Rape-Huggist: Yamashita Tomohisa ♂& Kitagawa Keiko ♀
Rape-Huggee: Yamashita Tomohisa ♂& Kitagawa Keiko ♀
The Context
He is a star basketball player who has gone on a pre-season camp. While away, she realises that she likes him and travels across Japan to surprise him. When she arrives, he is alone in the gym crying about being cheated on, which obviously gives her 2nd thoughts. But as she is about to leave he regains his manly status by rape-hugging her, only to realise that it is extremely awkward. Then, he lets go and as he is about to leave, she retaliates and rape-hugs him back.
The Result
This rape-hug comes halfway through the series, and it kicks off their official relationship. In this sense it can be seen as a successful sequence of rape-hugs. It shouldn't be, but it can.
The Depiction
The rape-hug scene is in an empty gymnasium and on both rape-hugs it clearly shows the shocked expressions on both of their faces. These are notable not only for the near-immediate retaliationm but also for the high degree of difficulty of the rare kneeling rape-hug. Upon the impact of the first rape-hug the soundtrack falls dramatically silent, as if someone is just fainting. And on the 2nd one we also see the double-shot - the knockout punch, as the annoying end theme song starts to signal that everything is okay and we don't need to call the police.
Awkwardometor ☆☆☆
This sequence in Japanese Drama history really illustrates the lack of romantic awareness in the genre. It would have been incredibly easy to make this a genuine romantic moment simply by having her return the hug the first time. Why wouldn't she happily return the hug - after all, wasn't she the one that travelled all the way across the nation to express her love? So instead of one great hug to consecrate this inevitable relationship, we have two incredibly awkward rape-hugs. Secondly, why wouldn't he return her hug after just rape-hugging her? Admittedly he does slightly return the hug but not to the level to erase the awkwardness. Perhaps there are couples who are genuinely this awkward, but wow.
Video
Watch the entire sequence, along with the impressively bad soundtrack.
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