Last Friends
ラスト・フレンズ
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
Domestic violence, gender dysphoria and a chosen family in a share house — a landmark of 2000s Japanese TV.
Michiru Aida, twenty-two, is an assistant at a Tokyo hair salon, bullied by a senior colleague and neglected by her mother, who brings men home. Her boyfriend, Sosuke Oikawa, a kind-seeming child-welfare officer at the ward office, asks her to move in with him. The same week she runs into Ruka Kishimoto, her best friend from school, now a motocross racer aiming for the national championship, who lives in a share house with Eri, a flight attendant, and soon with Takeru, a gentle hair and make-up artist.
Living with Sosuke, Michiru is watched, controlled and beaten. Ruka and Takeru take her into the share house; Sosuke talks her back, the violence gets worse, and Takeru rescues her again. The housemates carry secrets of their own. Ruka lives with what the series, in the language of its time, calls gender identity disorder, has told no one, and is in love with Michiru. Takeru, sexually abused as a boy by his stepsister, cannot bear a woman's touch, and falls in love with Ruka. Eri, who does not believe love lasts, is sleeping with a married colleague, Tomohiko, who moves into the house when his marriage falls apart. Michiru comes to lean on Takeru. To be rid of Sosuke she tells him she loves someone else, and Sosuke attacks Takeru, who loses an important job. Takeru tells Ruka he is in love; Ruka cannot answer, and a weekly magazine exposes Ruka's secret.
When Michiru learns how Ruka feels, she retreats to her mother's flat. Sosuke lures her back with a promise to let her go, and rapes her. To protect her friends she tells him she will return if he leaves them alone; instead, Sosuke takes his own life. Michiru goes to Choshi, the port town where she once lived, meaning to end her own life too, but a friend of her mother's finds her and gives her work at an inn. There she learns she is pregnant with Sosuke's child. Warned that her blood pressure puts her and the baby at risk, she decides to have it anyway, because its father mattered to her.
Ruka wins the championship. Takeru persuades Ruka to go and find Michiru, and they are with her when, after a hard labour, she gives birth to a daughter, Rumi, named from Ruka's, Takeru's and her own names. Eri marries Tomohiko after his divorce, and Michiru goes back to the share house with Ruka and Takeru to raise the child together, as a family of their own making.
Starring
Masami Nagasawaas Michiru Aida
A trusting, easily swayed hair-salon assistant with nowhere she belongs, whose boyfriend controls and beats her.
Michiru Aida’s story
When Sosuke asks Michiru to move in, she goes. After one beating too many she flees to the share house; Sosuke talks her back, the violence worsens, and Takeru brings her out again. To break free, she tells Sosuke she loves someone else; Sosuke attacks Takeru, who loses his job. Unsettled by Ruka's love, she goes home to her mother. Sosuke lures her back promising to let her go, and rapes her. To protect her friends she says she will return if he leaves them alone; instead he takes his own life. In Choshi, meaning to end her own life, she is taken in by her mother's friend and finds she is pregnant. Warned of the risk, she has the baby, names her Rumi and returns to the share house with Ruka and Takeru.
Juri Uenoas Ruka Kishimoto
Michiru's best friend from school, a gifted motocross racer who hides a struggle with gender identity and loves Michiru.
Ruka Kishimoto’s story
Ruka races motocross, wants to be judged as a rider rather than by looks or sex, and has told no one of what the series, in the language of its time, calls gender identity disorder. Ruka shelters Michiru in the share house when Sosuke beats her, and sees her go back to him. Before Ruka can confide in Takeru, he declares his love; afraid of disappointing him, Ruka hides the truth, then decides to leave the house and writes it all to him in a letter. Takeru understands and brings Ruka back. A weekly magazine exposes the secret. Ruka wins the national championship, then goes with Takeru to Choshi to find Michiru, is there when her daughter is born, and returns with them to the share house to raise the child together.
Eitaas Takeru Mizushima
A gentle hair and make-up artist, abused as a child, who cannot bear to be touched and falls in love with Ruka.
Takeru Mizushima’s story
Takeru does hair and make-up by day and tends bar at night, and always puts himself last. He moves into the share house partly to escape his stepsister, Yuko, ten years older, who keeps sending presents and calling; as a boy he was sexually abused by her. He helps get Michiru away from Sosuke, twice, and Sosuke's attack costs him an important job. He falls in love with Ruka knowing that Ruka loves Michiru, says so anyway and is turned down, and when Ruka decides to leave the house, he reads the letter explaining why and talks Ruka into staying. In the last episode, for Ruka's sake, he sets off to find Michiru, and in Choshi he resolves to stand by Ruka to the end. He goes home to the share house with Michiru, Ruka and the baby.
Ryo Nishikidoas Sosuke Oikawa
Michiru's boyfriend, a child-welfare officer abandoned by his own mother, who controls, stalks and beats the woman he loves.
Asami Mizukawaas Eri Takigawa
A breezy flight attendant in the share house who does not believe love lasts and is seeing a married colleague.
Shigenori Yamazakias Tomohiko Ogura
Eri's married senior colleague, easily led and indecisive, who moves into the share house when his marriage falters.
Why it matters
Last Friends took on, in a prime-time slot, problems that were only then coming into view in Japan: domestic violence, gender identity, a fear of intimacy rooted in childhood sexual abuse. Its most lasting portrait is Sosuke, admired at work and gentle in public, who watches, isolates and beats the woman he says he loves, and turns her love for her friends into a lever against her. The series is just as clear about how she keeps going back, and why. It won six prizes at the Television Drama Academy Awards, among them best drama. Its ending is its hardest question: the child of the man who beat and raped her, raised by people who have each been badly hurt, as a family they chose for themselves. The series offers that ending as hope, and leaves open whether hope is enough.