✦Elzary
Cinema·4 min read·👀 Watched 2022.10.04

Tokyo Girl

What she truly wanted, it turns out, wasn't others' envious eyes — but the small happiness she'd held from the very start, and let go because it came too easily.

2016 · Adapted from the novel by Hisako Kurosawa · Amazon Prime

Setting the scene

Lately Taipei Girl has been all the talk, and this is the ancestor of the "girl atlas" series it drew from — a title long on my watchlist. What pushed me to find it right away was recently hearing the podcast Crazy Women Everywhere, which actually spoiled most of it, but I still wanted to watch it in full myself, haha. Each episode is a mere 20 minutes, 11 in all — concise yet with everything it needs; zero burden to watch over a meal, haha.

The gist

It's about the pressure and drive that worldly expectations, class, family background, and desire bring the lead. And she really is a woman of her word — the dreams she had in high school, she truly achieved as an adult. But as her goals are ticked off one by one, she's also often lost, wondering: why is she still not happy? Does she want a home in a better neighborhood, a higher position, or a partner with better credentials?

A few (few, few) thoughts

Actually she always knew what she wanted, and at the same time didn't know — until she finally returns home and realizes what her heart truly wanted wasn't others' envious eyes, but the "small happiness" she'd held from the very start, which she let go precisely because it came too easily; only to find, in the end, that this was exactly the happiness she wanted.

So Aya has a line: "Everything these past years has been a detour to re-learn this truth." I don't think that's a bad thing — maybe even a good one? If she'd married Naoki and had kids from the start, she might have complained her whole life, regretted her whole life? So perhaps you really do have to walk the whole road yourself, live it once, to know what you actually want!

That said, I admire the heroine's decisiveness — having a clear goal, and even while loving her present little joys, letting go without hesitation or lingering 🫳. Breaking free of worldly values is so hard; even if you're reluctant, thoroughly being yourself probably takes a long stretch of trials.

Aya's last words: "Let's keep going, step by step, because there's still so much I want to get."

Keep desiring; keep contentment. Take action, keep moving forward.

The tug-of-war between ideal and reality

For Taiwan, I've been to Taipei fewer than ten times growing up. In high school I really wanted to study at a Taipei university, to experience bustling city life and the capital's rich resources (but I didn't get in 🥲). Seeing high-school classmates' dazzling lives in Taipei, I couldn't help envying them — but actually seeing the life my family living up north led, pinching every penny, calculating everything (Uber Eats delivery fees are outrageous too), my longing for Taipei faded day by day. Maybe my resolve just isn't as strong as the heroine's? (I'm someone with no strong attachment to Taipei.) I feel closer to that "G-Dan Pudding" mindset — is there really anything that must be done in a particular place?

#series#drama#amazon
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