Cherry Magic – Movie Review & Ending Explained

MAJOR SPOILERS: The first time I saw this movie, I was confused by the beginning and annoyed by the ending. I loved the TV series and thought the movie cheated by ignoring the way the series wrapped up. Wasn't Adachi supposed to have had sex with Kurosawa on Christmas Eve and thus lost his “magic” as the legend had it? Now, we're back in Kurosawa's apartment, Adachi is all jittery so they DON'T have sex, and Adachi keeps his magic? Huh? And then the dreamy “wedding” at the end with friends, families, and colleagues cheering them on? So unrealistic.

But your explanation of the ending cleared it up for me. That wedding was indeed a dream. In the real world, Kurodachi are going to have to make their way through life without much in the way of support or recognition – what that final walk symbolized. (This really resonated for me since I am married to a Japanese but our marriage is not recognized in Japan since we're both men; we got married in the States.This has caused headache and heartache for us.) Not only was the wedding a dream; so was everything that happened in the last scene of the series (admittedly, signaled in the movie by the “rewind” of those last few minutes of the series but I had sort of missed that.)

After reading your review, we watched the film again (we have the DVD) and I liked it much better the second time around – perhaps more than you did. I would have given it an A-) The whole conceit of Adachi's “magic” had worked well as a metaphorical plot device in the series by allowing the story to explore what happens to someone who is, objectively speaking, about as lovable as it is possible to get (sensitive, serious, kind, responsible – not to mention drop-dead gorgeous) but has NO idea that he IS lovable until some accident allows him to see himself through the eyes of others. But the “magic” also works in the movie as a way of showing why physical intimacy is a necessary precondition to total trust and all other forms of complete intimacy – because you can't hide your real feelings during sex. It is the absence of physical intimacy that permits the dishonesty that Adachi and Kurosawa display about the former's transfer to Nagasaki; the sex they do finally have – must have, really – is what breaks down the dishonest shells each has built around his feelings for the other. The film handled this very well. No, the sex was not depicted – and, as you noted, even the kiss that preceded it was mostly obscured – but the afterglow and the concomitant beginning of complete honesty between the two was very well done (Akaso Eiji is such a superb actor – he perfectly captures in the “morning after” scene in bed, the fatigue-cum-bliss that comes from finally surrendering to the full force of love; a much more nuanced and honest treatment than in episode 12 of the series which we now understand was just a dream.)

I was much less bothered than you were by the way the kiss was handled. Both the series and the movie treat kissing and sex the way Jane Austen does – you know it happens, or will happen, and is the ultimate motive power for everything ELSE that happens, but it all takes place beyond the purview of the viewer (or reader). I find it unlikely, as another of your respondents suggests, that Machida Keita (Kurosawa's actor) refused to kiss another man – and that's not just because it is beyond my power to conceive how anyone with a pulse would pass up the opportunity to exchange two minutes of passionate kisses with Akaso Eiji. The whole film (and series) deals with such matters obliquely; it is enough for the purposes of the movie for me to know the kiss took place, much as I might have gotten off on reveling in every last drooling detail.

I also took a bit of umbrage at your characterization of Kurosawa's mom as a “bigot” and a “homophobe.” She grew up in a world in which passionate friendships among men (or, for that matter, among women) were honored and celebrated (to a degree unmatched in the West at least since the end of the Victorian era) but not in ways that precluded or substituted for heterosexual marriage, which was as much a filial duty as it was a means of personal fulfillment.

A subtle but real clue to this underlying shift in social mores lies in the different circumstances, respectively, of Adachi's and Kurosawa's families and thus in the different ways their parents – particularly their mothers – react to being confronted by the reality of the determination by the two to spend their lives together. (Both mothers, incidentally, are played by well-known actresses – better known than either of the stars were before the series became a runaway hit. That the producers could persuade the two women to take these parts is prima facie evidence of what a hit the series was. I was living in Japan when Sakakibara Ikue, who plays Adachi's mom, burst onto the scene with her 1978 mega-hit, Natsu no Ojoosan
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F15OxXO8Zao )

Adachi's only sibling is shown as happily married with a little daughter – and living with Adachi's parents. Meanwhile, Kurosawa tells us HIS only sibling (an older sister who would thus be at least 32 years old ) has gone “abroad” with her “boyfriend.” So Adachi's parents know that one of their children has made a traditional marriage (and a happy one – at least that's what we're shown) and has given them a grandchild. That makes it a lot easier to accept that their other child will not. Not so Kurosawa's parents who are suddenly confronted with the reality that the chances are neither one of their children will have a traditional marriage and that they will probably have no grandchildren. ( This kind of situation is not, of course, unique to Japan – it's a hell of lot easier for the parents of gay kids anywhere to accept their kids for what they are and whom they love if another of their kids is straight, happily married, and with children of his or her own.)

