S&X
SとX
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A sex therapist's clinic receives the troubles no one can say aloud — sexlessness, ED, addiction, trauma — while he hides his own.
Ichito Shimotori is a psychiatrist who runs a small clinic as a sex therapist, a job that draws sniggers from colleagues and strangers. He listens to every patient without judgement. He also hates sex; it is, he tells his own therapist, Shion Kase, the reason he chose the work. Then he runs into Yumi Ichinose, a classmate from junior high whom he once promised to meet at a lantern festival and never did. She is now a television newscaster, tired of an image of innocence that decides which stories she may cover.
Each episode brings a case. A wife whose compulsive sex with strangers gives her no pleasure turns out to have given up ballet as a child after injuring her hand, and her marriage mends when her husband tells her he loves her hands. A high-school girl who retreated into love for an anime character after a friend pushed her down is nearly assaulted on a date, and the friend, having learned what consent means, apologises. A company president hooked on virtual sex finally talks to his wife inside the headset. A man arrested for secretly filming women is shown the victims Yumi has interviewed, and sees them as people.
Yumi tells Ichito she loves him, but when they try to make love a flashback makes him push her away. He explains what he can, and she agrees to be with him knowing they may not have sex. A weekly magazine exposes them, crowds besiege the clinic, and a reporter posing as a patient digs up Ichito's past. Before the story runs, Ichito breaks up with Yumi to protect her. She goes to Shion, who has been counselling them both, and decides to face him.
The truth comes out. On the night of the festival, Ichito's father, a surgeon, took the boy to the house where his mother was with another man and violently attacked the man while his son watched. With Yumi, Ichito visits his mother, who lies in a persistent vegetative state, and meets Professor Toyohara, the senior doctor who has disapproved of him all along. Toyohara tells him that his father controlled every detail of her life, down to her clothes and her looks, and that the affair grew out of that pressure. Ichito sees that the problem was never his mother's sexuality but his father's need to own her. Yumi invites him onto her programme, and on air he tells his story, says that sex must never be used to hurt anyone, and that no one should suffer these questions alone. At the lantern festival he once missed, he tells Yumi that the clock that stopped seventeen years ago has started again, and they kiss.
Starring
Kento Nakajimaas Ichito Shimotori
A psychiatrist and sex therapist who meets every patient without judgement, and who chose the work because he hates sex.
Ichito Shimotori’s story
When Ichito runs into Yumi, the classmate he failed to meet at a lantern festival, he keeps her at arm's length. Treating a schoolgirl devoted to an anime character, he comes to think people can be close without sex, and he lets Yumi in, but when they try to make love a flashback makes him push her away. They become a couple on those terms. When a magazine digs into his past, he leaves her to protect her. That past is the festival night, when his father found his mother with another man and attacked the man in front of him. At his mother's bedside Toyohara tells him how his father controlled her, and Ichito tells his story on Yumi's programme. At the festival he once missed, he says his stopped clock has started again, and they kiss.
Yuko Arakias Yumi Ichinose
Ichito's junior-high classmate, now a television newscaster, boxed in by an image of innocence and in love with him.
Yumi Ichinose’s story
Meeting Ichito again, the boy who never came to the lantern festival, Yumi turns up at his door when he stops answering, kisses him and tells him she loves him. When he pushes her away as they begin to make love, she takes the hurt to her counsellor, Shion, not knowing Shion counsels him too. She takes on a feature about victims of secret filming, and agrees to be with Ichito knowing they may never have sex. Then a magazine exposes them, she faces questions on live television, and Ichito leaves her to protect her. After a session with Shion she decides to face him, goes with him to his mother and invites him onto her programme. At the lantern festival they kiss.
Sayaka Yamaguchias Shion Kase
A gynaecologist who counsels Ichito and, without his knowing, Yumi as well.
Shiro Sanoas Norio Toyohara
Head of the medical faculty, an eminent surgeon who disapproves of Ichito's work and knows the truth about his family.
Ryota Miuraas Yuta Saigawa
The clinic's nurse, who struggles to understand the patients and keeps his workplace secret from his partner.
Sawako Fujimaas Marin Natsume
The clinic's outspoken administrator, who keeps everyone's spirits up and has a girlfriend of her own.
Why it matters
S&X puts sex therapy at the centre of a mainstream drama and treats it as medicine: listening, diagnosis, the slow work of talk. Its cases run from compulsion and virtual sex to voyeurism, and it is clear about harm. The man who films women in secret has to see them as people, and a boy learns the word consent. Its hero is a therapist who cannot bear the act he treats, and the series places the cause precisely: not in desire, but in a father who treated his wife as a possession and answered her affair with violence. That distinction between sexuality and control is the one the whole series is built to make. It closes with its hero telling a television audience that no one should suffer these questions alone, and with a couple starting again on terms they have finally talked through.