BLISS RATING: ★★★★★
“The more beautiful something is, the more I want to destroy it.” – Quote from The Journey To Kill You
Wow, I was not expecting this! The series is hard to describe yet somehow made scrutable by the organic, unadorned human interactions. It is sequences of contradictions composed of oxymoronic concepts. Full of opposites yet seemingly archetypical. The story itself is dark, yet there are always whispers of light coming just around the corner or just over the horizon. There is unfathomable sadness yet always followed by a tactility of frivolity or irreverence, making us feel and see that life must be viewed in contextual terms. Protagonists share long periods of silence between just exposing individual pain that speak volumes of comfort and serenity simply in the way they look back at each other. I could go on, but you get the concept. It is a series that is so unique and one that, in a sense, is seminal, even if it may not feel so.
I did not watch this series; I experienced it. It is a rarity for me to feel characters. Not just the protagonist, but the antagonists as well. All were made relatable, even though I could not link with any of them. I was completely unfamiliar with their world and its culture, which I do not understand and have very little knowledge of. Yet, the story and the organic feel to the acting made it such that I could perceive and discern what the characters were going through. Being unwanted, lost, hopeless, unloved, living like outcasts, or not belonging, and ultimately the inner anxiety about facing the question of why are you even here were portrayed with such deep dimension and personal depth that it draws you in; it absorbs you. The story vividly portrays a setting that feels especially bleak and melancholic, yet it retains a subtle atmosphere that life is still worth living. Even at its lowest points, the narrative never descends into utter hopelessness.
It is a story about a Yakuza family. It is not just about a sibling rivalry between ‘brothers’, but jealousy and envy built up over years, allowed to fester by uncaring parents. Kirii (Yuyu Shintaro), the natural son the father of the Yakuza family, has an irrational and unnatural resentment manifested with an unhealthy hatred of his adopted brother, Kataoka (Wada Masanari). Kataoka is a creature of contradictions. Hot and cold. Ruthless and compassionate. Serious and irreverent. Hated and loved. He inspires strong emotions in individuals who meet him, as his personality draws you into him. He is both Yakuza and a commoner simultaneously.
His strong sense of justice for the downtrodden gets him into trouble, requiring him to hide out for a while. His brother, Kirii, the de facto head of the family now that the father is ill, primes his move to once and for all eliminate Kataoka. He sends Odajima (Takahashi Hiroto), a trusted aide, to ‘help’ him hide. However, Odajima has been groomed to kill Kataoka. From the beginning, one could tell, simply by the way the two stared at each other, there was going to be an intensity about their connection that was going to be unexpected. It seemed to be both an attraction and a revulsion.
Indeed, there is intense chemistry between the two from the inception that you can feel jump out of the screen and grab you. We could deduce that the two of them had a connection already. And indeed, they did. That connection is explored in ways that make this story so exorbitantly allegiant. We understand why Odajima wants to kill him, not so much because he was ‘ordered’ to but because of his deep hatred for him. His hatred was the reason that he continued to want to live – so indeed he could kill Katoaka. He worked his way up in the ranks, turning off his humanity, and suppressing his emotions, including morality and feelings, so he could be in a position to do so.
Yet, as time and fortunes push along, Odajima cannot. He must know why his beloved Asahi (Hori Kaito) was so drawn to the allure of Kataoka that made Asahi give up his life for him. There is something within Kataoka that begins to pull even him in. Odajima allows himself to be drawn into him, however. He wants to; he must know. As he does so, an intimacy, an amour occurs – for the first time. A deep inseparability, almost devotion, envelopes the two of them. Kataoka, the connection, now becomes the reason for living. What a metamorphosis!
Who really S.T.O.L.E. this series? Hori Kaito as Asahi did. While not necessarily a large role, he is one who gave Odajima a new lease on life. Asahi is the one who grounded Odajima, giving him goals, meaning, and most importantly, becoming his foundational family. He is nonjudgmental and the acme of complete acceptance. Their relationship is defined by love based on pure friendship. It is not physical, but it is bonded emotionally and psychologically. Stronger than lovers even have. Asahi both complements and supplements Odajima and his whole being is to make life better for him, his mother, and Odajima. So, their bond is unshakeable and unbreakable. As strong as it is, he has a greater fixation and that is the admiration and devotion to Kataoka, which he believes is his ticket out of this cycle of marginalization. Asahi’s devotion to Kataoka is supreme and genuine. Hori’s performance of Asahi is nothing short of encapsulating pure devotional intensity – both for Odajima and to Kataoka. His existence is only to reach the mountain top (with Odajima). And his existence is devoted to that purpose and singularity. I was simply captivated by his faithfulness in being the best servant and best friend. Hori’s performance is so focused and detailed that we understand who Asahi is from the beginning. We did not need his back story; Hori’s acting told us all we needed to know about the character of Asahi. Kudos for an outstanding performance.
Much like this series itself, the morality of this series is questionable at best and self-destructive at worst. It is warm with human compassion and cold with human degradation. The protagonists, handsome not in an Adonis fashion but more like alluring statues that you cannot divert your focus from, are capable of showing great human compassion in almost the same breath they can become ruthless killers with almost sociopathic temperament. Throughout this parable, life seems cheap, feels cheap, yet there is this weird hunger to hang onto it to enjoy in its everyday forms. There is never a pretense to run away from issues. Both face issues with fatalism and merely accept it as going to happen or not. Kataoka and Odajima are two individuals cut from the same cloth, literally and figuratively. They repel and attract each other. And in a sense fulfill each other. One literally cannot live without the other.
The production of this series is simply flawless. Filmed in muted somber tones, feeling like everything is gloomy, cloudy, dreary, and moody yet never ever fatalistic. Even characters they meet along the way are dynamic. They represent continuance; people coming and going. Always moving on even in the face of tragedy, or adversity, or dimensional constraints.
This series threw out the window the typical conventional Japanese playbook of what love making in a Japanese BL ought to be (finally). Kataoka and Odajima made love-making hot, erotic, sexy, and sensuous. Sure, there are ugly elements to some of the scenes. Very ugly ones but they are the ones that enhance the murkiness of the story. For the story is corrupt and vile and full of moral ambiguities. Kudos to Takahashi Hiroto and Wada Masanari for transforming into unabashedly erotic men in their love-making scenes who were unafraid to kiss passionately and ravishingly and mean it and unabashed about displaying a union between two men. Normally I dislike tattoos on men but seeing the two of them slithering around in bed was not just bewitching, it was arousing and seductive.
Yet through it all, the most shocking revelation was that these two are so broken that they are incapable of saving “I love you.” Words like ‘be responsible for you’, ‘needing you’, ‘reason for living’, ‘my wife’, spew out frequently, but never ‘love’. That does not mean they do not; as it is obviously clear throughout their intimacy and being together. Each was willing to risk their life for the other. And in the end, while there should not have been a happy ending, there is one. Their ‘love’ should not be, yet we see it. No, we feel it.
Here again is another contradiction that the universe has played on us.
This is an exceptional and brilliant BL that ought and must be on everyone’s list to watch. One of the finest for this year. A masterpiece among Japanese series to come along in a very long time.
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