Majo no Jouken jdorama review + picspam
I finished Majo no Jouken Friday night, but it was so bittersweet that I felt too sad to really gather my thoughts. This dorama was beautiful. I loved the first 5-6 episodes. The back half was extremely angst-ridden, and in typical dorama fashion, they really laid it on pretty thick. I must confess I rolled my eyes a few times at the plot cliches. But nevertheless, despite those elements, the relationship between Michi and Hikaru was just beautiful. The ending was a bit abrupt, however - I would have preferred a bit more of a denoument.
[ETA: Just in case there was any doubt...This is FICTION, so I can enjoy it. NOT REAL LIFE. In real life this would be rather horrifying. In fiction, it's beautiful and romantic. And it's too bad that I actually have to put a disclaimer on here stating what should be obvious.]
Below the cut are some of my favorite moments, illustrated by caps and commentary. Also, you can click my tags or see here for more thoughts.
Episode 1
17 year old Hikaru (Takizawa Hideaki) and 26 year old Michi (Matsushimo Nanako) meet when he nearly runs her over on his motorcycle and causes her to lose the engagement ring she's just been given by her boyfriend.
Takki's first sexy moment: Realizing that she's frantically looking for something, he takes off his helmet and uses his teeth to remove one glove as he walks over toward her. In that moment, he really doesn't carry himself as a 17 year old, and if not for his youthful face, one could be tricked into thinking he was several years older.
When he finds the ring, he hold it out to her, and we can see that from that first moment, Michi is utterly transfixed by the beautiful young boy who stands before her. She just stares at him in a daze.
Later, she is informed that a problem transfer student has been assigned to her homeroom, and she is startled when she recognizes him as the biker from the morning. He is also suprised to see her.
Hikaru: What are you doing here?
Michi: I'm your homeroom teacher.
Hikaru:You're kidding.
Michi: What about you? What are you doing here?
Hikaru: I'm kind of hesitant about going in.
Michi: Why?
Hikaru: [shifts uncomfortably] It doesn't seem like I'll have anything good to look forward to if I stay here.
Michi: [looks back over her shoulder at the class hanging out of windows to peer at him. Looks back at him with a beautiful expression] There will be.
Aaaaaagh! If only they both knew of the pain and grief that awaits them - but also rapture and and devotion and true, true love.
Hikaru is the only child of Mrs. Kurosawa (Kuroki Hitomi) who is the administrator of the hospital her husband (a doctor) founded. Hikaru's father died when he was seven, and it's clear that his loss has had a profound effect on both mother and son. We often see a painting that the father painted when Hikaru was born, of a tiny trio (parents and child) walking on a vast beach, dwarfed by the landscape yet still an intact unit.
Some of the other characters are Kinoshita, a troubled female student who also attracts Hikaru's attention when he sees how ostracized she is by her classmates. Also there is Michi's best friend, her fiance, Masaru, and her parents: her gruff, stern father is also an educator and her mother is an elegant and poised housewife.
The first real bonding between Hikaru and Michi takes place when some students lock Michi in her bathroom stall and pour a bucket of water over her. Hikaru finds her crying in the alley and convinces her to ditch school with him. They go to the shop where he houses his bike, and they ride off to a beach that Hikaru loves. There, they sit and talk on the sand until Hikaru, in a fit of pique throws the cellphone his mother uses to check up on him into the ocean. "No one [else] calls me anyway," he says. Michi runs into the surf to find the phone, and he runs after her to stop her - they tumble into the water together, but ultimately she is triumphant. She hands the phone back to him with a gorgeous smile. "Give me your number," she tells him. "I'll call you."
Later, Hikaru discovers that his mother is having an affair with the head doctor at the hospital, a very slimy man, while we can tell that Michi's already uncertain feelings about her fiance are now warring with the urge to call Hikaru - clearly, she recognizes that she has some kind of feelings for her student, with whom she is more open and honest than with any other person in her life.
