Majo No Jouken: awesome and disturbing all at once
I guess after Yoshitsune, I had a craving for more Takki so I started rewatching Majo No Jouken (Forbidden Love), starring Matsushima Nanako and Takizawa Hideaki as the drama's genuinely disturbing (to me) OTP. MnJ is a story of a woman who escapes her meaningless, colorless existence by falling in love with her 17-year old student from a seriously messed-up family. It was the first student/teacher drama I saw and, ironically, the only one which still disturbs me (even as I place it in my top 10) for two reasons: (1) in the other dramas, nothing happens until the student is out of high school and (2) this is the only time I've seen casting where they cast the actors at the age of their characters. Takki has 17 and MN was 26. In dramas like Loveholic and Hello My Teacher, the squick is gone because the male actors are actually in their mid-20s.
But MnJ is an incredibly powerful, well-written and well-acted drama, because even if the OTP squicks me out to start with, I end up being convinced that, however odd, they cannot exist without each other, and need each other desperately. Being with him makes her alive and strong and not a sleepwalker barely moving through life and being with her (in a lot of ways he is more mature than she is) makes him happy and free from his monstrous mother (the drama never says it explicitly, but it's pretty clear that being with an older and mother-like figure who is not his biological mother is a healthy for him way to deal with the fact that his mother is an incestuous freak hot for him).
So yeah, all that, but the drama is brilliant because even until the end, I root for them so badly but have moments of 'WTF woman, are you insane? There has to be something seriously wrong with you (and the drama does indicate there is) for you to go for someone who looks so young!
Anyway, I started rewatching and had to run, but MnJ still has one of the most awesome drama openings for me.
I love how the drama never verbally has to say how meaningless her life is and how empty.
Worst proposal ever. Ugh. But she says yes. She has no strength to fight anything.
Ha!
Meanwhile elswhere...
First meeting:
Symbolism and sakura petals...
Her ring is gone. Yup, symbolism!
Found it!
Lady, you are not right in the head. A 26-yr old shouldn't stare at 17-yr olds this way. Even if they are Takki.
His phone...
Aaaaand credits.
Here is a pretty awesome MV for the drama.