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dramavixen · 2 years

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It’s an Oldie, But Is It a Goodie? – Akai Giwaku (Japan, 1975)

Yeah, 1975. By watching this one, I took a stroll down my parents’ and grandparents’ memory lane. The subject: one of the hottest Japanese dramas of that era, Akai Giwaku (赤い疑惑) (“Red Confusion”).

(Do I need to tag spoilers for this...?)

Speaking for better accuracy, this drama wasn’t hot in my parents’ home country of China until the 80s, when it was dubbed over and broadcasted under the title 血疑 (“Blood Confusion”). And then it was...red hot.

As we sat in front of the TV, watching this blurry drama on YouTube with cheesy dubbing and spotty audio, my mom wistfully reminisced about the days when everyone was watching it. Akai Giwaku prompted a massive wave of girls and boys who changed their hairdos and revamped their wardrobes to match the female and male leads’. Everyone had a crush on Yamaguchi Momoe, the lead actress, and singing along to her voice as it carries the melody of the drama’s opening song was an innate reaction that’s followed my parents to this day. It can be hard, grasping what your parents’ youth was like. But seeing them reliving their drama fever, I suddenly couldn’t understand them more.

So exactly what kind of show is Akai Giwaku that so many fell in love with it? Well. It’s sad.

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A Cliché Pioneer

Nowadays, we’re neck-deep in the territory where every piece of media comes off as “cliché.” Your chances of finding anything with a totally new storyline are effectively zero—while creativity is abundant, the spring of innovation has long since run dry.

In the case of Akai Giwaku, years of modern-day drama-consumption makes you feel like it’s just running down the list of drama tropes:

Our female lead, Sachiko, is a cheerful ray of sunshine. She’s a high school student with a loving family and skips and hops her way to school every day. Friendly and optimistic, you can immediately tell that something terrible is going to happen to her.

With a stroke of horrible luck, Sachiko is exposed to a large amount of radiation and subsequently develops leukemia. Her father—a doctor—notices her symptoms, discovers what has happened, and concludes that she has the illness. Unless a miracle cure is discovered, she will die within the year. Her parents agree that they should hide the truth from her, hoping that she will be able to live her life with unperturbed joy and perhaps hold out long enough for said cure.

Sachiko meets Mitsuo, a handsome and charming medical student of her father’s. They click and fall for one another, fast.

Like two episodes later, Mitsuo finds out that Sachiko is his biological half-sister because his dad is a two-timing piece of garbage.

So Sachiko’s actually adopted, a truth that she is again unaware of. Who’s her biological mom? Her famous paternal aunt, who she’s looked up to her entire life as the “cool aunt who does things I want to do.” Sachiko...I can think of a few things she does that you shouldn’t want to do, one of them being how you were conceived.

Sachiko’s blood type, AB-negative, provides problems when it comes to needing constant transfusions. But never fear, because guess who shares her blood type? Mitsuo! And their dad; but no one wants to talk about that dude. The half-brother boyfriend is a far more reliable blood bag.

To the modern mind, this sounds like an absolute dumpster fire. Terminal illness, check. Lovers are actually siblings, check. Birth secrets, check. Of course, it’s rather anachronistic to be calling Akai Giwaku “cliché” when there wasn’t such a wide selection of shows back then at all. If anything, it’s like a mother to all soap opera-style dramas that followed. I almost want to see someone attempt something even halfway as traumatically dramatic today, just to see if it would even work. (Korea had a similar stab at it in Autumn in My Heart, which I’d love to reserve discussing for a different time because oh my god. 2000 was just a different time, man.)

Funnily enough, neither of my parents even remembered that the leads are half-siblings. Yes, the plot point whose tragedy is of equal weight to Sachiko’s illness was left behind in the dust of faded memories. They spent the last thirty-some years believing that this show was only sad because the girl was dying— which when you think about it, is also sad, but every show back then loved killing off a protagonist...so, not all that riveting. Watching them piece the “they’re actually related” part together was as entertaining as the drama itself: wait. I remember that guy being her dad. No, no; that guy is the boy’s dad. Maybe their dads just look alike. I think we’re being racist. Wait.