The end of the first episode is fairly momentous. While Michi is hesitating to go forward and particpate in the meeting between her and her parents and her fiance's parents, she calls Hikaru. Hikaru has just taken Michi's advice to stand up to he ex-friend who is bullying him and has just been beaten soundly by the other boy. While he lies there in pain, she asks him where he is. "In a world of freedom," he replies. "Could I go there?" she asks. "You can. If you really want to. You absolutely can." She listens as tears spill down her face.
The episode ends with her walking away from the meeting between the two families.
Episode 2
Michi takes a taxi to the beach Hikaru had brought her to earlier, and she remembers that afternoon, until he arrives on his motorcycle, bruised from his fight. When she tries to clean the blood from his face, we see that Hikaru perceives her as a woman, not just as his teacher or even simply as someone he is emotionally drawn to, but also as someone that he is attracted to.
There is a very cute moment when he asks to see her engagement ring and pretends to swallow it, in an effort to decide for her the course of action she should take next. When he produces the ring again, she is relieved, but then he runs away with it, making her chase after him. They tumble to the sand together.
She struggles after that to say something sensible about both herself and about Hikaru's problems with his controlling and overprotective mother. Hikaru is frustrated that she takes refuge in reverting to her role as his homeroom teacher.
Later, rumors fly at school about Michi being seen with a student on a bike; Hikaru lies and announces that she was with him and that he had just taken her to the hospital, but this actually makes things worse. And then Hikaru discovers that his mother has handsomely paid his school to not expell him regardless of what he does, and to allow him to graduate. Distraught, he decides to test it by disrupting his class, and then he walks out and pulls the fire alarm and leaves the school grounds. He ends up in an arcade where he happens to see Michi being dragged off to see something by her fiance. This clearly adds to his turmoil. He runs into Kinoshita who tries to shoplift, but they get caught, and he takes all the blame.
Suspended for three days for the shoplifting, Hikaru ends up going out the next night to a Tokyo club where he runs into classmates and gets drunk. His mother calls Michi to tell her that her son has disappeared and accuses her of seducing her son. (I have such mixed feelings about Kuroki's character as the dorama progresses - sometimes I think she's a total wench while at other times I have so much sympathy for her) Michi runs off to look for Hikaru who she ultimately finds passed out at the club (but not after his classmates find out that she has his cellphone number, so the student speculation about them having an affair gains fodder). She drags him out of the club and lectures him, but he rounds on her with some very cutting remarks about what she is doing with her life. When he goes into a convenience store to shoplift, Michi loses her mind and grabs the boxes and begins to stuff her pockets. The clerk sees them and Hikaru grabs her hand and runs with her out the door. They hide in an alley from the chasing clerk and Hikaru demands, "What were you thinking?"
Michi: [crying] I don't even know myself. What am I doing? What am I doing? What am I doing..."
Hikaru just stares at her, seeing her pain, and he hands her his handkerchief to wipe her tears...and then he comes close to her and leans in...
Episode 3
This episode is huge: so many really momentous things happen. Definitely my favorite episode, and not just for how it ends. :)
So we left off with Hikaru leaning in to kiss Michi, but at the last second she pulls away and goes back into "teacher" mode, and he walks away in disgust. When he arrives at home to find his worrying mother, she confronts him about Michi and asks him if he is in love with his teacher. He doesn't deny it, but just stares back at her until he stalks off. When Michi arrives at school the next day she discovers that Hikaru's mother has had her removed as her son's homeroom teacher - rather than transfering him from the class, they suspend her from her class. And when Hikaru finally returns to school from his suspension, he returns to harassment from his classmates over his purported affair with their teacher.
