Some time ago, there was an early drama back in people's sight.
"Tokyo Love Story" was launched on a domestic website, causing a large wave of memories to kill.
(hereinafter referred to as "East Love")
Interesting.
From the current point of view, this drama is definitely "three views are not correct" and "love brain".
In the third episode, the heroine said amazing lines frankly.
The countless operations of the protagonist group can definitely make many viewers half angry, and the ending of BE makes countless people sigh.
But, more than 30 years have passed.
As the ceiling of urban romantic dramas, it is still regarded as a "holy scripture" by many people.
Of course, Uncle Yu is also one of them.
However, every time I rebrush it, in addition to being intoxicated by the love of the protagonist, I will also have a feeling:
For so many years, why hasn't the mainland been able to make a comparable urban romance drama?
Take this opportunity to review this classic again and see if we can get any inspiration from it-
Tokyo Love Story
Tokyo Love Story
Back then, "East Love" created a ratings miracle as soon as it was broadcast.
The ratings of the first episode were as high as 20.7%.
Since then, it has remained at an average level of 22.9%.
In the last episode, it directly broke through the limit mark, reaching 32.3%, becoming the first work in Japan in the 90s with a single episode rating of more than 30%.
The Divine Comedy.
The theme song "Sudden Love", written and sung by Kazumasa Oda, became one of the best-selling singles in Japan overnight.
Anyone who has watched the drama will definitely be brainwashed by this tune.
Love Story wa Suddenly (TV Version), Kazumasa Oda
The two young leading actors also exploded in popularity because of this.
Honami Suzuki, with the role of Rika Akana, has become the goddess of pure love for millions of people.
Yuji Oda was also promoted to an actor who could fight against the top male god Takuya Kimura in the 90s.
Today, "watching "East Love" in winter, "I can't find a single Rika Akana in Tokyo", and "Ehime's oranges" have all become cultural symbols.
Why is "East Love" so charming?
Say a thousand things and ten thousand, or a love story is well written.
And the basis of the story is the characters.
"East Love" depicts a shocking pentagonal love in one breath.
In this pentagonal relationship, everyone may have their own shortcomings.
Or a lack of rational impulses, or indecisive vacillations, or duplicity.
However, they are also just ordinary people with ordinary morals.
None of them are wicked people who want to destroy the lives of others.
Sometimes they want to do something good that seems right, sometimes out of their own desires, and sometimes they think about others.
As a result, it caused a series of misunderstandings and injuries.
Let's just say that everyone loves Lixiang.
With always bright eyes, always bright smile, and always enthusiastic attitude, she has become an irreplaceable character in the hearts of countless audiences.
Her love is pure, it is fiery.
But at the same time, this purity will also bring heavy pressure to the other party.
She emphasized and confirmed Wanji's feelings over and over again.
In a way, this is also a form of harm, a sign of insecurity and vulnerability.
Repeated torture and questioning gradually pushed this love to the brink of collapse.
In stark contrast to Rika, I'm afraid it's the second heroine Satomi.
The character is simply unlikable.
In the early days, he was vacillating between the two men, and in the later stage, he always used a pitiful appearance to say "tea words and tea words" to destroy the feelings of the male and female protagonists.
This causes the audience to get angry at the mention of her.
This sentiment even extends beyond the screen.
Arimori Yashi, who plays Satomi, said that he had secretly thrown a stone at the northerners of Shinjuku Station, which was quite a bit of a "little three".
In fact, Satomi is just the most common appearance of ordinary people in love.
Compared with the image of Rika as an urban beauty who has lived overseas, Satomi, who was born in a small town, has a typical traditional temperament of "Yamato Nadeshiko".
At first, she was emotionally in a passive position, being dragged away by the man.
In terms of maintaining relationships, it is also handled in a self-deceptive way of "not looking, not wanting to listen, not listening".
However, when it came to the back, she finally began to take the initiative to fight for it and was no longer passive.
As a result, those words and deeds that are called "green tea" appeared.
Uncle Yu thinks that this is a manifestation of growth.
The other two male protagonists have their own goodness and "scum".
Wanzhi is honest, simple and kind.
But at the same time, because of his cowardly and vacillating character, he laid the root of the tragedy for "Wanxiang Love".
His non-refusal is like an olive branch.
I always misuse an outdated moral concept to deal with the relationship between men and women in modern times.
Let the boundary between kindness and love become more and more blurred.
He didn't expect that others would rely on him too much.
And the dashing Mikami, as soon as he appeared, he was the image of Aquaman.
But the more I looked down, the less disgusted I was with him.
The character of daring to love and hate, frank and decisive, has made him attract countless fans.
In the end, the former playboy also successfully transformed, and the prodigal son turned back and found his true love.
Love, in itself, is an involuntary, impulsive and complex emotion.
People who are in love can never be so rational and calm.
Is it a kind of selfishness to ignore others and the courage to face oneself in the pursuit of one's own love?
All this is the core of the whole story of "East Love".
It is also a paradox in modern society that makes countless love relationships out of control.
The urbanity in the story of "East Love" is the background of the times that cannot be ignored.
In 1991, Japan was in the last rays of a bubble economy.
Every young person inside and outside the play is full of vitality and confidence.
They still believe that the future will be better, so they can focus on love in a metropolis like Tokyo without any scruples.
And these were completely new to the domestic audience back then.
At that time, there was a gap between us in terms of economic development and cultural construction.
The city and life in "East Love" is a more trendy picture.
