Love and Relationships in Neighborhood Story and Paradise Kiss: The List With Amber Audra
We're not done with Ai Yazawa yet. And this time? It's personal.
Spoilers for Nana, Paradise Kiss and Neighborhood Story.
Life and love comes at you fast. If you're familiar with Ai Yazawa's work, you know this is a topic she explores a lot. The whole of the anime of Nana takes place over the course of just a few months and finds Hachi going from being in love with and moving to be with Shoji, to being heartbroken and exploring a relationship with Nobu, to being pregnant and engaged to Takumi. It's easy to forget how fast the story progresses while you're watching it given how many events unfold. In the manga, even more happens, mostly involving Nana and Ren and Reira and her relationships (I won't spoil that) and it all takes place within a year. It seems dramatic and sudden and like a lot but I'm sure some of my readers can think back on their tumultuous relationships, particularly in their late teens and early twenties and see some similarities. How much can change in a few months, in a year.
Even in my own life, though I'm in my thirties, an old maid by anime girl standards (no longer an Asuka, I am, at best, a Misato [Relationships? Messy. Room? Messy. Skirts? Short.] or Ritsuko [Blonde, mommy issues, should maybe consider throwing in the towel on men]), I went through a laundry list of emotions these past few weeks. When I began this miniseries, I felt a deep melancholy. I wasn't sad that the person I liked didn't like me back because I recognized I couldn't force something that just wasn't right but I was sad that the person who was so nice to me didn't exist and the real person was the one was emotionally closed off, immature and, honestly, kind of mean. I was sad I was duped. I thought I was savvier than this. I was sad for the loss of hope. But I wrote. I wrote this. I wrote to my friends. I wrote songs. And it all helped. And my grief subsided and before long, I found him taking up less and less of my time. Songs that reminded me of him that I'd taken off my playlists were getting added back on because they'd been untethered to him. Mutuals I'd muted that had a habit of posting with him got unmuted because it honestly didn't bother me to see his picture anymore. The heart eyes motherfucker faded to an eye roll at most. He won't read this. And he won't listen to the songs I wrote about him. He didn't care about my creative endeavors even when he was carving time out of his day to tell me how pretty and talented I am. It kind of stung then but it doesn't anymore. I don't write for him. I write for me.
It's odd to think that this whole thing began at the end of one month and by the end of the next, it's all done. If you told me it was just a little over a month of my life, most of which was spent stressing and sad and ignored, I wouldn't have believed it. It felt like so much longer. But some relationships aren't meant to be long. They can teach you a lot in a little amount of time. I did learn a lot from it. And I feel that whatever is next, I'm even better prepared for now.
It's something we see in the relationships of Body-Ko in Neighborhood Story. First in her short relationship with Tsutomo, then with her tumultuous, on-off relationship with Yuuskue. Poor Body-Ko just tries and tries and fails but she does learn something each time, even if it isn't a lot or if it doesn't stick.
With Tsutomo, Body-Ko, a savvier and more observant girl than she's given credit for, notices her boyfriend's feelings for his neighbor, Mikako. She genuinely does like Tsutomo. He is, after all, one of the few guys who has treated Body-Ko respectfully and didn't just try to sleep with her. This has endeared him to her. So, she attempts to change herself to fit his ideals. She begins dressing flashier and trendier like Mikako does. She hopes it will make Tsutomo like her more. Of course, the relationship is doomed no matter how Body-Ko dresses or does her hair. She might be the prettiest girl in school but she can't change how Tsutomo feels. And she ultimately knows it.
In her heartache, she opens up to Yuuskue, who does adore her. After all, she's beautiful and tender and her intimacy has endeared her to him. The two strike up a romance but they're too different. He's lower class, closed off with his emotions, motivated at school to an extent. Her rich lifestyle is silly to him and he has no patience with watching her fail at classes at their prestigious art and design academy and not care because she will face no consequences if she drops out. They fight. They clash. They break up. But they get back together over and over. One always goes back to the other. It's a cycle they can't break and during the course of Neighborhood Story, their fights get worse and their relationship turns toxic. Because neither are strong enough to break the cycle until Body-Ko leaves the school, and even then she, heartbroken, asks Yuuskue to beg her to stay.