Like boiling a pair of horrified frogs, while being a horrified frog myself.

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It Hurts More Than You’d Expect

If you’re a normal human being, Sachiko and Mitsuo’s romantic relationship is inherently off-putting. Don’t worry, you’re not the only one—Mitsuo, upon learning that they’re related, faces an internal struggle so huge that he flees to the countryside. And he likely would have stayed, if it weren’t for learning the second bit of information that Sachiko is dying.

Perhaps no amount of context matters. Their relationship is gross, end of story. But any amount of biological and/or ethical fact only makes your heart hurt more for them, not less.

Timeline-wise, Sachiko and Mitsuo fall for each other long before finding out that their shared biological father screwed them over all those years ago. Imagine the trauma from their discovery of the truth. How unfair the world is, to make them find one another, love one another, and be there for one another through the torture that are their circumstances. I’m not saying their relationship is justified, but yeah that’s basically what I’m saying and I guess I’ll just have to live with that.

Okay, but once they know they’re related, that should be the end of it. As insane as I can be, I agree with that. And Sachiko’s father thinks the same. When he notices the two growing closer, he tries to create a rift between them. But realizing that Sachiko’s last remaining happiness may rest with Mitsuo...well. Her father is the one who tracks down Mitsuo, imploring him to come home for Sachiko’s sake. She loves him enough that he’ll give her the strength to live.

For obvious reasons, this request is one of exceptional cruelty to Mitsuo. He’s being asked to keep a lot of unreasonable secrets: the nature of Sachiko’s birth, their relation to one another, and now her looming death. Any of these alone amounts to them parting ways, yet he’s being asked to act as if none of it is a facet of reality. But he agrees, believing that it will be worth it to make Sachiko happy. And if she’s ultimately cured, that would be even better.

A lot of this drama is just a compilation of watching an unreasonably attractive Mitsuo suffer. In a way, the happier Sachiko is, the more tortured he must be to balance it out. But what are his other options? He can either a) tell her the truth and have her grieve her illusion of a life, possibly speeding up her death or b) keep it a secret and suffer alone in silence, either until she dies or a cure is discovered. Or—and this is his first inclination—c) keep it a secret, distance himself, and pretend not to like her so that maybe her feelings for him will die and maybe she’ll just get over it, or maybe she’ll die before then. Scenario B is the only one that gives Sachiko the greatest chance at life.

Gah. I really wanted to strangle Mitsuo’s father for what he did to these poor children. Need an argument against cheating that has nothing to do with ethics or morals? Here’s one: your children from different partners might end up unknowingly dating each other. Someone, throw this man off the top of a skyscraper.

Anyways, it’s hardly surprising that their love story ends in tragedy. You really don’t want to see them part by having one party die, but you also don’t know how much better you’d feel by seeing them split up because they’re related by blood. Either way, there’s no avenue to take where they can walk toward a happy ending. Everyone in the show recognizes this, which is why they can only watch the two with bittersweet smiles.

And it’s pain for you, as someone who has to watch it all progress exactly the way you think it will. Especially after Sachiko discovers her birth secret, I embodied emotional turmoil. In her distress, she even says something like, “yeah, I bet you love me—as a sister” and Mitsuo gets so pissed off that I’d find it cathartic if it weren’t for how heartrending it all is.

They come to accept the circumstances, as Sachiko’s condition is worsening by the day. The end of the show comes with Sachiko peacefully passing away in Mitsuo’s arms as they sail on the sea. She thanks him for everything and wishes that he can move on before leaving. It’s also the first and last time he kisses her—in a farewell. I can’t put into words how absolutely terrible I felt watching her go like that, but maybe it’s best that I’m speechless because you probably wouldn’t be able to understand anything I’d say through my hideous sobs.

