Tokyo Tarareba Musume
東京タラレバ娘
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
Three women of thirty keep saying 'if only' — the era's sharpest comedy about the marriage clock.
Rinko Kamata is thirty, single and a television scriptwriter whose career is stalling. Most nights she drinks at Nonbee, the izakaya run by the father of her friend Koyuki, with Koyuki and their other friend from high school, Kaori, a nail artist. The three talk endlessly about what they would have if only things had gone differently, until a blond young model, KEY, tells them they are tarareba women, women who live on if-onlys. Rinko is taken off a drama she was writing and replaced by a younger writer, and one night KEY, after seeing her home drunk, sleeps with her.
Each strand runs through the series. Kaori slips back into a no-strings relationship with her former boyfriend Ryo, now a successful guitarist with a model girlfriend; a pregnancy scare ends in relief for him and hurt for her. Koyuki falls for Marui, a salaryman who tells her he is separated, learns that his wife is expecting their second child, and ends the affair. Rinko dates a kind, handsome bartender and gives up when nothing clicks. Hayasaka, a producer she turned down eight years earlier for being uncool, kisses her while they are making a promotional drama on the Izu peninsula, and they become a couple. KEY's sharpness turns out to hide grief. When his former high-school teacher fell ill and dreaded dying unmarried, he married her, and since her death he has wondered whether she ever loved him. When her father tells him to forget her and live his own life, Rinko holds him.
In the final episode Rinko and Hayasaka are choosing a flat to share. Rinko lets KEY stay the night and lies about it, then admits the truth, and when Hayasaka sees her talking with KEY in a park, he calls it off: he will not become a man who lives on if-onlys, and asks that they go back to being colleagues. Koyuki meets Marui with his child and thanks him. Ryo tells Kaori he has left his girlfriend and wants her properly; she says she will think about it. A month later, at a colleague's wedding, Rinko tells KEY she has split with Hayasaka and that she loves him. KEY says he might love her too and tells her to think about it. The three friends promise to watch the Tokyo Olympics together in three years' time, with or without men.
Starring
Yuriko Yoshitakaas Rinko Kamata
A thirty-year-old scriptwriter, single and stalled at work, who spends her nights with her friends imagining the lives she might have had.
Rinko Kamata’s story
Rinko is taken off the drama she is writing, and KEY, the model who dismissed her and her friends as tarareba women, sleeps with her the night he sees her home drunk. After she rewrites a promotional drama for a town on the Izu peninsula overnight, Hayasaka, the producer she turned down eight years earlier, kisses her, and they become a couple. When KEY's late wife's father tells him to forget her, Rinko finds him drunk and holds him. Flat-hunting with Hayasaka, she lets KEY stay the night and lies about it, then admits it; Hayasaka, seeing her with KEY in a park, calls it off. A month later, at a colleague's wedding, she tells KEY she has split with Hayasaka and loves him. He says he might love her too, and tells her to think about it.
Nana Eikuraas Kaori Yamakawa
Rinko's friend from high school, a nail artist who drifts back into an unequal relationship with her rock-star former boyfriend.
Kaori Yamakawa’s story
Kaori spends a night with Ryo, her former boyfriend, now a guitarist, and finds he lives with a model. She walks home holding his hand anyway, and keeps seeing him until the day he hurries her out because his girlfriend is coming home. She joins a marriage agency to stop being the second woman. A pregnancy scare follows. Ryo promises to take responsibility, and when she is not pregnant he is relieved, saying he is not ready to be a father. Outside Ryo's building, KEY tells her to go home and not look back, and she goes, in tears. A man from the agency turns her down for being too tall. Ryo comes to her salon, says he has left his girlfriend and wants her properly. She tells him he will never change, then says she will think about it.
Yuko Oshimaas Koyuki Torii
Rinko's friend from high school, who runs her father's izakaya with him and falls into an affair with a married man.
Koyuki Torii’s story
Marui picks up the potatoes Koyuki spills in the street and soon asks if he may fall for her. He is married, he says, but separated, and will not lie to her. She gives him Valentine's chocolates and wins a hot-spring trip, which he cancels; then she learns his wife is pregnant and has only gone home to her parents. She cannot give him up; her father finds out. Invited to his home for a first and last time, she stays the night; in the morning his wife needs an emergency caesarean and Koyuki is left alone in the flat. She tells her friends she would like to be a hermit, done with longing, jealousy and loneliness, and they part over coffee as he describes his second child's birth. Later she meets him with his child and thanks him.
Kentaro Sakaguchias Haruki Kagitani (KEY)
A young model with a sharp tongue who mocks the three friends and hides his grief for his late wife.
Ryohei Suzukias Tetsuro Hayasaka
A decent, earnest television producer whom Rinko turned down years ago, and who becomes her boyfriend.
Yuta Hiraokaas Ryo Samejima
Kaori's former boyfriend, a guitarist in a popular band, who keeps her close while seeing someone else.
Why it matters
Tokyo Tarareba Musume is a comedy about the arithmetic imposed on women's lives: the age by which one is supposed to be married, the men one should have said yes to, the Olympics one does not want to watch alone. Akiko Higashimura based the manga on single friends who said exactly that after Tokyo won the 2020 Games, and the drama made its heroines thirty rather than thirty-three, as if the clock started earlier on television. Its sting is that the harshest voice is a man of twenty-five telling three women of thirty to stop talking and act, and the series half agrees with him. Its better instinct is the friendship. Whatever the men do, the three keep meeting at the same bar, and the last promise is not a wedding but a date among themselves. The question it leaves is how much of if-only is regret, and how much is a life measured against the wrong timetable.