More broadly, Kurosawa's mom's internal conflict hints at a wider problem: the rapid decline in the number of marriages in Japan, the growing numbers of young people who claim no interest in sex or any kind of deep relationship (Adachi starts out this way and Fujisaki re-iterates it in the movie) and the concomitant collapse of the Japanese birth rate. This explains some of the opposition to SSM – it's not just “homophobia” but real fear for the future of the country as young people refuse to marry and have children. Marriage is not just a means of providing for individual stability and happiness but also a social institution essential to securing the future (in crass economic terms, who is going to support Japan's aging population as they retire?). Of course opposition to SSM does nothing to boost Japan's birth rate – it's not as if either Adachi or Kurosawa are going to rush out, take brides, and start having kids if they're not allowed legally to marry each other. In fact, one could argue that the whole BL genre is helping to resurrect the honoring of commitment and intimacy necessary to halt the alarming decline of marriage in Japan, since the genre so openly celebrates “old-fashioned” notions of courtship and love (with Cherry Magic an outstanding example). But the unease and opposition Kurodachi have to deal with is not just a matter of bigotry – there are wider issues at stake.

As there are in the one large matter that the film leaves unresolved: the future careers of the two principals. Adachi wants to make himself invaluable to the company so they won't dump him when his colleagues and superiors find out about his relationship with Kurosawa. But if he were a woman, he would face exactly the same challenge – iow, again, we're not just dealing with homophobic bigotry here.

(Kudos to both series and film for honoring the original premise of the BL genre from its origins in the shojo manga – girls' comics – of the 1970s: a world in which the homosexual identity does not exist. Rather, people fall in love with other people and sometimes those other people are of the same sex. Kurosawa does not “come out” to his parents as a gay man, he “comes out” as loving Adachi and wanting to spend his life with him. This was in fact the situation in Japan before the introduction of Western notions of sexual identity in the Meiji period; no one thought to label people on the basis of what kinds of other people attracted them; THE book on the subject in English is Gregory Pflugfelder's Cartographies of Desire: Male-Male Sexuality in Japanese Discourse, 1600-1950. The BL genre posits a world in which the older understanding of human sexuality had persisted, at least in Japan; the Thais seem to be moving in the BL films I've watched towards dealing with one's sexuality rather than dealing with loving this particular person, which raises the question of just how the BL genre is supposed to differ from standard LGBT fare. Indeed as you know, BL was attacked in the 1990s by some Japanese gay activists for misrepresenting gay life in Japan. But then that's not what BL set out to do. Its purpose, rather, was to explore possible alternative modes of conceptualizing sexual attraction and love.)

Secret romantic relationships between colleagues in any kind of organization are “problematic” as they say, and that's true irrespective of the sex of the people in those relationships. In the traditional Japanese company or bureaucracy, relationships between men and women often happened and were even encouraged if they led to marriage – because the woman would have an understanding of the demands the organization would be making on her future husband. But the women in question were not management track hires; they were hired as clerical help and were expected to leave the organization when they became pregnant with their first child.

But now that women are increasingly being treated as full equals of their male colleagues with comparable responsibilities and expectations (e.g., Fujisaki), the old mores no longer work so well – another explanation for the collapsing marriage and birth rates; the “company” was the traditional marriage hunting ground for both men and women. You can't have a situation where two people in love with each other – openly married or not – can work closely with colleagues and superiors. So, again, CM is raising an issue that applies far beyond the challenges unique to gay people. Either Kurosawa or Adachi will probably have to leave the company – which one of them does so and where they go and how they deal with inevitable career/personal life conflicts would be true, as noted, even if one were a woman like Fujisaki. I would really like to see a sequel that explores this issue – just what are Kurodachi going to do when someone at work other than Fujisaki figures out that they are now a couple? — and for that reason I'm glad the movie left the question unresolved.

The film did touch on the issue with Adachi's temporary transfer to Nagasaki, although I thought that was a bit overdone. It would be one thing if it were an open-ended transfer, particularly if it were abroad. But for eight months? In a place that's a 90 minute flight away? Come on. (The film does show Adachi booking a flight back to Tokyo, presumably to spend time with Kurosawa, just before his “accident.”) But at least the film raised the issue (you'll recall how TOTS and Bad Buddy dealt with it.)

One more minor quibble – when they decide to live together, why do they move into Adachi's apartment rather than Kurosawa's? The latter is larger, nicer, and as we learned in the very first episode of the series, much closer to the office. I read somewhere that the TV production team had to rent the set for Kurosawa's apartment – why episodes 2 and 11 where filmed on the same day – while the set for Adachi's was available whenever the producers needed it. Still, writers ought to have figured out a way around this plot hole.

Overall, though, while I agree that the film lacked the “zany humor” as you put it of the series, I respect and admire the way the film deepened the story and touched on real and serious issues. And again, the acting and the production values were first rate.

(I continue to enjoy your site and am so grateful for all the work you put into it. I really hope you keep it up.)

Great review as usual, by I want to point something out. The proposal happened. The marriage may or may not be a figment of Adachi\'s imagination. At the beginning of the movie, you can see the wedding ring on Adachi's left hand when he went to grab the books. It still is there by the ending scene.

As for the "or so I thought". I think what he meant here was that he thought he was going to be an ordinary 30yo man due to the spell being broken but in the end, he wasn't an ordinary man because he got his happy ending with Kurosawa. This was also implied in the series as him losing his magic would turn him back to the ordinary man that he was (his life before having a relationship with Kurosawa) but we know what happened in the movie.

😊 I agree with everything else though. Great read!