While waiting for Ripley to appear on Netflix, I thought I needed a break from grim news and the International Booker longlist (often on bleak topics), so I thought I’d dive into something very untypical for me: a light-hearted rom-com series. I was initially planning on finding something Korean, but memories of my trip to Japan were too powerful, and I finally opted for a Japanese comedy set in a hospital (even more unusual for me, as I was never a fan of hospital dramas), based on a comedy manga (hence, full of over-the-top acting), An Incurable Case of Love (in Japanese Koi wa Tsuzuku yo Doko made mo – Love Lasts Forever). The series was rather silly and reinforcing a lot of gender stereotypes, but I was rather taken with the main male actor, Satō Takeru.
So I turned to another TV series where he’s the lead, First Love, and did something even more uncharacteristic: I binge-watched it. And then searched for more, and found Why Didn’t I Tell You a Million Times? (in Japanese – 100 Mankai Ie-ba Yokatta), which I also binge-watched.
So now I am steeped in contemporary Japanese language, culture, music and escapism, and could see some common themes emerging, although each of these series is quite different.
Even a comedy is sad and death is always nearby
The hospital drama was the most purely comedic of the lot, but even there, you had emergencies, moments of despair and death of patients or loved ones. Some of it was tear-jerker fodder for the storyline, of course, but then there was the moving scene when the hospital staff handle the dead patient, and still tell him what they are going to do (‘we will now take off your top’, ‘we will now wash your torso’ etc.), just as if he were still alive. The amount of respect shown to patients (and the level of staffing and care in hospitals) was mind-blowing, but that probably wasn’t realistic.
First Love switches between different time frames, as high-school sweethearts find each other many years later, after they have each led very different, smaller lives than what they’d initially dreamt about together. But it’s not a straightforward romance, because the woman had actually lost her memory in an accident and therefore doesn’t recognise him as her first love. I’ve been told that memory loss is a very common trope in romances, but since this is not my usual fare, it felt fresh enough to me.
The contrast between the joyful, sparky teenagers and the middle-aged people who’ve lost their oomph and learnt to cope with disappointments and loneliness was very touching, and there were moments of interaction between mother and son (in the present-day) and mother and daughter (in the past), which were very well-observed, and meant that even the side characters had depth and their own stories of failure and disappointments. There were also links to historical events (such as the war in Afghanistan or the 3/11 earthquake and tsunami in Japan, or Covid in 2020), and descriptions of working-class lives and the ‘Lost Generation’ of job hunters as Japanese economy took a downturn, which grounded the story, rather than making it all wishful thinking.
The penultimate episode ends on a bittersweet but realistic note, with the lovers parting as they realise that the past cannot be recaptured, and perhaps the original intention was for the story to end there. But then in the final episode, we get the Disney happy ending, which felt a little like pandering for the audience. But, as someone said on Reddit ‘we don’t watch romances for realism, we watch it to escape from our daily lives’ – I suppose it’s only human to want a good outcome for those people who’d been through so much!
Why Didn’t I Tell You a Million Times? (shortened from here on to WDITY) also has a common supernatural trope (so I’m told, but have yet to discover myself): a loved one who dies but his spirit is still around. I can only remember Ghost with Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore, and Truly, Madly, Deeply with Juliet Stevenson and Alan Rickman – and certainly this story combines both themes (trying to solve a murder and for the survivor to learn to move on). But it is also about regrets – for all the words that were unspoken, all the things that they didn’t get to do together, the years wasted – and the pain of watching someone rebuilding their life without you, even though you know it’s the best thing to do.
Although the ghostly special effects were a bit cringeworthy and the police drama side of it somewhat predictable, the chemistry between the three leads (the dead lover, the surviving girlfriend and the police officer who’s the only one who can see the ghost) makes for some very good comedic moments. But, as is often the case in Japanese fiction or films, there is a sense of wistfulness and an ending that is unsentimental, satisfying but sad.
Gender Stereotypes and Wishful Thinking
As far as appearances go, the girlfriends tend to be cute (kawaii in Japanese) rather than beautiful, with quite a few of them exuding manic pixie girl energy, while the men have that slender, graceful, slightly androgynous beauty that the Japanese call ikemen. However, when it comes to personalities, the men are often very ‘verklempt’ (as the Germans might say) – unable to express their emotions, or expressing them in rather macho, bullying ways, while the girls have to do all the emotional labour. The men are often mysterious, hiding troubled pasts, seldom smile, keep a stiff upper lip, which of course makes the inevitable admission of their feelings and succumbing to passion all the more precious.
Ikemen balance their good looks, fashionable clothes and masculine desire to protect their girlfriends with so-called feminine qualities such as patience, sensitivity and tenderness. They also want whatever is best for their partner, even if they have to sacrifice themselves at times, encouraging her to study abroad or try a new job. This is where wish fulfilment might come in, unless Japanese men have changed dramatically since the 1990s when I was more involved with studying Japanese society.
