Fatherly suicide in jdrama: methinks I spot a trend!
I have realized this morning that in three jdramas I’ve seen the male protagonist’s father killed himself. Seeing that I haven’t seen dozens and dozens jdramas, I think this is a curious concentration of that theme. So being me, I decided to blab and meta about it obsessively, to compare and contrast the treatment of this topic in Tatta Hitotsu No Koi, Kurosagi and Taiyou No Kisetsu.
Hmmm, maybe I should do a scholarly paper or similar, ‘The abandoning father in Japanese drama’ Heh.
I find it fascinating how the effect of this suicide varies on the three characters but yet how the underlying issues are the same.
Kurosaki, in Kurosagi is by far the most messed up by this event, which is not surprising as not only did he see his father kill himself in front of him (neither Hiroto no Tatsuya saw the event itself) but more importantly, he saw his father kill his sister and his mother in front of Kurosaki’s eyes and then come for him.
That is bound to mess someone up for life.
Of course, I think what also plays into the situation is that here, the suicide was a result of a swindle, one pivotal event into which Kurosaki can displace his hate and guilt for surviving. He has an enemy to blame, to hunt. This is how he excuses to himself not having died that night.
Startlingly, one of the healthiest, most hopeful things for him in the drama is his realizing that a large part of the blame lies on his father, that the swindle was bad, evil, etc., but his father is the one who took the final step to commit the monstrocity of the murder of his family.
You sense he is bitter in the beginning, even, at such a weakness (in the episode with Tsurara’s uncle who wants to kill himself) but it’s not until close to the end when he places the blame where it should go. Unlike TnK’s Tatsuya who blames his father for the suicide and has based his life on being the opposite of the weak-willed man (and his extreme is also unhealthy, it’s consuming him), Kurosaki needs to learn to be a little less loving of the dead.
Of course, it’s precisely because he is so messed up that he needs his OTP the most. Granted, it’s jdrama so I see why a love interest is crucial in all three of these stories, but I still find it interesting how connection to other people who know your true self and still love you, is literally salvation. Kurosaki needs Tsurara the most. If they drifted apart and she stopped caring, finally worn out by the wall he puts around him, she could go on to have a happy productive life, even if she would wonder now and then about the one who got away. But Kurosaki? Would self-destruct. He (like Hiroto and Tatsuya) has a loathing of suicide because of seeing what it does to those left behind, but there are other ways to stop living. Tatsuya is less irrevocably damaged than Kurosaki but he was heading a very dark, destructive past, negating what he was, who he was (a sort of suicide, really), ignoring the good and true in his life (his friend, his Mom) in order to get the mirage of revenge which was not making him any happier. Meeting Eiko and loving Eiko saved him, enabled him to let go, to be alive again. She woke him up, if that makes any sense. And of course for Hiroto, Nao is also his chance to live: he is so overworked, so responsible, so not expecting of anything good or happy in his life, something for himself and Nao, Nao turns him into a young man he is supposed to be, makes him smile, makes him believe in something positive happening to him.
Tatsuya, in Taiyou No Kisetsu is sort of the middle ground between the social dysfunction of Kurosaki and Tattakoi’s Hiroto who is too socialized due to pressures of his family and responsibility. He is damaged but salvageable. He is someone who (as I said earlier) based his whole life on being the opposite of his father. To be successful, to not be weak. In a way, he also has someone to blame the death on (aside from his father), the bank which pulled the financing. This is perhaps in part why Hiroto is the one who doesn’t seem to want to seek revenge: there is no event, no person like in Kurosaki’s case or Tatsuya’s to blame for the act of the father. No swindle, just a faceless financial institution. And who knows what Hiroto would have done if he came across the loan guy. After all, Tatsuya never thought of revenge until he came across Shinji in college. Perhaps Hiroto is lucky his paths didn’t cross with the loan guy.
But of course, unlike Kurosaki, who is left utterly alone in the world, or Tatsuya who only has his mother who can take care of herself, part of the reason Hiroto cannot let go and self-destruct is because he has his little handycapped brother and his mother who is useless to take care of. Hiroto is haunted by his father’s suicide in a very different manner: it made him take on responsibilities he shouldn’t have and it traps him in running that factory because his father died to save it, even though he might want to do something else, even to (as he later sees) not seeing that the real thing to protect is not the factory but the family.
Hiroto, oddly, seems to feel no bitterness at his father (I think he might have worked it out by the time we meet him) but he does feel shame. I think the strongest similarity between three stories on that issue is the feeling of the hole the death leaves in those left behind. That is why Hiroto feels ‘redeemed’ when he saves that one employee from suicide, why Kurosaki is so angry at the man who tried to kill himself. Interestingly Tatusya, who is so anti his father, so against the notion, tires to kill himself, showing that there are more similarities between him and his father than he’d like (and in a call-back to the issue of those left behind, Eiko yells at him that he has her and his friend and shouldn’t leave them blah blah and significantly saves him yet again as he doesn’t contemplate killing himself even when she dies.
At the end of the respective dramas, Hiroto is starting fresh, unhaunted. Tatsuya has been saved but of course he lost the person most important to him and will always be shadowed by it, and Kurosaki? He’s achieved some respite but who knows how long it will last.
