Bhavna

I started watching this show right after several episodes of Solo Katsu Joshi no Susume (Solo life woman’s recommendations), and found the exact opposite character in this show’s protagonist. Solo Katsu was about a woman who is fiercely independent and gets to know who she is and what she likes by being alone and doing activities solo, but this character Aya is the exact opposite of that as she lives her life to follow the crowd, and follow everyone else that she completely loses herself. She keeps thinking that everything relies on where you’re born, what your family status is, and what town you were raised in. And of course, that does determine certain things in the events of one’s life, but it isn’t the defining factor of one’s happiness. There are people from Akita who lived perfectly happy and normal lives, and they don’t linger in this constant state of dissatisfaction the way Aya does. She’s constantly judging her own background as not good enough, and therefore needing to somehow compensate for her upbringing by becoming more and more modern and cosmopolitan. But this only breeds more dissatisfaction, and brings into view more character characters that confirm her own ideology that everything in life depends on where you’re born and what your family status is. She seems to encounter more men like that, and more female friends who believe the same. In that sense, even though she seems to be upwardly mobile and achieve different things in her career, she doesn’t seem to fit into those groups of “old money” where she thinks security lies. But there is no security there either, because the marriage is in those circles are also shams and riddled with affairs and insecurity. She’s constantly looking over the fence thinking the other side is greener, but it’s not.

From the very beginning of the show, I noticed that Aya has no real vision for her life, except to be somebody that other people are envious of. This automatically puts her in a state of mind of perpetual high school pettiness regardless of her age. She’s constantly going from one stage to the next in life thinking that she’s moving up the so-called ladder of status or popularity or desirability, but there’s that underlying insecurity that she’s never enough unless she’s buying the latest brand of expensive whatever, or working some job that according to some arbitrary measurement means success by the time you’re 30, and it seems so petty and juvenile. Her state of mind hasn’t matured since middle school, and is dictated by those around her, and she seems stunted. It’s a sad existence, and her self-worth is dictated by what she buys at the mall and how expensive it is. Regardless, I find myself feeling sorry for her rather than despising this character. She doesn’t have any more self-awareness than this. Her aspirations since childhood have not been very high beyond the materialistic success of buying things and being envied. Her thought process doesn’t go beyond this level of material existence, and I find that the series itself, life itself that deals her blow after blow is wiser than her thought process. Even as she goes through challenges, I don’t see her character maturing at all. She simply transfers that same “I want to be envied by others and follow the crowd” into every stage of life. In her package of upward mobility comes one man after another, treating her to this or that, and she also regards men as a commodity for upward social mobility, but those men are also equally shallow, and so nothing in her life really provides lasting happiness. Then instead of any genuine self reflection, she’s off looking for the next rung on the ladder and to see where she belongs at what age according to what someone said. It’s all about moving to the next hottest area in Tokyo and doing the next hottest thing, ie having a baby. To give her life some sense of value. But she has no sense of her own value without anything material and that’s sad. Her life appears very hollow and meaningless, despite her convincing herself logically that she has everything that she’s supposed to have by a certain age. Her mind state is the very epitome of “dukkha” as Buddha taught- the ego’s constant state of dissatisfaction and inability to rest in the present moment, but rather chasing this or that, which makes her even more miserable in the end.

And because her only aspiration was to become someone that other people envied, most often times she ends up envying others instead. When she believes that she is “got it all” at some stage of life such as when she says to herself “I’ve finally made it. I have the perfect career and love life.” Then she overhears some coworkers in the bathroom talking about how they’re going on some group matchmaking date and then she immediately feels left out and envious of them. At another point when she moves the begins and starts working for Gucci (and apparently speaking French is important for Gucci brand, who knew? I will never understand the Japanese drama obsession with France and everything French, which is also incredibly hollow) and has an interview in a magazine, she goes to her old friend group to boast about it and celebrate her 33rd birthday with them to once again be that person that is envied by others, but instead she ends up envying them because they are all pregnant and married and exchanging baby photos. More often than not because of her aspirations, she ends up being a married man’s mistress, no more enviable than a sad Marilyn Monroe figure. Her reference point for life and what she does or wants to do is always based on other people and what they are doing. If other people are going on marriage hunting parties, she is going too. And then she follows that all the way to becoming someone’s luxury mistress and working a luxury job in a fancy part of town. But then when she sees her old social group following the motherhood path, she drops the luxury mistress gig, and goes back to the marriage parties in order to get onto the domesticated woman phase. Then gets married to some bum and ends up miserable. But ultimately, she doesn’t know what she wants because her reference point is always other people. She is not the center of her own life. Because her life aspiration is to be envied, she can reach no higher than this in life.

