating. Asao offers him words of wisdom: “Since you’re crazy about her, you’re pushing yourself too much. You already reached your limit long ago. The more you think about her the more you try to live up to our expectations. And as she tries to keep up with you, she desperately pushes herself too hard. It’s a typical example of a bad relationship. She realized that it would ruin your life. If things remained this way the best thing she could do for you was to break up with you haven’t you realized it yet?” Then Asao invites Hanae to his restaurant early before its opening after talking to Tanokura and assured that the relationship is over, and proposed marriage to her. Actually that was a boss move. Making sure she was available and obstacles out of the way, and then went in for the kill. I never thought I’d say this, but Asao is probably one of the better characters in this show- his dialog shows some level of intelligence and tact, and he actually says wise things, unlike the nonsense that comes out of Hanae and the rest of them. Even after she says “I don’t feel that way towards you Asao San,” he says “Since you still don’t have that much experience in love, you may not understand but there’s no future in a distracting relationship that’s about staring passionately into each other’s eyes. Those who stare into each other’s eyes get in the way of each other’s plans and won’t be able to move on anywhere. You two were like that. We will never be like that. We can talk to each other without holding back. You’re the first person that I can talk to in a very relaxed way. A relationship that feels comfortable like a friendship what’s wrong with that? That’s also a kind of love..” He’s right. Since she has the maturity of an elementary schooler when it comes to love, she expects fireworks and then breaks up two seconds later, and thinks infatuation or flattery is love. Her way of thinking “I won at life!” While sitting in an onsen with her boyfriend is the height of immaturity. Having someone like Asao who is far more mature is actually better for her to live with a little common sense. Yet for some reason Hanae is quite rude and nasty to him, and reveals a very different side of herself to him, not the fake, highly censored, people pleasing performance she puts on with Tanokura, which is not her true authentic self at all. Just a highly curated image for him to like. If this pessimistic snappy persona is her real personality and Asao likes it, they are certainly fine for each other.

Finally she rejects Asao San, and I actually feel sorry for him, but it’s the usual trope of the 2nd male lead never getting the girl despite his sincere love and efforts. Then she decides to be alone and get life insurance, which is basically a lead into her next series 10 years later “I want to die alone.” Actually it’s much better that way. But Alas, they do the whole “He’s on his way to the airport to America BS, and if you haul yourself over there, you can see him and everything will change- apparently all the issues they had with the age difference will just melt away because of that one moment of rushing to the airport- as every romantic comedy trope does- hurry before they leave for a different country and you might be able to change the entire trajectory of his life!” Saying “Ganbatte!” As she rushes to the airport trying to do what exactly? Then they say “We haven’t gotten over each other, we still have feelings for each other!” Because feelings is what makes a relationship! And if the feelings change for a moment, then break up. Then when feelings change again, get back together and suggest living together. Then cancel living together and break up. Then propose marriage, and then cancel it and lie that you’re actually dating someone else and break up. And then do a fast forward and say look the romance is back because we need a “happy ending!” Oh, here we go again. The same tired old story. Do they really think this is how love works? It’s like propaganda for bad red flag romance, which I’m so tired of. Docking another star.

Much ado about nothing. So much melodrama about nothing. Yawn.

Apparently if you “Try hard enough” like the baby faced nosebleed in the office, you’ll get to marry the love of your dreams and then complain about her after you get married. Sounds like a blast. Anyway, I did like the song “Fall” by Noriyuki Makihara. It was very catchy and woke me up periodically from being zombified by the mind numbing story which got worse with each episode.