王小姐~ by NIAN [Twitter/X]
※Illustration shared with permission from the artist. If you like this artwork please support the artist by visiting the source.
This Qiao Wanmian x Jiao Liqiao fan music video hits everything that makes them appealing to me! And you don’t need to understand the lyrics to understand the video! (The song is in Hokkien and I don’t understand a word but the vibes are perfect ❤️)
The more specific a trope, the more memorable it is. A seemingly cold, well-put together, highly competent bespectacled guy flirts/bullies a messier, plucky, strong-willed girl.
I think my friend has mentioned Clover before, or I must have seen some part of it, or maybe the vibe is just so familiar. Maybe there was an anime along similar lines? Something like the class president dating the resident gyaru? Or some wuxia show where the bumbling female mc catches the heart of the demon king?
Regardless why this dynamic feels so familiar, the particular setting of the movie being a corporate office became more and more interesting to me as the movie progressed. Saya (the girl) and Tsuge (the guy) 's love bully dynamic honestly isn't as strong as the trailer implied; the plot moves past this pretty quickly, and the main conflict is a semi love-quadilateral, with Saya and Tsuge in the middle, and Haruki (Saya's childhood love) and Shiori (Tsuge's boss' spoiled sister) pursuing them respectively. There really wasn't much question whether Saya or Tsuge would reciprocate those competitors, but whether the relationship would stand the tests of mutual insecurity, and honestly, motherfucking capitalism and toxic work culture. I'm not sure if the movie set out to say anything about the latter topics, and maybe I'm reading a lot more into it (and Japanese work culture a decade ago; damn 2014 is the last decade???) than I should, but the look into (a movie version) of a Japanese office was...elucidating.
Main thoughts:
The CEO demoting the older subordinate/midlevel manager to chauffeur for spending time with his own family. The CEO is portrayed as a huge asshole who exploits his underlings, and this was treated as a shocking moment for us and Tsuge, but what bothered me most was how the older man just went along with it cheerily. I wondered if the old man not just leaving the company is realistic in their work culture.
The entire situation of Tsuge being Saya's direct manager being portrayed as okay while Shiori being Tsuge's direct superior (kinda) being shown as exploitative/tyrannical. In-universe however, both were pretty much celebrated by the company and coworkers. I wondered if Japan had more lax workplace romance rules than the US; it was plainly obvious that both relationships affected their participants ability to perform their tasks (ok not Shiori, bc she never did any work anyways). Tsuge directly prevented Saya from making a huge blunder and covered for her; did he only do that because they were dating? Upper management would like to know...if upper management wasn't also interested in bonking him.
I noticed that most of Saya's female coworkers were around her age and also single. One funny scene was Saya's work buddy scanning the lobby of the hotel they work at and letter grading their male comrades for dateability: age, face, body, money, etc. A slew of C or below, and then Tsuge comes and is an A+. There is only one older woman, and she is also single, and mostly serves a comic relief (and a bit of a jealous gossiper). One of Saya's friends' gets married. I wondered if Saya and most of her coworkers would just leave the workforce after getting married, and if they wanted to or were expected to.
Saya and Haruki deal very differently with the trauma of being ripped away from each other in middle school; Saya swears to save herself for him forever and date nobody else, while Haruki dates around but forever feels unfulfilled, at the same time purposely not contacting Saya because "it'll make him weak". It's interesting that finally meeting each other again seems to be the impetus for both to stop the yearning. I'm glad Saya was pretty firm in rejecting Haruki after her relationship with Tsuge began, but still treated him as a good friend.
In the end, the CEO wryly states he can't afford to punish Tsuge for choosing his personal life over career this time due him being too useful. Interesting that Tsuge being so useful and hardworking, and being mostly a hardass who didn't have much time for women, was what put him in the sights of Shiori in the first place. In another less gracious version of the story, Shiori and the CEO could easily retaliate against Tsuge and especially Saya for the humiliation in a myriad of ways.
A lighthearted fun movie for most of it. I think the significance of the title is kinda...shoehorned. Saya feels finally feels lucky, but luck aint got nothing to do with it.
小妹妹 ~~~ hahaha how about "every move you make" for the ask game?
Hi Rei 姐姐!okie so this title made me think of multiple ideas… my first thought went to ‘ballroom dance’ in either AOT canonverse or a royal AU. Then my second thought was dance studio AU. Then my third thought was chess players AU, then possibly even politics AU… many ideas!! This is such a good and versatile title 😂 but this is what I’ve settled on:
Every Move You Make (a 5+1 Levi x Reader fic)
Summary: Watching you glide across the ballroom floor, dressed to the nines and cradled firmly in another man’s arms, Levi thinks back on what could’ve been. With every move you make, he sees an untold story slowly unfold; the story of you and him.
(5 times he almost confesses and the 1 time he does.)