When you meet someone who is bad for you but you genuinely do feel for, the best thing you can do for yourself and for them is walk away. If you do truly care for them at all, you'll walk away.
So why do toxic relationships flourish so? Why do we get in these cycles we just can't leave, that keep us trapped for years? My last long term relationship was your classic toxic mindfuck. It lasted years. It was on-and-off for a lot of it. He'd use communication as control, he would ghost me, and when I would approach him, he would break up with me for being "too pushy" and not "knowing he just needed space", and then immediately heel turn and get mad at me for not "fighting for our relationship". It was proof that I didn't truly love him that I would just give him the space he has demanded only the day beforehand. It was a maddening cycle but I fell for it. I got used to it. I stayed in it for some five years. It would be very easy to say "he was a bad guy" and leave at that but it isn't that simple. He sucked, for sure. And I don't have sympathy for him. But he had a mountain of issues that he wasn't getting help for and was burying beneath substances which just made more issues. He wasn't mentally well and well, he had ringworm and fleas at one point so something was off physically as well. He just didn't care for himself and was in no place to care for another. Long term relationships are tricky and two people who are going through mental and physical trauma are often not going to offer much refuge for one another.
In Paradise Kiss, we get a snapshot of a deceptive relationship in Arashi and Miwako. It actually begins in the epilogue of Neighborhood Story, where a love triangle between Arashi, Miwako and Hiro is set up. By the time we rejoin the characters in ParaKiss, the triangle is resolved and Arashi and Miwako are a long time couple. There are small hints of their dysfunction, made clearer in the manga than the anime. Arashi's possessive nature. Miwako's anxiety that makes her feel as if she's hopeless and her life is out of her control. It all clicks into place in a chapter cut from the anime, where Hiro and Arashi reunite and discuss how the love triangle dissolved: Arashi, jealous, demanded Miwako choose between him and Arashi. And he forced himself on her. This lead to their relationship becoming hyper sexualized from the get go, Miwako compartmentalizing her assault and giving her body to Arashi constantly because it's what she thought he wanted from her.
It casts a dark shadow over the couple and it's probably more than I can unpack in a newsletter. No one here needs to be told rape is wrong. My readers are emotionally intelligent people, kind people and I truly treasure you all. I love the fact that Ai Yazawa doesn't shy away from the darker aspects of relationships but I don't love that this was cut from the anime. It took me aback and made me reframe basically everything about what I'd watched. I understand why it was cut but I do find it funny that Takumi was arguably made more sexually untoward in the Nana anime, while Arashi was stripped of his less appealing flaws. Given that Miwako and Arashi do end up together and get their happy ending… I just don't know how to feel. Arashi feels immense guilt for his actions. Miwako loves him deeply. Hiro thinks he's a piece of shit and clearly thinks Miwako is Stockholm Syndromed. I… think Hiro is the smartest person in ParaKiss.
So where does that leave us? Reading Ai Yazawa's works is sort of like walking through a minefield. Each step you take could be another combustible relationship exploding into pieces beneath your feet. Well… Not entirely. Miwako notwithstanding, the Kouda family does eventually work it out, even if the road is rocky. Miwako and Mikako's parents, divorced when the Neighborhood Story manga begins, reconcile. And Mikako does the emotional work to deal with how her parent's divorce hurt her and she manages to work things out with Tsutomo. They marry and have a daughter and just might be Yazawa's one shining beacon of Functional Relationship light. Full disclosure: There are still a few mangas by Yazawa I haven't read but, well, I certainly don't think we're gonna get a functional relationship from her collab with Courtney Love via the manga-fied Kurt and Courtney.
Congratulations on making it to the end of another multi-week project! Thank you for indulging me! Next week? It's MIYAZAKI MAY! The themes just keep coming!!! You'll get a break in June. But first, let's kick off things with Naussica and the Valley of the Wind. Bug girls rejoice! It's roly poly time, babes!