I suppose if I was thorough I’d add the death of a brother figure in there too, and analyze Mars and Snow Queen but I am lazy.
Basically, as dorama says, suicide sucks ;)
Hmmm, maybe I should do a scholarly paper or similar, ‘The abandoning father in Japanese drama’ Heh.
I find it fascinating how the effect of this suicide varies on the three characters but yet how the underlying issues are the same.
Kurosaki, in Kurosagi is by far the most messed up by this event, which is not surprising as not only did he see his father kill himself in front of him (neither Hiroto no Tatsuya saw the event itself) but more importantly, he saw his father kill his sister and his mother in front of Kurosaki’s eyes and then come for him.
That is bound to mess someone up for life.
Of course, I think what also plays into the situation is that here, the suicide was a result of a swindle, one pivotal event into which Kurosaki can displace his hate and guilt for surviving. He has an enemy to blame, to hunt. This is how he excuses to himself not having died that night.
Startlingly, one of the healthiest, most hopeful things for him in the drama is his realizing that a large part of the blame lies on his father, that the swindle was bad, evil, etc., but his father is the one who took the final step to commit the monstrocity of the murder of his family.
You sense he is bitter in the beginning, even, at such a weakness (in the episode with Tsurara’s uncle who wants to kill himself) but it’s not until close to the end when he places the blame where it should go. Unlike TnK’s Tatsuya who blames his father for the suicide and has based his life on being the opposite of the weak-willed man (and his extreme is also unhealthy, it’s consuming him), Kurosaki needs to learn to be a little less loving of the dead.
Of course, it’s precisely because he is so messed up that he needs his OTP the most. Granted, it’s jdrama so I see why a love interest is crucial in all three of these stories, but I still find it interesting how connection to other people who know your true self and still love you, is literally salvation. Kurosaki needs Tsurara the most. If they drifted apart and she stopped caring, finally worn out by the wall he puts around him, she could go on to have a happy productive life, even if she would wonder now and then about the one who got away. But Kurosaki? Would self-destruct. He (like Hiroto and Tatsuya) has a loathing of suicide because of seeing what it does to those left behind, but there are other ways to stop living. Tatsuya is less irrevocably damaged than Kurosaki but he was heading a very dark, destructive past, negating what he was, who he was (a sort of suicide, really), ignoring the good and true in his life (his friend, his Mom) in order to get the mirage of revenge which was not making him any happier. Meeting Eiko and loving Eiko saved him, enabled him to let go, to be alive again. She woke him up, if that makes any sense. And of course for Hiroto, Nao is also his chance to live: he is so overworked, so responsible, so not expecting of anything good or happy in his life, something for himself and Nao, Nao turns him into a young man he is supposed to be, makes him smile, makes him believe in something positive happening to him.
Tatsuya, in Taiyou No Kisetsu is sort of the middle ground between the social dysfunction of Kurosaki and Tattakoi’s Hiroto who is too socialized due to pressures of his family and responsibility. He is damaged but salvageable. He is someone who (as I said earlier) based his whole life on being the opposite of his father. To be successful, to not be weak. In a way, he also has someone to blame the death on (aside from his father), the bank which pulled the financing. This is perhaps in part why Hiroto is the one who doesn’t seem to want to seek revenge: there is no event, no person like in Kurosaki’s case or Tatsuya’s to blame for the act of the father. No swindle, just a faceless financial institution. And who knows what Hiroto would have done if he came across the loan guy. After all, Tatsuya never thought of revenge until he came across Shinji in college. Perhaps Hiroto is lucky his paths didn’t cross with the loan guy.
But of course, unlike Kurosaki, who is left utterly alone in the world, or Tatsuya who only has his mother who can take care of herself, part of the reason Hiroto cannot let go and self-destruct is because he has his little handycapped brother and his mother who is useless to take care of. Hiroto is haunted by his father’s suicide in a very different manner: it made him take on responsibilities he shouldn’t have and it traps him in running that factory because his father died to save it, even though he might want to do something else, even to (as he later sees) not seeing that the real thing to protect is not the factory but the family.
Hiroto, oddly, seems to feel no bitterness at his father (I think he might have worked it out by the time we meet him) but he does feel shame. I think the strongest similarity between three stories on that issue is the feeling of the hole the death leaves in those left behind. That is why Hiroto feels ‘redeemed’ when he saves that one employee from suicide, why Kurosaki is so angry at the man who tried to kill himself. Interestingly Tatusya, who is so anti his father, so against the notion, tires to kill himself, showing that there are more similarities between him and his father than he’d like (and in a call-back to the issue of those left behind, Eiko yells at him that he has her and his friend and shouldn’t leave them blah blah and significantly saves him yet again as he doesn’t contemplate killing himself even when she dies.
At the end of the respective dramas, Hiroto is starting fresh, unhaunted. Tatsuya has been saved but of course he lost the person most important to him and will always be shadowed by it, and Kurosaki? He’s achieved some respite but who knows how long it will last.
I suppose if I was thorough I’d add the death of a brother figure in there too, and analyze Mars and Snow Queen but I am lazy.
Basically, as dorama says, suicide sucks ;)