Eventually, after her aggressive marriage search, she finds a man who makes ¥9 million and their combined income is ¥17 million which is a pretty good income. “I’ve finally made it, my husband is one among the crowd,” she proudly says. He looks like her grandfather, and ironically is a total mismatch for her looks, but she is desperate so she’ll take whatever she can get. But the problem is spoiler alert, she cannot be happy in this marriage either. Honestly, she’s seen too much of that world. She’s been a mistress of at least two different men. It’s kind of a dead end.

She even says that she doesn’t feel like she’s the protagonist of her own life, and feels like she’s an extra. She feels like an extra in her own life because she’s making everyone else the protagonist, and making everyone else the centerpiece of her life. Even her original aspiration of wanting to be envied by others, is an effect of this. She tries to be smug about living on the higher floors of the high rise as a status thing, but can you really live off of this ego boost? She looks at other housewives or friends, chatting with each other and perceives them to be happy every day of their lives. Once again, it’s the hollow dissatisfaction and meaninglessness that she lives in. If she couldn’t be happy before marriage, then there’s no way that she could be happy after marriage either. After hearing other moms talk about kids wanting to get on the pregnant bandwagon, she is meanwhile headed for a divorce or an affair in her marriage. She can’t be present in anything.

How could she be happy when she only found a man because everyone else had one? Then her husband has the predictable old affair with some coworker and gets her pregnant, so Aya has to get a divorce. As she’s filling out the divorce application, she starts crying and remembering her childhood when she was crying that she didn’t get the same dolls as her friends. Then when her dad asks if her friends want to die will she die too, and then her mother says women always want what other people want. What a stupid lesson. I don’t even know why she’s actually crying. Is she crying because she genuinely feels something? Or because her entire life has been about wanting something hollow? Then she ends up sleeping with this random waiter at the café who invited her to a club. She’s so empty and seem so dead inside. Ah.. what a sad woman. No one could possibly look at her life and envy it.

It’s funny how in the very last episode her old teacher and career counselor spots her as she has come back to her hometown to visit in Akita. She talks about how Aya is an inspiration to all the new students and how they say they want to be just like her when they see her magazine article. The funny thing is her magazine article came out of a time when she was having an affair with a rich married man who offered her many luxuries and upward mobility, but nothing of substance. And to think that upcoming new students expired to Aya and her hollow vision of living a plastic materialistic life being envied by others, it just shows the cycle of meaningless lives that are lived in this world. The blind following the blind. Devoid of any real happiness or meaning. The one who should be on the magazine cover is not Aya. It should be Saotome Megumi- the Solo Katsu Joshi from the previous series I watched- now she is a real trailblazer and a hero for following her own inner truth and heart in solitude, for being true to herself. She is one that people should gather inspiration from, not a follower like Aya.

From the first to the last shot, where she is walking with a new (old friend) man as her new house companion so that she “doesn’t die alone,” Aya remains the same, fundamentally motivated by envy, jealousy, greed, and materialistic desires. She is shallow from beginning to end, and doesn’t lean into the true ordinary happiness, but keeps giving into the next thing that she wants that other people have. As she is walking with this man, she notices a couple with a woman who looks like herself wearing some high fashion yeti costume, and ogling at her like she’s got the best life. And the cycle of suffering (samsara-Dukkha) continues. If this is “the good life,” it is hell on earth.