BLISS RATING: ★★★★
“Love is the flower you’ve got to let it grow.” – John Lennon
This is one of the more honest BLs to come out of Japan in a very long time. It is also surprisingly sincere and heartfelt. It had a deeply personal grok about it. There was an unawareness of the feelings that the individual protagonists were realizing, and those susceptibilities were projected into their actions and to a degree manifested into who they became and are.
This BL is misunderstood. To understand this series, you must take it at its face value. Do not read into it more than is there; on the other hand, do not assume that what you see is all that is there. What is here is a story about two guys who grew up liking each other and were wounded by that. For that was in a stage of life in a culture when that could not be cultivated, and frankly the only acceptable way to display one liking another was by tormenting (bullying) the other. In this way, you fostered a warped sense of connection. This connection was usually expressed by a strange need to be close to and near each other for any reason. Yet, it was because of that unique bond where each just could seem to be able to escape the other. It became a hunger for both. It only brought him nearer to his tormentor. The tormentor could then socially express his love. Provided that expression was not too painful. Unfortunately, in ALL cases, it always ends up being so. Always.
In high school, Suzuki Hiroshi (Iwahashi Genki) was a nerd. Crisply uniformed with thick glasses and a passion for flowers and plants, he was an outcast. Yet, for some reason, the top-notch handsome kid, Washizawa Natsuo (Soma Satoru) befriends him, but in a belittling and torturous way. The two become almost inseparable. What germinates, however, between them is the seeds of love with neither able to understand or define what they were feeling. Thinking of course, it was just the opposite especially for Hiroshi, they parted high school but not as friends. For Hiroshi, his wounds were deep and catastrophic. To that end, Hiroshi makes significant changes in his life and transforms his outward appearance to the point that he becomes almost unrecognizable from his high school days. Further, he studied energetically and became a top-notch hair stylist. Vowing one day, if ever given the chance, he would get even with all who belittled and humiliated him, especially Natsuo.
Several years later, who should walk into the salon where Hiroshi works is none other than Natsuo. Now a construction worker, he is more grounded and obviously mature but seemingly lonely and alone. While Hiroshi recognizes him immediately, Natsuo does not. For whatever unfathomable reason, Natsuo makes a bold move towards Hiroshi and asks him to be his boyfriend. What pulled him to Hiroshi is never really made clear except perhaps an intuitive feeling that he must. He seemed to be drawn to Hiroshi. While Hiroshi initially agreed to do so, he did so only for vengeful and spiteful reasons. He was going to give it a month and then curtly break off the relationship as a way of ‘getting even’.
I understood this story completely. Feeling much like Hiroshi in high school, I would have wanted to get even as well, especially since Hiroshi knew so much more about Natsuo than he did about him. Despite that, as the two began to develop their relationship, both realized that each had migrated from those days. Neither was that same individual from that period. More impactful, Hiroshi realized after several intimate conversations that Natsuo really loved a Hiroshi, and he was his first love when they were in high school. Sadly, he never had the chance to tell him that. And it was evident and clear that the old Hiroshi never forgot Natsuo or his love for him. Regets and misunderstandings are companions growing up for teenagers, especially and decisively if you are gay.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. this series? This is a love story of two vulnerable individuals who are and never will be perfect. Both are flawed. Both have been carrying the heavily-weighted emotions of regret and misunderstanding from high school and have not yet learn to let that go even as they aged. In a manner of speaking, both are sad figures who continued to carry around their self-doubts long after their high school days. Each felt unfulfilled from those days because much was unsaid that needed and wanted to be said. The acting of Soma Satoru as Natsuo and Iwahashi Genki as Hiroshi is superbly done. The issue with this series is not the acting but the production. Although I ‘saw’ each of their stages of growth, what was lacking was a consistent story about getting through those stages. Occasionally a burst of ontogeny in their emotional connections would break through manifested by the softness and gentleness in their surroundings, especially connected to the visitations to the arboretum. But they were simply not strong enough for us to get a whole picture of them as a couple. There is not much screen chemistry between the two because they are operating on two different levels of understanding of where each of their characters are. Thus, Natsuo is not on the same level of understanding of where their relationship is. He has fallen deeply in love with a person named Hiroshi without fully knowing who he really is. So, he is giving it his all, while Hiroshi is reserved and holding back, much like he would have been in high school.
At times, the story felt a bit fragmented because Hiroshi knew who Natsuo was all along. As he fell more deeply into loving Natsuo and perhaps recalling his old feelings for him, Hiroshi’s anxiety and level of guilt as what he was doing to Natsuo just increased even more. Plus, he began to relive the pain from those high school days, even if he did not want to. When inevitably Natsuo finds out, his hurt is deep. Much deeper than Hiroshi imagined because Natsuo is so much in love with the now Hiroshi. There is a great deal of pain and hurt that must be addressed. The only way to do that is to stop running away from the suffering and face the wounds as a couple and individually.
The symbolism throughout cannot be mistaken. Their whole excitement of observing and caring for their house plant grow is tantamount to symbolically watching their own relationship sprout. To some degree, watching them sustain their relationship was like watching their own plant grow. If they watered and cared for it, the buds would surely radiate and bloom. However, a whole host of events could yet affect the way it bloomed. It was still very fragile and dependent upon the planter to take root. If you dropped the planter, its foundation of trust, you could destroy its path to full blooming. This cannot be lost on how their own relationship grew. It took a long time for us to see it maturate into anything florid.
I found this series to be beautifully filmed. The cinematography was crisp and highlighted those areas that were center and relevant. As sometimes with Japanese BL, it relies on a dark brooding atmosphere. Life seems so dark in general with a hefty projection and an aura of sadness, especially if you are gay. While that is also true here, there was more ample use of light and shadow, especially in the last episode to display the much deeper and positive level of their intimacy. It gave it a much more hopeful feel than your typical Japanese BL.
What this series needed was more time. Time to see Hiroshi and Natsuo develop fuller, equally, and more importantly, at the same level. I felt like we got to see them individually and then connected as a couple for only a very brief period. I wanted and needed more of them. While heartfelt and sincere individually, it lacked those same feelings with even the slightest degree of intensity and passion as a couple. Those components come across as insignificant and /or lacking as a trait in Japanese BLs. Gay love in Japan continues to be portrayed as dark, pensive, and leading to gloomy outcomes. When will this ever end as a storyline?
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