Episode Three Transcript - The Butterflies On The Concrete Podcast: What Got Me Through The Week?

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Hello and welcome to The Butterflies On The Concrete Podcast: What Got Me Through The Week? This work week was a little stressful for me, but luckily I stumbled upon a  Japanese drama that helped me to relax and unwind and I’d like to recommend it. It’s called Why I Dress Up For Love and I found it on the Rakuten Viki app.

The drama stars Haruna Kawaguchi, who plays the female lead , Kurumi Mashiba, who is a publicist for an interior design company, as well as Ryusei Yokohama, who plays the male lead, Shun Fujino, who is a talented chef that owns and operates a local food truck. This show is my introduction to these actors, and I want to watch other dramas they’re in now because I was not disappointed at all. The leads had great chemistry and the story surprised me, but in a good way. Why I Dress Up For Love is relatively short, only ten episodes, but it works because the story quickly pulls the viewer in.

Kurumi has had a one-sided crush on her company’s president for several years. She posts on social media religiously throughout the day, setting alarm reminders during optimal times, both for work and for her personal Instagram. She does this so that she can build up her social media presence and reach her goal of a hundred thousand followers on her personal account. She figures that more followers will bring more exposure for the company, which in turn will allow her to help the person that she likes succeed. She intends to tell the company president how she feels once the store has launched successfully, because he asks her to see the cherry blossoms with him on that day.

The company has mostly operated online, but the story begins with the employees preparing for the opening of their first brick and mortar store. Kurumi is busy and because of that she forgets to renew her lease. Luckily, she has a friend – a homeowner, who is successful in the culinary world but wants a fresh start after divorcing her husband and is planning on studying abroad – and that friend offers her a place to stay. It’s a bit misleading though because Kurumi doesn’t know that her friend’s house is a share house until she moves in with her belongings.  She actually ends up moving into a “room” that’s basically the size of a walk-in closet. Her life gets even more complicated when she finds out, on the day of the store launch, that the company president – the person who is the ultimate motivation behind her work – has abruptly resigned. With so many drastic changes, she suddenly feels lost. How will she navigate life now that her expectations of what it would be like have unexpectedly changed?

Why I Dress Up For Love is a love story, clearly, but it’s not the kind of love story that I thought it would be, which made it quite refreshing to watch.

I’d like to talk about some of the parts of the show that excited me and resonated with me the most, but there might be some spoilers ahead so please keep that in mind!

I hadn’t read the synopsis before watching this show and so I didn’t know the president that she liked resigned. When he did, part of me assumed he’d come back and they’d get together by the end. The person she ends up with though is one of her housemates that she bonds with after she’s left feeling lost. To me that was unexpected, and honestly as a viewer I would’ve been fine whether she ended up alone, with the former company president or her housemate, Shun. There were many times throughout where I wasn’t sure how it would end.

Something that resonated with me immediately and kept me watching was that Kurumi had been working for years towards a goal for a particular person and then that person abruptly left. She’s naturally upset and confused by this and doesn’t know what her next steps should be.  At work, they initially tell her to stop posting on social media until a new president is chosen. And then once news of the president’s resignation is released prematurely, when she’s in the rush of handling social media in the aftermath, the new president tells her she can retire her personal account whenever she’d like now that her old boss is gone. So the question becomes, what does she want? To keep posting or stop? The person she posted on her personal Instagram for has already vanished, so is it worth it to continue?

After I lost a loved one, I experienced the same sort of situation. I’d been writing for most of my life and then suddenly it didn’t seem to matter to me anymore. Who exactly was I writing for? I realized then that over the years a large part of me had been writing for that person. Not so that I could be acknowledged by them, because they had already acknowledged who I was and believed in who I could be, but I wrote hoping that I could become successful enough to help them financially. Without that motivation, I didn’t know what I wanted in life anymore. I wondered if writing was something I should still pursue or not, especially since I had mostly received rejections from the industry. I used to be able to dedicate time to writing on weeknights and weekends for months without a problem. But then my life changed and some days I was able to work on book projects faithfully, while other days, I found myself unable to put words on the page. That person’s voice would be in my head, a memory of them asking me if I’ve written lately, and that would be enough for me to keep going at times, and so I would keep trying. But then a deep emptiness would develop within me after I finished something with just a mustard seed of hope, only to then be turned away by others, most of them strangers, but also some people that I knew. It was a cycle of rejection and anticipation, that has ultimately led me here. I should probably be working on my work in progress as I record this, but instead, because I’m currently in that empty, in-between stage, I’m trying to express myself in another way. If I write, I know now, it can’t be for the acceptance, approval or benefit of anyone else, it has to be for me. And I’m still trying to figure out if writing, if being a novelist, is still something that I want to pursue. I often ask myself, ‘Is it something that I’m capable of doing?’ If so, then, ‘Who am I writing for?’

Unlike me, Kurumi realizes rather quickly that she wants to continue posting on her social media account.  Shun tells her in Episode Two, and I quote, “Although I lost everything, I can see better now.” “See what?” she asks him, to which he responds, “Myself.”   He chased success in the past, trained in Spain at a famous restaurant, then returned to Japan and became a head chef at a new restaurant, but he didn’t know how to manage people so the restaurant failed. As a result, he’s developed a minimalist lifestyle, completely opposite of Kurumi, where he detaches himself from wanting external validation and success, and from wanting to consume and own unnecessary things, even a home. After all, so many purchases and life decisions are often made just to impress others, or adhere to societal expectations, and if lost they end up hurting our sense of self, and our self-worth. So he tells her to live her life however she wants, even though he often encourages her to not stay glued to her phone all the time. She takes a photo of something she randomly likes, and afterwards she realizes that she’s been posting on her social media account for herself all along.

