Boy Oh Boy
The oddly titled (that kind of cherry? really?) boys’ love office romance jumps from drama series to sequel film and why is this movie?
cherry Magic!
Director: Hiroki Kazama • Writer: Riko Sakaguchi, based on the manga by Yuu Toyota
Starring: Eiji Akaso, Keita Machida, Kodai Asaka, Yutaro, Takuya Kusakawa, Ryo Sato, Suzunosuke Tanaka, Toshiya Toyama, Ikue Sakakibara, Shingo Tsurumi, Yuki Matsushita
Japan • 1hr 44mins
Opens Hong Kong June 9 • IIA
Grade: C+
In the officially and lumberingly titled Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?!: The Movie | チェリまほ THE MOVIE 〜30歳まで童貞だと魔法使いになれるらしい, we pick up with Kiyoshi Adachi (Eiji Akaso) and Yuichi Kurosawa (Keita Machida) as they continue to navigate their office romance, after the former virgin Adachi touched Kurosawa (just… don’t ask) and read his mind with his new 30-year-old virgin powers and discovered Kurosawa’s stalker-y daydreams about him. In typical tone-deaf fashion, Adachi thought that was cute and two years after the TV series based on Yuu Toyota’s manga, they’re practically heading to the altar. But wait! Adachi has been offered an eight-month gig opening the Tokyu Hands-esque lifestyle brand they work for’s new shop in Nagasaki. Will their love survive?
Of course it will, don’t be ridiculous. Firmly wedged into the boys’ love genre, Cherry Magic! is an idealised, fluffy, rose-coloured TV movie romance that posits a perfect world, filled with understanding parents and tolerant co-workers. But even as it seems to advocate for same sex marriage director Hiroki Kazama and writer Riko Sakaguchi chicken out and wind up sending a pile of mixed messages on top of being aimless and unnecessary. That said, viewers whose jam the series was are probably going to dig this just as much.
First thing’s first: neither of these dudes looks 30
It is almost impossible to separate discussion of Cherry Magic! into its component parts, that being an office romance and BL romance – or boys’ love, or yaoi, or ‘y-series”, or danmei, or simply slashfic. What middle-aged (often), straight (predominantly), women (almost always) might get from penning pervy stories about handsome young gay men mackin’ on each other is anyone’s guess (and why that need exists has been interrogated to death) but one disturbing fact remains: these writers are having an influence on how the public consciousness views gay relationships. Straight chicks who have no clue, and certainly no experience. If this doesn’t go to the representation argument, what does?
Before you get your shorts in a bunch, no. Of course an artist is free to create what they like. Ang Lee is as far from a Wyoming cowboy as you can get, yet Brokeback Mountain is one of the great gay romances of all time (might have to do with his status as a considerably more skilled filmmaker, but that’s just nitpicking). It’s not impossible, and Cherry Magic! is fantasy. High fantasy. So if Toyota, Kazama and Sakaguchi want to build a sandbox where Adachi’s middle class family welcomes Kurosawa with open arms, and Kurosawa’s affluent, conservative parents just need a little time to warm to the idea, so be it. Happy endings are a hallmark of the form. But narrative consistency is just as important, and Cherry Magic! has very little.
Left: the look you get if you say you write BL fic
The film follows Adachi and Kurosawa – neither of who ever identifies as gay, bee-tee-dubs – as they try and figure out how to manage the impact of this transfer on their chaste romance, which evidently headed to sexy times at some point as Adachi loses his virgin power. In a story structured perfectly for commercial breaks, they learn to truly communicate with a little help from old friends Masato Tsuge (one time boybander Kodai Asaka) and his partner Minato Wataya (Yutaro). It all culminates with a gauzy wedding – except where the action is bookended by a scene of Adachi reading a children’s book at a mobile shop. In filmspeak that suggests everything in between was Adachi’s imagination so… they have no hope of living honestly? But if the events of the series are real, then they are a couple, just not an out one? Did they tell their parents? Why do Kazama and Sakaguchi tease a wedding and then pull the rug out from under their audience – one that’s all-in on the fantasy? Do they head into the sunset hand-in-hand in Shinjuku Park? Am I not getting it? Then again, given the direction LGBTQ+ rights are heading maybe the Dirty Ladies are on to something with this fantasy thing. — DEK