If it’s any consolation, the lead actors actually got married in 1980 and have been together ever since. Yamaguchi retired upon their marriage and totally erased herself from the radar, leaving Miura, Mitsuo’s actor, alone in the public eye. He initially struggled to build a name for himself due to exclusively being known as Yamaguchi’s costar (indeed, my mom loves the mental image of Yamaguchi announcing that she’s not going to work anymore as they sign the marriage papers and Miura being dumbfounded), but eventually paved a way to a steady acting career.

To close off the discussion surrounding Sachiko and Mitsuo’s love story, I’d like to bring up an important observation I had while watching: Mitsuo has some kind of compulsive need to take off his shirt during blood transfusions. Initially, we simpletons tried to excuse it: well maybe back then, that was just the process of donating blood? Guys gotta strip? Then, there’s a scene where he and his dad are laying right next to each other to donate blood, and he’s the only one shirtless:

(This has the same energy as Dongfang Qingcang in Love Between Fairy and Devil ripping off his clothes as he’s about to suffer severe corporal punishment. Immediately before, his brother suffered the same punishment. Fully clothed.)

I really would just like to know: why. I require an explanation.

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What Counts as “Living”?

As my parents rediscovered, this isn’t just a show about a girl who is going to die. Nor is it just a show about a girl who is going to die, but in the meantime is dating her half-brother. Sachiko is certainly going to die. But she also needs a reason to live.

No one tells Sachiko anything that she arguably deserves to know. She spends half of the show not knowing the truth behind her disease, having been fooled by her parents that her symptoms are those of a minor and curable illness. She spends even more time not knowing that her parents aren’t her biological parents and that the person she’s in love with is her half-brother.

I pitied Sachiko because no one tells her the truth and gives her the option to choose until she stumbles upon reality herself. At the same time, with how emotional of a person she is, I can see why everyone fears risking her life by telling her something that would stress her out. Being faced with both cancer and incest would be rather stressful for anyone, don’t you think? Also, she has a habit of literally running away from her problems, which leads to quite the pickle when she inevitably trips and scrapes her knee and can’t stop bleeding due to her leukemia.

For the most part, every conflict that surfaces is both rooted in and resolved by Sachiko’s leukemia. Akai Giwaku at its core is less a story about fighting cancer and more about how her illness gives everyone the motivation to cherish life, especially Sachiko herself. Her character grows fast in spite of her mounting illness, primarily due to her family and Mitsuo’s encouragement. She learns the horrors and unfairness of life, and then by contrast how beautiful life and people can be.

Many around her can be considered selfish. A nosy paparazzi initially sniffs out that Sachiko’s aunt has a secret daughter and has the full intention of publishing Sachiko’s identity. But upon fully grasping the details of her circumstances, he definitively decides to drop the scoop. Sachiko’s aunt herself is quite tempted to tell her that she’s her birth mother, especially once she discovers that Sachiko is ill, but she ultimately puts aside that desire in favor of Sachiko’s health. Even when Sachiko directly asks her for answers regarding her birth, her aunt only insists that her current parents, the ones who raised her, are her real parents. (I’d just like to say here that thank goodness this show expresses this worldview so plainly—maybe we should feel thankful towards those who brought us onto this planet, but if those people are not the same as those who raised us, then the latter are true “parents.”)

Though it may be easy to dismiss such goodwill as pity, I prefer to view it as the idea that most people know where to draw the line. There are some things that no amount of benefit could justify. Life is fleeting for everyone, but few things hurt more than watching a young person have their future stripped from them before they’re even able to touch it. And when you see them so desperately trying to live, how could you not be affected by that?

Of course, Sachiko has her struggles. She despairs after learning she has leukemia, and even more so after discovering that she’s blood-related to the love of her life. She constantly wonders if dying would be a form of liberation. People transitioning into adulthood in general are prone to such thinking: is this all there is to life? I do this every single day until I die? Then what’s the point?