In Episode Three, her supervisor tells her to take a paid vacation around the same time one of her housemates, an artist, learns that her work is in contention for a prize at an art museum. All of the housemates decide to go camping nearby so that they can offer support. The artist doesn’t win, and Shun tells her, and I quote, “Other people’s opinions don’t matter, just be proud of yourself.” I really loved his character’s point of view throughout the show. He truly wants to be detached from caring about other people’s opinions and judgments, and that’s an admirable thing. What’s even more wonderful about it though is that we also see him struggle with this as time goes on. This way of thinking may look like it comes easy to him, but internally he has to constantly remind himself that he doesn’t need anything outside of himself, that he’s fine without attachments and living on his own, for himself. It’s a little surreal to even talk about because it’s sort of a reflection of where I am currently in my life. It’s such a realistic view of someone in his situation. He’s failed before, so he’s scared of being dependent on others, of wanting something more because he could lose it all again.

The artist is upset because she’s lost this prize, because she views it as her last chance. Her art career hasn’t taken off, and she’d applied for that prize many times and never got recognized, so that moment felt like it could be hers, a chance to finally reach her dreams, but she was wrong, and it wasn’t. Later on in the show, she seriously considers quitting, not making art anymore, and just getting a real job instead of painting and working somewhere part time. When she chooses to continue after throwing out all of her artwork, then panicking the next day, because she thinks the trash collectors took everything, and that she’d lost her work forever, only to find out her boyfriend brought it back into the house – it really affected me. When you’re creative, it really is so hard to give up your passion. It’s also exhausting, and difficult and demoralizing though, to toil away and never see that work that you make bear any fruit. Still, in many ways, it’s rewarding in and of itself, being able to produce something out of nothing. Self-expression itself means something, even without recognition from others.

The love between the main characters is a bit understated. I truly wasn’t sure at times who she would end up with. The female lead has chemistry with both the male lead and the second male lead. The company president ends up returning to Tokyo, after disappearing to start a new venture in Turkey without letting anyone know. He sends some of his belongings to Kurumi and ends up running into her upon his return after losing his luggage. She asks her friend if he can stay at the share house with them, and so the three of them live together – Kurumi, Shun, and her former boss. Shun preaches minimalism and not wanting ownership of anything, but he also gets jealous of the company president because he knows the female lead has liked him for a long time. Yet, it’s clear to the viewer, at this point, that the female lead is basically already in love with him, he just sends her mixed signals, not wanting to define their relationship for most of the show and being hot and then cold whenever he feels insecure about the president’s place in her heart, which complicates things.

Because she doesn’t end up with the president like I thought she would, it made me wonder if she truly ever liked him or if she simply admired him for what he had built. She too wants to become a buyer, and I liked that by the end of the show she quits her job so that she can start her own store. The company wanted her to wait a couple years for a transfer but, instead, she followed the mantra of the company president which was some variation of - “your someday is now.” That thing you want to do someday is something you should do now, because you’ll just keep putting it off into the future, otherwise. There are a lot of insightful points of view provided in the show by various characters, I’m only highlighting a few key examples.

In the end, both the female lead and male lead forge their own paths instead of bending to traditional expectations. Shun has an opportunity to make up for his previous restaurant failure by returning as a chef for a couple months when the restaurant owner is in dire need of assistance at a new iteration of the establishment that he left. Instead of being carefree, he returns to his old persona, a dedicated chef eager to gain the approval of customers. When he gets an offer to be the head chef at a new restaurant in Hokkaido, though, after considering it, he ultimately turns it down and chooses to remain in charge of his own destiny. He maintains his food truck, and by doing so, continues to set his own expectations for his life. Similarly, as I mentioned earlier, Kurumi leaves the interior design company to open up her own store and is able to follow her own vision, picking items that she loves, sharing them with others while utilizing the contacts she made in her previous role to create a successful venture on her own terms. It’s inspirational to see them work so hard to make their dreams a reality and find happiness along the way.

Overall, this was a very cute drama that is well written and worth watching. I haven’t outlined all of the swoon worthy aspects, but at its heart it checks all the boxes you’d expect in a romance. It’s just that it also has a lot of interesting perspectives on life which stood out to me. It isn’t bogged down by unnecessary conflict, instead each scene matters and ties into the larger story being told. Even the side characters storylines are interesting.

There’s one last scene that really stirred my emotions that I’d like to discuss. In Episode Nine, when the homeowner’s ex-husband is in the hospital, the artist drives her there to make sure that he’s okay. During a subsequent conversation, the ex-husband says he has no regrets in life. Contrary to what his ex-wife believes, he says he’s happy with the life that he’s lived. The artist isn’t convinced by this, she wonders if he can really be satisfied with his life. What if he had only chased after, but couldn’t accomplish, all of his dreams? And in response, the homeowner’s ex-husband talks about how when he passed out on the sidewalk, he thought about the life he’s lived and told himself, ‘I’m a person who went after their dreams.’ And that truly was enough for him to not have any regrets in life.

I really loved that, and I think it’s the perfect note to end this episode with. Sure there are romantic scenes in this drama that will make you blush, but for me it was the other aspects of the show, discussions about real issues that creatives face, and about the unexpected challenges all of us at some point must overcome, that truly sets this show apart from other shows that I’ve watched.

Thank you so much once again for listening to this episode!

If anyone is listening to this and would like to share what got them through the week, please comment on this episode’s post on our Instagram page WhatGotMeThroughTheWeek, or by email at whatgotmethroughpodcast@gmail.com.  The transcript and audio for this episode will be posted on HyssopandEbony.com.

Until next time!