Until I'm 30
30までにとうるさくて
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
Women approaching 30 field the question 'by 30, right?' from every direction — a comedy of pressure.
Four friends in Tokyo are twenty-nine, and everyone around them is counting. They meet at Mimosa, a café-bar in Shibuya where Michiru, married three times, works behind the counter. Haruka Miyama sells advertising at a big agency, has a strong appetite for sex, and has not slept with Kanata, her boyfriend of five years, for eighteen months. Kyoko Miura runs her own PR firm and has never cared about romance, but begins to want a child. Kanon Fujisawa, a company president's secretary, joins a marriage agency looking for a man who earns twenty million yen a year, and runs short of money. Uta Sakura, a freelance creator, lives with her girlfriend, Makoto, an aspiring model who tells her manager Uta is a friend.
Kanata finally proposes, but Haruka has been sleeping with a colleague, Tomoya. When it comes out she is moved to another department; when Kanata learns why, he breaks off the engagement, and Haruka, diagnosed with an adjustment disorder, goes on leave. Kanata comes back and proposes again. Trying on wedding dresses, she breaks down: she has always done what others expected and never asked what she wanted. She calls off the marriage and goes to Denmark to study psychology, and comes home set on becoming a sex therapist.
Kyoko, diagnosed with adenomyosis, decides to become a single mother by choice. Her first sperm donor turns out to have lied about himself; she is not pregnant, and she resolves to build a business that helps women find donors safely. Then Muroi, the gay estate agent who found Uta and Makoto a flat, offers to be the donor, and she conceives. Kanon meets Takamura, the head of a listed company, at the racecourse; he offers her a job rather than a date, and he is raising a daughter in her last year of middle school. When he is ousted she stays on as the new president's secretary, then goes to him anyway: it is quicker, she decides, to raise a high earner than to catch one, and she means to marry him. Uta and Makoto split up under the weight of appearances. Uta turns a wedding event she is working on with Kyoko into a celebration of wedding clothes for everyone; her friends invite Makoto, and the two come back together and register a same-sex partnership. At the end the four gather at Michiru's party. It is a divorce ceremony, for her third marriage.
Starring
Honami Satoas Haruka Miyama
An advertising saleswoman with a strong sex drive, eighteen months into a sexless relationship with her boyfriend of five years.
Haruka Miyama’s story
Haruka has slept with a colleague, Tomoya, when Kanata finally proposes, and she says yes. The affair comes out: she is moved to another department, Kanata breaks off the engagement, and a doctor diagnoses an adjustment disorder. On leave she meets a young trumpeter who asks why she minds her age so much. When Kanata comes back and proposes again, she breaks down at the dress fitting: she has always done what others expected and never faced what she wants. She calls the wedding off, goes to Denmark to study psychology, and comes home set on becoming a sex therapist. At Michiru's divorce party she wonders aloud what the four of them were so worried about.
Hirona Yamazakias Kyoko Miura
The driven head of a PR firm, uninterested in romance, who decides to have a child on her own.
Kyoko Miura’s story
A diagnosis of adenomyosis settles what Kyoko has begun to want: a child, without a husband. The first sperm donor she trusts turns out to have lied about himself; she is not pregnant, and her friends quietly take revenge on him for her. Instead of giving up, she resolves to start a business that helps women find donors safely. She tells her sister, who answers that she is not alone. Then Muroi, the gay estate agent who found Uta and Makoto their flat, offers to be the donor, because he knows the pain of not being able to have children, and she conceives. At the end she is at Michiru's party with her three friends, ready to be a mother on her own.
Rei Satoas Kanon Fujisawa
A company president's secretary hunting for a husband who earns twenty million yen a year.
Kanon Fujisawa’s story
Kanon is draining her savings at a marriage agency in search of a man who earns twenty million yen a year. At the racecourse she meets Takamura, the head of a listed company, and when he invites her to dinner it is to offer her a job. She takes it. Learning that he has a daughter in her last year of middle school, she backs away from the thought of mothering a teenager, then warms to Airi over her exam worries. When Takamura is ousted and asks her to follow him, she tearfully stays on as secretary to the new president, who is interested in her too. She cannot forget Takamura. It is quicker, she decides, to raise a high earner than to catch one, and she goes to him, meaning to marry him.
Natsumi Ishibashias Uta Sakura
A freelance creator and lesbian, living with a girlfriend who calls her a friend in public.
Uta Sakura’s story
When appearances push Uta and her girlfriend, Makoto, apart, Uta accepts the break-up to Makoto's face. Asking why it is always her, and wanting to be happy, she turns a wedding event she is working on with Kyoko into a celebration of wedding clothes for everyone. Her friends quietly invite Makoto, and the two come back together at once. Flat-hunting, they are taken for flatmates and turned away, until Muroi, an estate agent with a same-sex partner of his own, finds them a home. They register a same-sex partnership, putting on paper what they are to each other, and at the end Uta is at Michiru's party with her three friends.
Akiko Kikuchias Michiru
The woman behind the counter at Mimosa, married three times and divorced twice, who has seen it all.
Arata Horiias Kanata Nagashima
Haruka's boyfriend of five years, who proposes after eighteen sexless months.
Why it matters
Until I'm 30 is about a deadline that does not exist. Its four women are twenty-nine and hear the same count from every side: marry by thirty, have children by thirty-five. The producer, Ryota Fujino, who had made the teen series 17.3 about a sex, said he conceived it after talking with women in their twenties: if Japan had no drama that spoke to them, he would make one. It is frank about things such dramas usually leave out: sexlessness and a woman's own desire, adenomyosis, single motherhood by choice and the risks of finding a sperm donor, a lesbian couple who break up under the weight of appearances and come back to register a partnership. Its answer to the deadline is not one life plan but four. The question it leaves is whose clock these women were ever running to.