Bengoshi no Kuzu, Episode 1

The Actors

Rape-Huggist: Unknown (perhaps Sano Shiro) ♂
Rape-Huggee: (Yasu Megumi) ♀

The Context

Although I take the business of rape-hugs very seriously, it does mean that I have to pore over hours and hours of terrible doramas. Often I call the acto of watching a dorama 'rape-hug mining'. I especially dislike rigidly episodic doramas such as medical, detective or legal doramas with one case per episode. Because each series is only about 10 episodes long, they hardly have any depth and they seem like crappy knock-offs of American shows which aren't eve that good to start with. Bengoshi no Kuzu is about a lawyer whose name is Kuzu (meaning "trash"). Oh the hilarity. So imagine my delight when this dorama presented itself with a rape-hug in the first 10 seconds of the first episode! That's got to be a record. It's like when footballer Vinnie Jones got a red-carded right after the opening whistle - that's true commitment to being an asshole. Although there probably are some more rape-hugs to be mined in the later episodes, there was no real reason to watch any further. Basically, the rape-hug occurs in the opening scene which turns out to be a sexual harrassment case that will be solved over the next 45 minutes.

In the interest of journalistic integrity, I continued watching, and it turns out that the incident above was in fact not sexual harassment, but part of a consentual relationship between the OL (office lady) and her boss. She was suing for a pay-out. This, however, is not consistent with the scene shown above. Unless they are into kinky role-playing, it seems odd that she would squirm and shout "stop". So, the only explanation for what we see is that this is the explanation she gave, although there is no indication that that was the case. Hence, this is not a very high-quality dorama.

So in summary, although we see a very disturbing case of sexual harrassment via rape-hug, she was asking for it? Again, not a very good dorama.

The Result

We learn that she is actually a greedy conniving whore, and Mr. Kuzu solves the case with his unorthodox but effective lawyering ways.

The Depiction

The drama opens with a first-person view of the offender as he appoaches her in the deserted open-plan office. If I'm not mistaken, this is the first instance I am aware of where there is a "rape-hug-cam". Then she drops the papers she is holding. This filming technique is usually applied in detective-style dramas in order to mask the offender until the big reveal at the end, but the next scene just shows the guy ravaging the girl, hugging her from behind with his hands groping at her hand which she is holding in front of her breasts, because they wouldn't actually show the guy squeezing her like he was testing fruit at the grocer.


Awkwardometor ☆☆☆☆☆



Although we later learn that this is not a case of sexual harrassment, the treatment of the issue is way off-point. It basically tells us that what we saw was not a rape-hug, even though it clearly was - and a violent one at that. The awkwardometer can be seen as how unaware the people involved in the making of the dorama  are in realising the gravity of the issue. How do you explain this to the children? Think of the children! It's like rape-hugs are either a girl is asking for it, and/or she wants money. Japan may be able to produce top-class sex-bots, but they are still 50 years behind the modern world in terms of gender equality. 

Video

Here is the entire 20-second start to Bengoshi no Kuzu. I don't think this is what they mean with by "start with a bang".