Additional Thoughts on InK
I still stand behind my initital review of these series. I really do think it was absolutely terrible with hardly any redeeming points beyond the great music. However, there is one thing I forgot to mention that does make it stand apart from the rest. The following musings will contain spoilers for those who do not know if Kotoko ever gets Naoki. If you don’t want to know, don’t continue reading.
What could possibly drive me to continue writing about a series I so thoroughly deplored? The fact that the series didn’t end with them getting together or at their wedding. This is something that is quite unique, and I feel deserves some time devoted to it.
So often, getting together is the sole purpose of a series. Winning the girl or guy is seen as paramount, and it is assumed that life ends in a ‘happily ever after’ way after that moment. It’s almost as if marriage is the end of life itself, that nothing happens after the initital getting together and/or marriage. However, Itazura na Kiss goes beyond that point. Ms. Tada had the vision that life doesn’t end with marriage, that it continues on through the hardships of becoming a family, professional pressures, and in most cases culminates further into parenthood.
Now granted, I felt the relationship continued to be just as bad as before, and hated the lead couple just as much after they were married as before, but there’s something to be said for moving forward. Kotoko’s fight to become more than she is becomes the focus for several of the remaining ten episodes as she makes the decision to become a nurse. The last few episodes show the early stages of parenthood (and it’s nice to see that Naoki is a much better father than a husband.)
The only show I can currently think of that really contains such a continuation is NANA, one of my favorites. Now granted, people might point out some hypocrisy given that I love NANA which has an equally bad marriage in it, but the characters in the marriage know that their relationship is bad. They’ve chosen to work it out, and admit to having a certain type of love for one another, but not that certain true love that InK tries to proclaim it has (but doesn’t, in my opinion.)
The continuation of a romance anime beyond the act of marriage is a plot point that is so rare, that even when it’s done in a series I detested, I have to take a few words and give it some props. For me personally, marriage wasn’t the end of the romance, but the beginning of the real story. There is so much more that occurs once the vows are exchanged, and it was nice to see the continuation.
See? I can say nice things about a series I hated. Speaking of, I need to see about getting the sound track or singles. The opening and the original closing (not so much the second one) really were great, catchy pieces that really encompassed the 90s shoujo romantic-comedy feel.