Sachiko is a testament against that nihilistic pointlessness: there’s no point that someone else can give you. Life is about being diligent and believing that your efforts will amount to something fulfilling. She stumbles backward sometimes, but through the support of her loved ones, she strives to live a life with meaning. She keeps having fun and doing all the things that teenagers are meant to be doing. She studies to go to medical school even knowing that she won’t live to attend, and rejoices when she is accepted. Because at least she did something that she deeply wanted to before she dies.

In some of the show’s final moments, Mitsuo arrives at Sachiko’s home. “I’m here to pick up Sachiko,” he tells her mother when she opens the door.

Her mother heads up the stairs to Sachiko’s room. “Sachiko, Mitsuo’s here to pick you up. Let’s hurry and get ready.”

No one is in the room. But a backpack is neatly arranged on the desk where Sachiko used to sit.

Her mother carries the backpack down so her husband and Mitsuo can take it to what would have been Sachiko’s first day of college, where she would have sat through her own father’s lecture. As Mitsuo and her father move forward to create a world where she could have experienced her future, she lives on in their hope and desires.

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Everyone’s beloved Sachiko survives vibrantly in my parents’ generation. What stirs their memories of it the most is that classic opening theme, which ironically serves as a fitting conclusion to her story. It opens with the fanfare of a somber trumpet before Yamaguchi sings:

If it is my fault, then please forgive me For making you suffer such pain Completely forget everything about me I hope that you walk toward the bright sunlight

Falling alongside the dying leaves, one-by-one Our sad parting approaches us We cried, we laughed, we fought So long as I was with you, I could be at rest

Thank you

How many more days remain, where I can be loved? How many more days remain, where I can live?

If it is my fault, then please forgive me For hurting you without knowing By myself, I will take care I hope that you will absolutely find someone nice

As if I am carefully putting small rocks in a line I trace all of our different memories The meaning of a happiness from being loved by others Is something that you taught me

Thank you

How many more days remain, where I can be loved? How many more days remain, where I can live?

#akai giwaku #赤い疑惑 #scribbles*#i'm interested in knowing how many middle-aged chinese people adored this show #i feel like this is one of those things where you'd just have to say it and suddenly their brains take a time travel trip #i wish i could find this drama in full anywhere online #but tbh it's very hard #so i apologize to any eng-only viewers #just take my word for it #it's good lol

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usabun-tl · 28 days

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Complicity・共犯 — KANKAKU PIERO

English+Romaji Translation

youtube

**various trigger warnings for the music video, blood, self harm

愛してるわねえダーリン

aishiteru wa nee daarin

I love you, hey darling

あなたに出会えて幸せなの

anata ni deaete shiawase na no

I'm so happy to have met you

永久に二人の時間が続きますように

towa ni futari no jikan ga tsuzukimasu you ni

May our time together last forever

泣いた顔笑顔も全部世界で一つの宝物よ

naita kao egao mo zenbu sekai de hitotsu takaramono yo

Your tears, your smile, all of your expressions are my one treasure in this world

でもお願い聞かせて

demo onegai kikasete

But please, hear me out

私じゃない香りがしてるわ

watashi janai kaori ga shiteru wa

There's the scent of somebody else on you

昨日の夜の事は「考えすぎ」ってそう言うけど

kinou no yoru no koto wa kangaesugi tte sou iu kedo

You told me I was "overthinking" what happened last night, but

取り繕うたびに視線は泳いでる

tori tsukurou tabi ni shisen wa oyoideru

Every time you gloss over things, your gaze falters

とうに冷えたコーヒーで誤魔化す癖も嫌いじゃないの

tou ni hieta koohii de gomakasu kuse mo kirai ja nai no

I don't mind your habit of fooling me with a cup of coffee that has long gone cold