However, over the past 30 years, the domestic economy has taken off and society has become highly urbanized.
Our living conditions have gradually reached the appearance of "East Love".
At this time, if you watch "East Love" again, you can feel more of the marks of the times.
People always say that the ending of Wanji and Rika is an inappropriate result.
But this is not suitable, is it just that the completion of the second heart can't carry Lixiang's pure love?
In fact, the uneasiness in Rika's heart is largely not because of Satomi as a person.
It's that she has never been able to break and has an emotional connection rooted in nostalgia like the Wanji trio.
When Rika listened to Kanji reminiscing about his hometown, that expression full of yearning.
And when Kanji celebrates his birthday, Rika is disappointed that she didn't participate in the past of Kanji.
Therefore, she insisted on returning to Ehime and achieving a kind of spiritual integration by leaving her name.
Throughout the story of "East Love", we can see the relationship between other characters and their loved ones.
Mikami and Wanji are greetings from their mothers.
Satomi is a past time with her classmates.
Even ministers will be bound by wives and daughters.
Only Rika has no known parents and no childhood playmates.
The phone call with Wanji's mother, and the time Mikami and Wanji drank and played at her house, were the only relationships she managed to get called "companionship".
But it's still a short-term happiness that comes from "stepping in".
As a completely modern urban woman, Lixiang is independent and determined.
is a longed-for and enviable heroine.
But at the same time, she seems to have eternal vulnerability and loneliness.
Just like many of the second generations of the city who lack a sense of hometown, many times they don't understand the concept and feelings of hometown, but they can't help but yearn for it emotionally.
Completion is the complete opposite.
He is a conservative, long-term young man in a small town.
Many times I don't understand it at all, and I can't keep up with Rika's modernity.
Uncle Yu feels that the depiction of Wanzhi in "East Love" is actually out of a kind of gentle remembrance of traditional characters.
It's like the plot of Rika and Kanji in Ehime at the end.
Through Rika, a representative of the modern woman, she expresses her love for the town and expresses a nostalgia for Japan's past.
Unfortunately, society is moving forward at a high speed after all.
The school building with the names of the two will eventually face the end of being demolished.
In the process of modernization, many old things will be scrapped and rebuilt.
Just like in the development of society, people's personalities are constantly moving towards independence.
But at the same time, feelings have become more fragile, more fluid and ambiguous.
There is no one right or wrong between the new and the old in the era.
There is no right or wrong in Rika and Wanji's love.
It's just because of the misalignment of identity and concept that I went to regret.
What is valuable is that "East Love" uses the growth of all the characters to make this regret end in a kind and warm way.
As an urban romance drama, "East Love" is very interesting.
Because you can strip away everything else and talk only about humanity and love.
You can also experience the changes in society in the collision of love concepts.
What's more, as time goes by, we always find a new sense of identity in "East Love".
This kind of story that handles love and urban sense in place and integrates smoothly has achieved the appearance of an urban romantic drama.
It naturally presents the contradictions and complexities of the human heart, and keenly captures the changes of the times in emotional concepts.
This is also why, for decades, Japanese dramas have always been able to create one love classic after another.
Take Yuji Sakamoto, the screenwriter of "East Love", as an example.
Later, he wrote classic Japanese dramas such as "Quartet" and "Soybean Field Permanent Son and Three Ex-Husbands".
The former is all in a crush.
But they no longer crave absolute possession as in "East Love".
It's about a newer idea – love doesn't have to be proclaimed, and it doesn't have to be fulfilled.
The latter is to let a woman completely get rid of the shackles of love that ends without a problem.
I firmly believe that after breaking away from love and marriage, a person can live a good life.
This change in emotional outlook can always make people gain a sense of spiritual belonging.
What about ourselves?
In fact, we are not without good urban romantic dramas.
Uncle Yu talked to everyone about "I Want to Fall in Love" is a representative.
Centered around the more than 70 relationships of the four heroines, it is a discussion of the lives of urban women and an exploration of various social topics related to women.
These contents brought a new trend of thought at the time.
It's not outdated now, but it's just right.
It's a pity that this drama ended up unfinished.
And the "remake" from the background of the American drama "Sex and the City" made it lose an original charm in an instant.
What's even more a pity is that after this, it is even difficult for us to see an urban romance drama that can match this one.
Especially in recent years.
The market is flooded with toxic industrial saccharin and suspended false urban imaginations.
In these stories, love is brought about by various CP characters.
The excitement of sister and brother love, the back of orthopedic love, and the sweetness of the white flower of the boss......
Every kind of love uses its own formula to meet the standard of process.
At most, use some ambiguous actions and lines with suspicion of rubbing edges to stimulate the audience's G-spot.
The means seem to be clever, but they are completely out of the stream.
The funny thing is that many times they can't even copy the "open-book exam" well, which makes people just want to stay away.
And the depiction of the city only exists in the imagination of the unrealistic.
The women are all fashionable beauties in high heels.
Men are also handsome and golden.
They are also always invincible in the workplace.
Even if it is some ordinary people who are "in trouble", there will always be reliable friends around to help.
There are also atmospheric bars and restaurants, and exquisite bachelor apartments.
The background of the city is completely reduced to a background board like a model room.
Under this premise, it is not even expected that it can mention the changes of the times and the changes in emotional outlook.
Always with such an impetuous and speculative creative mentality.
No matter how many years we have, I'm afraid we won't be able to make a love story like "East Love".