Then the horrifying happens - a group of male students pretend that they want math help and lock her in with them in the lab and attempt to rape her. She is saved only by a teacher who comes looking for her, and she runs away to the library where she sits down at a computer to collect herself. She's startled when the computer chirps at her and she realizes that Hikaru is at another computer and has opened an IM session with her. The IM conversation comforts her but then, then I must admit, my heart got squishy when he asked her if they could go to Rome together to see the "Creation of Man" Michaelangelo fresco he's obsessed with. He ends with "I want to see you. I'll wait for you at the bike place after school. I'll wait till you come." and I started to melt. :)
But Michi does not go to meet him after school. Instead she walks slowly and obviously quite distractedly in the rain. What she doesn't know is that her best friend has told her fiance about her troubles at school and Masuru has been following her all along. Meanwhile, Hikaru finally goes home, and when his mother offers to send him to school in Los Angeles, he goes to pack some clothes to run away. Overhearing the slimy doctor marriage proposal, storms out after unintentionally knocking his mother down as he tries to leave. He calls Michi (who is nursing a drink in an elegant bar/restaurant) from the waterside and tells her that he's running away to find a place where he can proudly say who he loves. She finally says, "I wish you happiness." But then, she is unable to restrain herself any longer and she bursts out with "I want to see you. Where should I go?"
Unfortunately, when she excitedly makes to leave, she is stopped by Maseru who pretends that they've accidentally bumped into each other. He insists on taking her home, but ultimately takes her back to his apartment where he attacks her and it looks like he might try to rape her, too, shouting at her and questioning whether or not she likes someone else. He does come to senses and apologizes, but Michi just runs away. She runs (there is a lot of running in this dorama) all the way to the school, where she must have arranged to meet Hikaru, but while she doesn't see him, she sees his bike, so she goes exploring into the school and looks for him.
She finds him on the floor in the stacks of the library, asleep, so she picks up his art notebook and looks at the drawings he's made, particularly of "Creation of Man" featuring a man and woman: Hikaru and Michi. When she looks up, it is to find him gazing up at her, tears streaming down his face.
Michi: What's wrong?
Hikaru: Am I still dreaming? I've been seeing the same dream over and over.
Michi: What kind of dream?
Hikaru: No matter how long I wait, you don't come. And when I'm about to give up, you come...And tell me "I don't like you." That "there's no way I like you." You've come to say that, right? Did you?
Michi: No. [they gaze at each other] I like you. [she falls to her knees and puts her arms around his neck] I like you. I really like you.
And then...well, you can see for yourself.
Episode 4
The morning after scene is lovely. I was so afraid that Michi would react to their night together with self-loathing and recrimination, but instead, she is radiant and the scene is so tender. I love it when he comes up behind her and puts his arms around her. So sweet!
She finds his drawings of them as the "Creation of Man" and this scene is very cute:
Later they have another IM session which is also very nice.
Hikaru: Everyone will flip if they find out about yesterday. It's not a dream, is it?
Michi: Why?
Hikaru: I still can't believe it...
Michi: I'm happy. Very happy.
And then there is this VERY cute scene where they pass one another in the hall.
Michi sees Hikaru in PE class outside her window:
They have a beautiful Sunday "date" in which they go to the movies and walk around. There is the cutest scene in the movie theater where it's obvious that Hikaru really, really wants to hold Michi's hand, so he very hesitantly inches his hand towards hers until they just touch, but then she covers his hand with her own, until he turns her hand and clasps it in his own. Gah! Too adorable.
That evening, Hikaru comes up to her and asks her to hold her hand. He places a ring in it. There are two, one for each of them, and these rings become their talismans, their touchstones for the many, many difficult and even agonizing moments ahead.
Things degenerate quickly after this. Neither of them realized that they had been seen on their date by the slimy doctor who used the information on Hikaru to blackmail his mother into getting his own way on some hospital issues. Michi ends up suspended from teaching Hikaru's class when Kurosawa-san informs the school of Michi's misconduct with her son, and Michi faces an unhappy confrontation at home. I love their conversation on the phone that night. "Where are you?" he asks her. "I'm home," she replies. "And you?" "I'm in front of you," he says. Awwwwww!
