Happy Sugar Life (2018)
So just a disclaimer I do not condone the following themes that are previewed in this series; rape, pedophilia, stalking, murder, or kidnapping. Maschoistism is fine.
After watching this series it was not like Another (2012) nor was it like Elfen Lied (2004). Although what do both this series and Elfen Lied have in common? Two murderous pink-haired crazy bitches. I stated on Twitter after watching this series that I'm convinced all pink-haired women are crazy. I would say the main character Satou is tied with Yuno from Future Diary (2011).
Let's begin, Satou Matsuzaka is a beautiful high school girl with multiple secret lives. She's a school girl, the girl who will have sex with anyone, the girl who lives with her insane aunt, the hard working girl, the kidnapper, and the murder. No one knows about her multiple appearances and behaviors beyond the that of what she give them. She is a very unsatistifed and lonely girl. Until one day she discovers her first and only encounter with love, Shio Koube. She finds a young child and takes her into her custody and lives in an apartment together. She loves this child so much she is willing to do anything for her, even kill.
Let's compare the two crazy bitches first.
Now I'm not for the next one that she's wrong but this is when her crazy came out. The worse part is that it came out over money for Shio. When she was at work, her manager cut her pay after forcing her to work overtime. Initially, before that, the overtime went to her coworker Taiyou Mitsuboshi.
As cute as she is Satou was raised by her aunt. So her idea of love has have been iffy prior to meeting Shio. But her main issue is not the concept of love. The issue is the variations of love that people extend to her and the oppositional ideas that people like to pass on to her as love. This is what triggers her crazy.
She would much rather stay in "her" apartment with Shio all day and play. But unfortunately, she is well aware of the realities of that. She has to work to afford the apartment and feed both of them. She also hates when people confess their love for because she is convinced and set on the notion that her idea of love is the only way to love, a "happy sugar life" and anything outside of that love is bitter.
I still want to know who she kills in order to obtain the apartment but I guess the creators found that irrelevant during that episode and never showed his face. But you are aware that he is dead and nicely cremated in a trash bag tied with a plaid ribbon.
Now let's list her crimes. Shall we?
For starters, she kidnapped a child. Harbored the child and refused to return her to her family, even when she became aware that Shio's older brother was looking for her for days.
Now I'm not for the next one that she's wrong but this is when her crazy came out. The worse part is that it came out over money for Shio. When she was at work, her manager cut her pay after forcing her to work overtime. Initially, before that the overtime went to her coworker Taiyou Mitsuboshi.
Who had a crush on her, and asked her out at work. Out of spite and jealousy, the manager took advantage of Taiyou getting rejected, which resulted in her sexually abusing him (rape). This causes later problems for Taiyou and Shio.
So after all the overtime and when she received her paycheck is was extremely short that what it should have been. Being a witness to the rape incident she blackmailed her manager and scolded her with the most deadly look in her eyes. Once she received her money she found Taiyou locked in a closet and quit her job at that Cafe.
On to the third crime, again I'm not saying she was right but it was just weird.
Every night Satou would be on her way home from work she was being stalked. To her, this was nothing new (which no woman should be okay and normalizing stalking). One evening she stopped in an alley (stupid decision) and found out her stalker was her homeroom teacher, Kitaumekawa Daichi. He is a masochist, sex addict, and has an interest in teenage girls. he said his reasoning was because his wife can be boring but he can at least go home to her after he's done being in the streets.
So in return, Satou does not have sex with him but she threatens him, she plans on telling his wife unless he does what she says. Can you guess who was the trash man and disposed of the neatly packaged trash?
After she humiliated him, he begins to plot against her and chase her in the act. He is aware that someone's body was in those bags. He assumes it is her aunt that no one has seen or spoke to.
Unfortunately, he was wrong. Satou does technically live with her aunt. Just not in the same apartment but they do reside in the same building. The aunt is also fully aware of what Satou is doing with Shio. In the scene when the aunt is first fully introduced I was scared that she was going to commit oral sex on the police officer, she was creepy and weird for comfort. Even she rapes Taiyou again as well.
Satou's fourth crime consists of attempting to kill Shio's brother before he can locate where she is. Lastly, she kills her best friend, Hida Shouko, who genuinely cared for Satou. But once she found out the truth about Satou, she was killed and burned within the apartment building. Even Shio's brother began to have a crush on her.
The main point of the series is that everyone is in love with Shio Koube (left), who is a 5-year-old child. She is unaware that she was kidnapped by Satou but loves her unconditionally, even when she finds out that she has murder multiple people.
Both siblings were raised in an abusive household. If their father was not drunk and beating their mother into a battered housewife then he was beating Ashai. Ashai sent his mother and sister to live "far away" (the same town just an unknown location), they were sent to hide until he came to get them once his father had died. It turns out that the mother did kill their father which is revealed towards the end. It is also revealed that their mother is the reason why Satou was able to claim Shio.
She left Shio in the street after hitting her and had a mental breakdown at what she had down to her child and used that energy to drug and poison her husband.
Ashai made flyers every day in search of his sister. Once he found her, she chose Satou and attempted suicide with her by jumping off the burning apartment building. With all the love that Satou had for Shio, she decided the last minute to save her but folding her body around Shio so her body could absorb all the impact.
It can be implied that Shio and Ashai are finally able to go home after the hospital. She was admitted for her injuries. It can also be implied that somehow Satou was reincarnated within Shio when she begins to speak in the hospital to Ashai about how she has grown up.
What does Shio have to do with Taiyou? Well, nothing. But he falls in love with her Missing Person flyer and is obsessed with purification after the first time he was raped by his manager. He developed a phobia towards older women and being touched by women in general. He wants Shio to himself so she can love him with her innocents and touch him. He believes her purity can purify him. He even attempts to kidnap her from Satou. Then he is later beaten by Ashai once he is aware that he knows where his sister is. Thinking that Taiyou is trying to trick him during the rescue mission, he leaves him to be a victim of rape again by Satou's aunt.
The theme and purpose of this series are very strange. I would not watch this again. Compared to Elfen Lied, I was sad at the end, and the same with Another. Future Diary had me at the edge of my seat cheering the crazy bitch one to get her man and kill everyone in her way to get him, even herself from a different dimension (you have to watch it to get it). This just made me feel gross for watching it. But without Amazon, I would have never discovered it. It also gave the vibes of When They Cry (2006), which I still do not understand to this day, if anyone wants to explain, please do.
#psychothriller #horror #pedophilia #murder #gore #blood #romance #love #schoollife #yandere