Ousama ni Sasagu Kusuriyubi!

It’s hard to sum up your thoughts for a drama that had such a great start before making a really good go of squandering its characters and stories. But sum them up I will try, because I do have some thoughts about this drama.

First and foremost, this drama has great chemistry between its leads. Ayaka and Togo are fun to watch together as they bickeringly charm their way into each other’s hearts. Their little online videos together start off as part of their contract marriage obligations but quickly become some of the best moments of their genuine enjoyment of one another’s company. (Not to mention they become more and more hilarious as the drama goes on.) These two are a couple you really want to see truly become a couple. Secondly, although I consider this of equal importance to the first point, the female lead is an incredibly sympathetic and complex character. I always love it when a drama surprises you with its characterizations, and Ousama ni Sasagu Kusuriyubi definitely does that with Ayaka. Ayaka has always been naturally pretty, and it has garnered her lots of attention in her life from the opposite sex. Unfortunately, much of that attention has not been good. A male teacher in her high school behaving inappropriately towards her, a client at her job as a wedding planner attempting to cheat on his fiancé with Ayaka, etc. To add insult to injury, Ayaka never does anything to encourage this behavior and she actively tries to avoid it, but the people around her consistently leave her holding the proverbial bag, wielding her attractiveness against her like a weapon, an excuse to turn her into the scapegoat for their own behavior. She’s so pretty, so it’s obviously her fault.

Not surprisingly, Ayaka has learned to handle this by acting nonchalant and unbothered, pretending she doesn’t mind all the (truthfully negative) attention she gets from these men and that the sneers and accusations from others are like water off a ducks’ back to her. Of course, we learn better when we see her alone holding back tears after she’s been unfairly blamed for another incident. This characterization is very beautifully done, and gosh does it make me really like her. Unfortunately, the story drops this characterization in the second half, which I consider a serious misstep by the writers (among the multiple missteps they make with this drama). Ayaka is a strong female lead with a lot of depth worth exploring, but the writers appeared to only be interested in exploring it half-way.

Sadly, the writer’s decision to step away from developing Ayaka as a character means they have to fill their time else ways, and they are two specific plot decisions in the last four episodes that deeply hamper the overall story. One is a very common, and often bemoaned trope, in Asian dramas that I actually think could have been made to work if given the time to develop properly. But the other is an infuriating, mind-boggling, head-scratching choice that was so improperly conveyed to the audience that there’s really no way to fully salvage it as a writing decision.

Starting in ep 7 and concluding in ep 8 is a plot point around a possible sexual assault against Ayaka by the second male lead, Kamiyama. Personally, I don’t believe any sexual assault actually occurred, but the whole things plays out in a way that does not make that clear. From the way things are set up, it very much looks like Ayaka has been assaulted. We start with her leaving a school reunion drunk, then she’s passed out in a taxi with Kamiyama who intentionally hangs up her phone when Togo calls her, then Ayaka is waking up in a hotel room not wearing her dress and Kamiyama walks in without a shirt and intimates that something happened between them. Then when Ayaka tells Kamiyama she doesn’t believe him, he tells both her and Togo that something absolutely did happen. Of course, Ayaka was passed out drunk while Kamiyama appeared to be relatively sober, so the perfectly rational conclusion for anyone watching would be that he did, in fact, assault her. But THEN in the very next episode, Kamiyama apologizes to Ayaka, saying he lied about something happening between them, and it’s clear from the way this is presented to the viewer that he is telling the truth, and we as the viewer are supposed to believe him.

The problem is that the writers thought this one moment of apology was sufficient enough to clear up all of the confusion around what actually happened. But why Ayaka is not wearing her dress the next morning is a very important detail that the writers never explain, and not explaining it leaves viewers with the very strong impression that Kamiyama did, at the very least, attempt to sexually assault Ayaka and then maybe stopped himself part way. (Which is still assault.) I’m someone who tries to understand and respect the writers’ intentions for their story, so since that’s what the writer intended, I’ve chosen to believe that Ayaka took the dress off herself when she crawled into bed, and that Kamiyama left her there for the night and went home. But it’s perfectly reasonable and understandable that some viewers would believe she was assaulted.

Of course, I have to talk about Togo’s reaction to this situation, because it is not the best. His immediate reaction is anger and distrust, which very much upset me. He has no questions for Ayaka or Kamiyama about what happened, he immediately makes assumptions about Ayaka’s character, he just has no interest in having an objective understanding of the situation. But it’s also not clear he actually understood that Ayaka had potentially been assaulted in that hotel room. I get the impression that he thought Ayaka and Kamiyama had a consensual sexual encounter, which is obviously completely different from rape or assault. Since Ayaka never tells him what she remembers (for completely understandable reasons), and Kamiyama straight up lies, Togo never gets the full picture. I still think his reaction was unfair, and he owed Ayaka an apology when things were cleared up (and Kamiyama a swift kick in the groin and a clear warning never to come near Ayaka again), but I am willing to be more gracious and understanding towards Togo since I’m not sure he ever truly understood what was going on.

I wish I could say it was a surprise what the writers decided to do next, but this trope is so overused it literally never surprises me when I see it in a drama anymore (although it certainly often induces rage deep with me). After the very heightened events of the (very poorly handled) potential sexual assault, the writers decide the last two episodes are the perfect time for a forced separation between our leads (some drama writer habits die hard, apparently), and there’s nowhere near enough time left in the drama to deal with all the varied aspects of this plot point. It comes with arranged marriage (between Togo’s father and step-mother), prior relationships of both parents that both produced sons (Togo and his suddenly introduced half-brother), Togo’s stepmother’s unhealthy attachment to him, her terrified unwillingness to acknowledge her biological son, and a rushed conclusion where all four of them are suddenly happy and reconciled. There is so much to unpack in this plot point, things I actually wanted to see the drama unpack, and if the writers had not chosen the last two episodes to address all of these things, I think we might have actually gotten to see this part of the drama be more fleshed out. But it’s not fleshed out. Instead, it’s rushed and awkward, and Togo’s stepmother ends up looking completely unhinged and irrational.

Overall, the writers bungled the last four episodes of this drama. They should have chosen to focus on one of the above plot points instead of trying to do both, because trying to do both hurt the story. For my part, I think it would have been a wiser use of their time to focus on Togo’s relationship with his stepmother and her secret son and all of the things that come attached to a situation as tenuous as that. There was a lot of really interesting stuff brought up in that situation that was never explored, and I even think the forced separation could have worked if the writers had really wanted to do it.

But we’ll never know what that would have looked like in this drama, will we? Cause it didn’t happen.

Having finished this and gotten plenty of genuine enjoyment out of it, I wouldn’t tell people not to watch this drama. I think you might want to be aware of the missteps that happen in the latter half so you can temper your expectations. But some viewers aren’t going to be so frustrated by the writing choices in the latter half of the story as I, and many other viewers, are. I myself might even rewatch this someday just to relive the leads amazing chemistry and the comedy and enjoy the short-lived effort at exploring such an interesting and sympathetic female lead.

Key word being someday.

Someday farrrrr in the future when I’ve gotten over the disappointment that the ending of this drama was.