Several bad things happen: Hikaru's mother has his tutor follow him and so the secret of his bike and where he stores it is revealed. Hikaru's mother cancels his cellphone contract, and tells Michi that she won't let her take Hikaru from her. Michi also tries to break up with Maseru, but Maseru knows that something bad is coming from her anxious and persistent phone calls and messages, so he brings Kiri-chan along so that Michi is prevented from breaking off their engagement. Worse, her father submits her resignation when she refuses to do so, and she is asked to announce it in front of the entire school. But Michi rebels and announces that not only will she not resign, but that she loves Kurusawa Hikaru! I love her foolish defiance...
Episode 5
This one is very eventful, but I'm tired so I will be quite brief. Bad things happen at school for both Michi and Hikaru. There is an especially heartbreaking scene where Hikaru's uniform has been stolen, so he's forced to remain in his PE clothes. Later, after school, he puts up a good face to Michi, who comments on his lack of uniform, until he sees his destroyed uniform draped over the fence. The change in Hikaru's face from bravado to anguish is exquisite and perfectly executed. Michi's father collapses and ends up in the hospital, and Michi discovers that her parents have been getting harassing phone calls from angry parents. She's beginning to rethink her own decision to stay with Hikaru because both he and her family are being hurt by her choice. She tells Hikaru that they should stop seeing each other, at least for a little while.
Then something really sad happens. Hikaru tries to run away again, but when he goes to the bike shop to retrieve his motorcyle, it's missing. He later find it in an empty lot, in flames. This breaks him, and he gives in to his mother who wants to transfer him to the L.A. school.
Michi and Hikaru meet at the school when his mother arrives to present the papers for his withdrawal and he tells her that he's leaving. She's shocked and saddened by his news, of course, but worse, I think she's even more upset to see him defeated. Michi struggles with herself, but finally comes to a decision.
She takes his hand, and together, they run away.
Episode 6
They run away and decide what to do next. Michi has to say goodbye to her mother, which is very hard, and Hikaru comforts her.
Gratuitous Takki with Kitty spam (sorry, couldn't help myself!)
There is this beautiful moment in the hotel after Hikaru decides he wants to find his uncle who he has never met so he can learn more about his father.
Gah! I just love that moment.
They find his uncle, and I really wish they could have stayed there - it was perfect! The uncle runs a home for orphaned children and both Hikaru and Michi seemed to fit in really well with the kids, and Michi could have been very useful as a teacher for the children. They both seemed to relax into the landscape for the first time.
However, it was not to be. Kurosawa-san dispatched Maseru to the uncle's home after she deduces Hikaru's location, and there is a very ugly confrontation at the train station after they flee from the home. Maseru is so angry and tries to drag Michi home, and when Hikaru intervenes, Maseru punches him repeatedly. They do manage to get away in the end, but just.
The rest of the dorama is basically a series of ups and downs - waaaay more downs than ups, I'm afraid. I won't detail anymore because my favorite scenes are all above. Basically Hikaru and Michi set up house in a tiny cheap apartment in the town near Hikaru's favorite beach, and because he's injured, she gets a job working the fish docks. Later, she finds out she's pregnant with Hikaru's baby, she ends up going to jail twice for corrupting a minor, Hikaru even breaks up with her (to keep her out of jail) and goes to L.A. to study. He comes back when Michi disappears and Kinoshita calls him back to Japan. There is betrayal, more angusish, another breakup, and worse, they throw in life-threatening complications with Michi's pregancy and two near-miscarriages.Did I menton that Hikaru's mother becomes suicidal and almost kills both of them with poisoned wine? It all gets to be a bit much, to be honest. That being said, it is indeed very angsty and touching, and their moments together are often very lovely.
The ending, when it finally comes, is a bit abrupt, and I was rather stricken to realize that the beautiful moment was indeed the last. I wanted to know what happened next! But it was peaceful and serene and very bittersweet. I wanted to cry.
Overall, I really liked this one, and again, I'm very impressed that Takki pulled off this role at 17. It's a rather surprising performance for that age!
