i just finished watching hana kimi, a japanese comedy set in a high school context. it is about a girl who dresses as a boy to attend an all-boy's school to rehabilitate a star athlete who has lost his will for the sport at which he excels. there are all sorts of plot contrivances, expert circus showmanship, masquerades, dramatic techniques, etc to create a package that is a a marvelous bit of chicanery ensnaring the viewer visually and emotionally.
there is more to hana kimi than a simple high school romance. the premise of the drama is actually complex and interesting. Why did ashiya mizuki leave california, her parents her school, her friends, adopt a lifestyle that requires her to dress and act like a boy, trespass enroll, in short take on the responsibility of lying to an entire institution from school administrators, faculty and students in a single-sex (boys) only school to help a boy who has lost his smile, his heart for a sport he adores?
the ostensible reason stated in the drama premise is ashiya mizuki wants to help sana izumi. but why help this particular individual as opposed to helping some other individual? there are lots of individuals existing even in the space of this drama that need her help. yet ashiya mizuki has very single-mindedly focused on sana izumi. for her there is no one else. he is the only one who needs her help.
her justification for her actions stems from the following circumstance. sana izumi transforms from being an abstraction, someone she idolizes for the perfection of his ability and grace to someone who has an immediate personal relevance. as she is about to enter some sort of promotional event at which he will be present she has a run in with a group of thugs. he saves her from these thugs and in the process sustains an injury that bars him from participating in his sport until he recovers. unfortunately even after he recovers he never returns to his sport. when she comes to know of this she feels compelled to do something about it and so embarks on the journey which is the material for the drama.
there are two reasons which motivate her. her first reason is that she feels it is her fault sana izumi was injured. her second reason is to say "thank you" to sana izumi for rescuing her. it is this dual reason that lies behind her unshakable resolve to do what she does. i think it is easy to dismiss her belief that sana izumi's current condition is her fault. but i think this sort of thinking is an accurate reflection of a young person's psychological state in relation to its world, to what happens to it. to an adult, it is absurd to think something so vast as the workings of the universe is one's fault. insofar as the drama spends time elaborating on this motivation it is sensitive to the truth of a particular sort of being who in its youth perceives things in a particular way.
the second reason, to say "thank you", is for an adult a more sensible reason and just as compelling if not more so than the "fault" reason. someone has risked his life and well-being for you. in a similar situation many would feel that they owe their lives to their rescuer - in short their life would belong to the individual who had saved them. there is a relation that is created between the "rescued" and the "rescuer". this relation is not simply a "debt of gratitude" but the rescuer now occupies a role in the rescued person's existence. in the case of ashiya mizuki and sana izumi, the relation transforms from an abstract relation of star athlete and his fan to a personal relation of rescued and rescuer. this relation is intimate in that, one individual has irrevocably entered into the most personal and private and important space for the individual who has been saved. ashiya's life and person were protected and defended by sana izumi on the night she was attacked by the group thugs. before this incident he didn't know her and she knew of him but only as a fan. after the rescue, this had changed.
this sort of complexity is not something a teenager is going to grasp fully at a mental level. but this is immaterial in many ways because even without understanding all this ashiya understands the preciousness of this relation. in this she is honorable. she has enough clarity to see that this is no longer a fan's interest and also that it is not love or teenage infatuation. it is this relation that she is honoring when she feels compelled to help. just as he put his life and body on the line for her without thought, it generates a reciprocal response in her when she finds out that he is not well.
she puts everything that is important to her on the line to help him in his time of need. this is why lying to the school administration and faculty, to the other students, leaving her family and friends are all undertaken by ashiya. she is doing all this because she is honoring the sense of responsibility within herself towards sana izumi. everyone who comes to know of her motivation has no choice at that point but to stand aside and let her do what it is she feels she must do. it is not teenage lust for a "hottie" or fan obsession but honor and integrity that drives ashiya's actions.
the honor and integrity come from being committed to the logic of herself. her actions and decisions are situated in her organization of the world around her particular viewpoint, the life that she is. her clarity and focus - he helped me. i want to help him and will do everything in my power to help him - honors not only herself but also sana izumi and their relation. along the way this firmness of resolve to do what must be done elicits the admiration from those around ashiya in the drama and also the viewers.
in the course of enacting her resolution, the relationship between ashiya mizuki and sana izumi transforms into a love relationship. usually there is a strong bond that is created between two individuals in a life threatening situation, esp when one saves the other. how this bond is fleshed out is unique to the individuals involved. in some cases, nothing other than saying "thank you" is required of the individual who is saved/helped. in other situations this initial bond of relation develops into friendships of varying grades. in yet others, it transforms into love. this is what we have in hana kimi. ashiya mizuki and sana izumi fall in love with each other.
while watching hana kimi, i finally understood that the first step a lot of oriental girls take in the whole mating ritual is to identify the guy they like or love as "friend". it is only through an intensive process of self-understanding that they recognize the significance of their emotional investment in a young man. and it is through this self-understanding that a "friend" is transformed into "boyfriend."
in general until the girl develops the capacity for self-reflection and acquires the maturity to handle psychologically the responsibility and complexity of love between lovers, she will continue to consider the person a friend. ashiya mizuki in hana kimi is absolutely unaware of how important sana izumi is to her in this regard. of course sana is important that is why she has left her family, friends and country she grew up in to go to another country, dress up as a boy, etc. but he is not identified as someone she loves.
at first her actions are initiated out of a sense of honor. but later on her actions are motivated by her love for sana izumi. when does this transformation occur? ashiya mizuki does not catch this transformation. her actions motivated by love are as free and open as when they were motivated by honor. however, our heroine slowly figures out what she has identified as friendship is not really friendship. sana izumi occupies a unique position in her internal landscape. no other boy who is a friend is allowed the privileges she grants to sano izumi. no other person occupies a position of centrality in her consciousness as sano izumi. it takes ashiya mizuki some time to see this truth and to deduce from this truth she actually loves sano izumi.
her recognition of her love for sana izumi initiates the next phase in her growth as a character in the drama. we see her negotiating and managing her decision to leave the school, say goodbye, and finish whatever she needs to finish and so forth. but this material constitutes the denouement of the drama. the primary material was sufficiently well handled the viewer is satisfied as the drama comes to a close.