There is also quite an obsession with marriage in these TV series, which perhaps reflects society norms that remain strong, even though there are a few new series that try to subvert that (I am currently watching yet another one about dating in your 30s which seems to question whether marriage is of any benefit to women). However, there is a recognition that marriage does not equal a happy ever after, and stories of divorce and single mothers appear far more frequently than they did in Yuko Tsushima’s time (Territory of Light would not be as revolutionary in Japanese culture now as it was back in the 1970s).
The topic that comes up again and again in these series, whether addressed directly or indirectly, is loneliness. Which is indeed a huge problem in Japanese society – there are an estimated 1.5 million (out of a population of 122 million) hikikomori, recluses who’ve withdrawn from society and barely leave their houses. With society expectations, working hours and pressures still so high, many in the younger generation are refusing to settle down, while others simply disappear – Japan has one of the highest rates of suicides and deliberate disappearances in the world (there are even professional handbooks or companies who can help you drop out of your life). Even before the pandemic, 55% of Japanese reported feeling lonely. The maid and butler cafés, the hostess and host bars that are on nearly every street corner in large Japanese cities are not so much about sex, as about having someone pour out your drink and ask you about your day, making you feel slightly less lonely for a couple of hours.
And that’s exactly what these TV series do as well. The main characters are initially self-sufficient but lonely, they feel something is missing from their lives, but in the end, once they’ve worked on themselves and are strong in themselves, they find companionship and love. They give all those lonely people hope – and perhaps a blueprint for being in a viable relationship: be more resilient and independent (if you’re a girl), be more sensitive and empathetic (if you’re a boy).
Travelling and Language Learning
For someone like me, who used to speak Japanese fluently but has forgotten most of it, these series are an excellent way of refreshing my language skills. I’ve watched anime series with my sons before, but the vocabulary there is more limited, while these show ontemporary language and social interactions that you might encounter in real-life.
I love noticing cultural nuances that don’t always come through in translation. For example, the main character, the nurse in An Incurable Case of Love, continues addressing the doctor as ‘sensei’ even after they get together as a couple.
The men tend to refer to their girlfriends as ‘ore no kanojo’ (my she), while the women use a more varied vocabulary such as kareshi, koibito, boifurendo, which all signify lover. To say ‘I love you’, they generally use ‘suki’ or ‘daisuki’, which is also used for like/fancy (you can use it for food or music or hobbies too). Which makes the scene in WDITY all the more powerful, when he finally repeats ‘aishiteru’ – which is the proper, formal way to say it.
With the exception of First Love, which seems to have had more budget thrown at it, and therefore features a diversity of backdrops, including lots of snowy scenes in Hokkaido and Iceland, these series are largely sitcoms, so feature a small set of interiors – their apartments (they always seem to live in separate flats if they’re unmarried, even if they’ve been together for a while) or houses, which seem to be less cramped than in real life; their offices or business premises; a local restaurant or bar. Yet we also get street shots of the cities where the events take place: lots of images of the Tokyo Skytree Tower and a bit of Osaka and Kagoshima for An Incurable Case of Love, Sapporo (and rural areas of north Hokkaido) in First Love, Yokohama in WDITY. Now all I need is to find a series set in Kyoto and Fukuoka, and my vicarious travelling will be complete! But I suspect those two locations tend to be used more for historical dramas, which are not quite as useful for boosting my Japanese vocabulary.
Food and Music
One of the rules of Japanese TV series is that in each episode there will be at least one instance of people sitting down to eat together, saying ‘Itadakimasu’ and then making a really strange face with their mouth full, after which they burst out (with tears of joy in their eyes): ‘Oishii!’ or ‘Umai!’ – meaning ‘delicious’. Food is very important in Japan, and people cooking for each other is a declaration of love. (In the TV series I saw, the men were just as good if not better at cooking than the women, so at least a bit of equality there.)
However, I was slightly disappointed that there weren’t more complicated recipes on offer: omuraisu (rice omelette), or hamburger steak (without a bun), or ramen or spaghetti Napolitan (with sausage and bacon in ketchup – only in Japan, the Italians would disown this) seem to be the popular dishes, and they are mostly inspired by Western cuisine.
An added bonus has been listening to the soundtracks and songs on these series. First Love is actually based on two songs by a hugely popular Japanese artist Utada Hikaru (one from the 1990s called First Love and one released 20 years later called Hatsukoi – which also means First Love).
This reminded me of all the J pop I used to listen to back when I was studying Japanese in the 1990s – and they’re still as upbeat and poppy as ever in An Incurable Case of Love. There’s more of a mix of English and Japanese rock and R&B in First Love, while WDITY has a more suitably haunting piano-based soundtrack.
If you’ve made this far in this very long blog post, congratulations!
In spite of my attempts to make this look like a research project, the truth is, it’s simply been great fun reliving my youth (but with more access to digital media about Japan than I had back then). Like all of my passing fads, this too will fade into oblivion after a while, and so it should, as spending 4-5 hours every evening in front of the TV is not the best use of my time or conducive to good health. Besides, it makes my cat Kasper (who usually sleeps on my lap while I’m watching TV) then want to get up to shenanigans at midnight, because he hasn’t played enough.
However, it has given me an idea for a story… and no, it’s not going to be a rom-com, even if it starts out as one!
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