Koikimo: The more "problematic" Higehiro?

 

I get it. Age gap romances can be a little weird huh? You have an older male who is supposedly trying to manipulate a naive young girl to fall into a unhealthy relationship with you; In fact, it is problematic IRL and will probably create some raised eyebrows at least and raise the red flags of the cops at worse. That is why it is even more amusing to me to see this very concept displayed in its black-and-white with this season, with not only Koikimo airing beside Higehiro, but literally on the same day. 

Both series have a working adult man becoming closer to a high school girl. Both series have romantic undertones guiding their relationship. And both series hints or highlights the problematic sexual nature of such a relationship. However, the discussion for both series is, but polarizing. In fact, Higehiro is praised to be the better and less creepy Koikimo. As while Koikimo is played as a straight romance, with hints of the girl slowly falling for the advances of our male lead, Higehiro has the male lead straight up rejecting the sexual advances of the girl.

This inevitably pits Koikimo to be the self-deluding fantasy of pursuing the forbidden fruit, while Higehiro is the messiah, saving us from the sinful desires of man. But is that really the case? Because having watched both the shows, I'll almost say that Koikimo is as good of a show, if not even better than Higehiro in some aspects.

I like Higehiro. I like that it seems to be creating commentary for this issue of age gap romances. I like how serious it treats said issue, showing us the amount of respect that Yoshida has towards Sayu. But what if I told you that Koikimo is the same. It, too, has the same respect towards this relationship as both Yoshida and Sayu. And even better, I think it can even be summed up into one particular episode. In episode 3, a chink between our main couple is introduced.

Before Ryo met Ichika, he was a known womanizer. His blonde locks, cool suits and dashing looks is known to attract the gazes of all his female co-workers, and our first introduction to him is even him having a one-night stand with a pretty lady, to which we will come to know is one of many. After meeting Ichika, however, he begun to pursue their relationship more seriously. Ichika, was his first real crush, as he described. But one flaw of his is that even if he treats Ichika with respect, his romantic pursuits are still trapped in his childish views of romance. Having women flock to him all his life has warped his sense of identity to one of the dashing prince charming. And thus to pursue Ichika, he only knows how to act out said role of the prince. His advances come off strongly and as others have discussed online, stalkerish and disgusting. His smiles and praises even comes off as disingenuous as Ichika has told off Ryo in the scene above. Added on, Ichika even thinks to herself: 'why would he be so invested on just a plain high schooler like me'. "He is just messing with her", is how it comes off as, not only to the sceptical viewers, but Ichika herself as well. This scene, therein, is the show recognising the problematic nature of Ryo as our protaganist and his advances on our high school heroine. 

Unlike Higehiro's Yoshida (who comes off as infinitely kind and understanding), Ryo is flawed and suffers a chink their relationship for that. A truly problematic show would have none of these concerns highlighted and simply have the heroine fall in love, it being filed off as another case of stockholm syndrome, but this show is more than what its synopsis allows it to be. The resolution comes later on when Ryo visits Ichika when she was having a cold.

Ichika apologises for her insensitivity and Ryo appreciates her apology. Both parties are shown to have genuine feelings for each other, with Ichika understand Ryo's sincerity and us audience truly seeing it for ourselves with Ryo thanking Ichika for apologising. It should be noted that as often as Higehiro is praised for handling the adult maturity of Yoshida well, Ryo here shows her own maturity fitting for his age; He didn't let a small comment by Ichika influence his feelings, he reassures Ichika by stating that he didn't take her comment by heart and lastly he didn't play reject or play up her apology and simply accepted it with a smile.

His entire persona gets framed in a new light as well. He is thus no longer a prince charming cupboard cut out but someone who actively chooses to play this exaggerated persona only during his pursuits. And even if some still find such aggressive advances creepy, we now at least understand that some of our previous misconceptions of Ryo is wrong. He isn't just messing with her, he genuinely cares for her. And thus this is what my writer soul calls, good character writing.

Now, I won't say that this is something special. In fact, many Josei mangas have this very same kind of characterization and relationship dynamics going on with most of their couples. However, I think one of the most egregious things a viewer can do to a show is to underestimate it. By simply saying that it is just the creepier version of Higehiro, one can blindside themselves, or even the others, to what can be genuine moments like this.

In fact, I have realised the one thing Koikimo does better than Higehiro is actually in subtlety. Higehiro bases everything in their show, the characters, the dialogue, the conflicts around the commentary. Sayu and Yoshida's relationship is framed first and foremost as a statement of "respect high-school girls, don't lewd them", and every episode hammers us on this point. This is not to say that it is bad per se, but it often lends for somewhat forceful dialogue like this.

A heart-felt exchange for sure, but every episode of Higehiro is adamant about having Yoshida and Sayu explain their feelings, talk about how wrong their relationship is and redefine it. Are human beings in real life always so caught up in their own problems and are so capable of expositioning their feelings to others? Because the last I check, we fumble through our opinions and emotions more often than not, and we hide our feelings and misunderstand each other more often than not. Now this is not to say that Higehiro is bad, in fact I almost cried at the end of episode 3 due to how sweet Yoshida's confession is. It is legitimately a good show, but solely for its commentary. Commentaries are impactful but peel back a layer and you can see what I call "the hand of god", whereby every story beat and character is meant to serve the message planned by the author. 

Sounds vague and overly arrogant I know, but what Koikimo does better is by simply doing one thing, which is priortising the characters before its commentary. Try this thought experiment, take away the fact that Ryo is a working adult and just allow him to be a womanizer who is in high school as well; What you realise is that that changes essentially nothing about the story as the story isn't about the "age gap" of the age-gap romance but on the "romance" itself. It is just that sometimes, problems addressing the age gap would come in to throw a wrench into things, but it simply serves as another little tool to allow for the characters to grow closer to one another -- The message serves the characters.

However, try the same thought experiment on Higehiro and you realise that it won't work. After all, you are removing 90% of where its conflict and tension comes from. If Sayu isn't a high school girl, there is no Higehiro -- The characters serve the message. 

Often times, shows that have the message serving the characters would have more naturally sounding dialogue as the author isn't in a rush to get to his next big point. The characters have more room to breath and experience different interesting situations and events in their life that can even be unrelated to any kind of conflict; More slice-of-life-y. Shows that have their characters serving the message is more eager to get to the next big point, making it a more exciting show and more meaty in terms of theme and overall meaning. However if not handled well, their characters can seen to be forced or have unnatural dialogue just so as to explain the point.

I am not comparing the both of them like this to say one is better than the other; In fact, both types of shows have their own intended audiences and its own feelings and emotions it wants to capture. I like both of them, each for their different reasons and that is my point. Koikimo is not the more problematic show of Higehiro. Don't just compare a show based on something that may not even be its point. I make this mistake sometimes as well, comparing a show on the wrong metrics. I underestimate the show and blindside myself. 

Don't make this mistake for Koikimo, as what you will miss is a genuinely comfy and well-thought out romance of this season.