誰にも渡さないわ

dare ni watasanai wa

I won't hand you over to anyone

私だけってそう言って

watashi dake tte sou itte

Tell them you have me

何回だってキスしてそっと優しくなぞって

nankai datte kisu shite sotto yasashiku nazotte

We kissed over and over, tracing over each other tenderly

何十回とキスしてもっと強く噛み締めて

nanjuukai to kisu shite motto tsuyoku kamishimete

We kissed over and over again, biting each other harder

何百回とキスしてずっと二人で溺れて

nanbyakkai to kisu shite zutto futari de oborete

We kissed hundreds of times, drowning together

何千回とキスして

nanzenkai to kisu shite

We kissed thousands of times

まだ足りないじゃない

mada tarinai ja nai

It still isn't enough

Dance, Dance, Dancing in my heart beats

壊れそうな心をあげる

kowaresou na kokoro wo ageru

I'll give you this broken heart

Dance, Dance, Dancing in my heart beats

夢の中であなたの影を抱いてもいいですか？

yume no naka de anata no kage wo idaite mo ii desuka

Is it okay if I embrace your shadow inside of a dream?

'私'法第6条「浮気は死して償うべし」

watashi houdai roku jou uwaki wa shi shite tsugunau beshi

Article 6 of "Yours Truly" law states that "Cheating must be atoned for by death"

携帯の画面に映る人は誰？

keitai no gamen ni utsuru hito wa dare

Who is that reflected on your phone screen?

レス気味の正体は私に魅力を感じないから？

resu kimi no shoutai wa watashi ni miryoku wo kanji nai kara

Is the reality that it's because you don't find me attractive?

私とよりももっともっと凄いことしてるの？

watashi to yori mo motto motto sugoi koto shiteru no

Could it be that much more exciting to be with them than me?

Dance, Dance, Dancing in my heart beats

どこにいるの私を置いて

doko ni iru no watashi wo oite

Where are you

You've left me behind

Dance, Dance, Dancing in my heart beats

夢の中であなたを殺してしまいたい

yume no naka de anata wo koroshiteshimaitai

I want to kill you inside of a dream

疑惑献上？着信鳴らすわ

giwaku kenjou chakushin narasu wa

An offering of doubt? A phone rings

「何の用？」

nan no you

"What do you want?"

無言電話で伝う私模様

mugodenwa de tsutau watashi moyou

My pattern conveyed through a silent phone call

違う誰かの気配で狂いそう

chigau dareka no kehai de kurui sou

Going crazy feeling like there's somebody else

光る画面を冷静に封じ込む

hikaru gamen wo reisei ni fuujikomu

Calmly capture the glowing screen

私覚悟決めたわだってさ

watashi kakugo kimeta wa datte sa

I've prepared myself for the worst, after all

独りきりで生きていくなんてさ

hitori kiri de ikiteiku nante sa

Living on all on my own or whatever

出来やしないわ

dekiya shinai wa

It's impossible

今世来世

konse raise

In this world, and the next

永遠に離すわけないわ

eien ni hanasu wake nai wa

I can't believe that we'll be separated forever

本当は知ってるの

hontou wa shitteru no

In reality, I know the truth

バカじゃない

baka janai

I'm not stupid

Dance, Dance, Dancing in my heart beats

私はずっと二番目だったことを

watashi wa zutto nibanme datta koto wo

I'll be number two forever

Dance, Dance, Dancing in my heart beats

ならばいっそ道連れしてあの世へ行きましょう

naraba isso michizure shite ano yo he ikimashou

If that's the case, I'd prefer we go onto the next world together

Dancing in my heart beats

私だけのものよ

watashi dake no mono yo

You belong to me alone

Dancing in my heart beats

#the venn diagram of the kankaku songs i've translated and songs about getting cheated on is a circle #...#the music video is a banger though tbh #KANKAKU PIERO #感覚ピエロ #period is dancing #ok no after reevaluating things i take it back this song slaps entirely #i love crazy people #the song is not about cheating !!#fav #Spotify

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