Byakuyakou: thoughts on episode 1
Apr. 5th, 2009 07:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dangermousieI have just finished the first episode of the Japanese drama Byakuyakou (a.k.a. Journey Under The Midnight Sun).
I truly love it and recommend it highly, but WARNING: it's the darkest drama I have come across. Two words: CHILD ABUSE.
Byakuyakou caught me from its opening. An elegantly dressed young woman (we later learn her name is Yuki, and she is played by Ayase Haruka) is standing on a snowy street in front of a fancy storefront, receiving congratulations, when she sees a bleeding young man stagger towards her and collapse to the shock of passerby. We later learn his name is Ryo (he is played by Yamada Takayuki) and as they stare at each other, it's clear by their voiceover narration that they know each other more than well. And then he motions for her to go away, and she walks away, weeping and thinking to herself "I will not cry."
Aaaaand, flashback to 14 years ago. This drama starts at the end and for the rest of it, we learn who Yuki and Ryo are, and what got them to this point.
When the story proper starts, Ryo and Yuki are both 11 years old. Ryo is a solemn little boy whose home life is less than ideal: his mother is cheating on his father and while the father might be oblivious, Ryo clearly knows. And then one day he sees Yuki, a beautiful young girl his age, and he is smitten at first sight. An adorable childish courtship follows and Ryo is actually even able to make Yuki laugh.
However, Yuki's home life makes Ryo's seem wonderful: earlier it was made clear she is a daughter of a broken-down alcoholic mother whose main source of income is selling her child to a child molester for sex services. I wonder who her "client" is. Or I don't.
Following Yuki one day to an abandoned building, Ryo discovers Yuki there with his father and, almost instictively, stabs him to death (I was cheering. His father trying to justify it by saying it's consensual and he doesn't love her made me want to stab him myself). That is my favorite scene so far, when Ryo is sitting in shock with his scissors going "I killed my father" and Yuki is smiling and saying she killed him instead because she's been killing him in her head over and over.
Yuki makes Ryo promise to stay away from her and pretend to be strangers, but she takes the bloody scissors and frames her mother for the murder, before killing her. And leaves. But she meets Ryo one last time and promises him she will always remember his saving her. And then 7 years pass and...end of episode.
I realy really love this drama. It's very dark but it makes sense (for example, Ryo's Dad being a child molester is very well foreshadowed before the reveal), the acting is good (the child actors were incredible), the story is interesting. And of course two protagonists are beyond messed-up as the drama shows. Ryo might have been an OK little kid if he didn't see his father engage in child rape and murder him, but Yuki was (obviously) damaged even before that, because of child abuse. I cannot wait to see when and how they will meet again, and how they will interact, being tied by their trauma and their crime.
Here is a MV for the drama:
I truly love it and recommend it highly, but WARNING: it's the darkest drama I have come across. Two words: CHILD ABUSE.
Byakuyakou caught me from its opening. An elegantly dressed young woman (we later learn her name is Yuki, and she is played by Ayase Haruka) is standing on a snowy street in front of a fancy storefront, receiving congratulations, when she sees a bleeding young man stagger towards her and collapse to the shock of passerby. We later learn his name is Ryo (he is played by Yamada Takayuki) and as they stare at each other, it's clear by their voiceover narration that they know each other more than well. And then he motions for her to go away, and she walks away, weeping and thinking to herself "I will not cry."
Aaaaand, flashback to 14 years ago. This drama starts at the end and for the rest of it, we learn who Yuki and Ryo are, and what got them to this point.
When the story proper starts, Ryo and Yuki are both 11 years old. Ryo is a solemn little boy whose home life is less than ideal: his mother is cheating on his father and while the father might be oblivious, Ryo clearly knows. And then one day he sees Yuki, a beautiful young girl his age, and he is smitten at first sight. An adorable childish courtship follows and Ryo is actually even able to make Yuki laugh.
However, Yuki's home life makes Ryo's seem wonderful: earlier it was made clear she is a daughter of a broken-down alcoholic mother whose main source of income is selling her child to a child molester for sex services. I wonder who her "client" is. Or I don't.
Following Yuki one day to an abandoned building, Ryo discovers Yuki there with his father and, almost instictively, stabs him to death (I was cheering. His father trying to justify it by saying it's consensual and he doesn't love her made me want to stab him myself). That is my favorite scene so far, when Ryo is sitting in shock with his scissors going "I killed my father" and Yuki is smiling and saying she killed him instead because she's been killing him in her head over and over.
Yuki makes Ryo promise to stay away from her and pretend to be strangers, but she takes the bloody scissors and frames her mother for the murder, before killing her. And leaves. But she meets Ryo one last time and promises him she will always remember his saving her. And then 7 years pass and...end of episode.
I realy really love this drama. It's very dark but it makes sense (for example, Ryo's Dad being a child molester is very well foreshadowed before the reveal), the acting is good (the child actors were incredible), the story is interesting. And of course two protagonists are beyond messed-up as the drama shows. Ryo might have been an OK little kid if he didn't see his father engage in child rape and murder him, but Yuki was (obviously) damaged even before that, because of child abuse. I cannot wait to see when and how they will meet again, and how they will interact, being tied by their trauma and their crime.
Here is a MV for the drama:
