Firefly Wedding ‒ Episode 4
I'm still not sure what Firefly Wedding wants to be.
To be clear, this is not a bad thing at all! Despite rumors I've heard about an unsatisfying ending that I'm determined to ignore, I like that I can't totally predict the story based on the genre. For the first few weeks, it felt more like a thriller than anything else, with Satoko caught in a terrible situation and forced to fight her way through danger using her wits and a tenuous alliance with a man who is just as much of a threat. This week, however, the tone softens closer to a traditional romance, albeit still something of a bodice ripper that offers the thrill of an ever-present danger.
The episode starts by wrapping up the confrontation between Goto and Eishin, with Satoko managing to disarm Eishin and Goto beating him unconscious. Goto continues to assault him even after he passes out until Satoko whacks him over the head, causing him to bleed from a cut on his scalp. Instead of getting upset, Goto is delighted by the opportunity to have a pretty girl wipe his forehead clean with a handkerchief and rest his head in her lap.
The next morning, Eishin apologizes for his conduct and leaves with instructions to tell Satoko's family what has happened to her. In the warm light of sunrise, Satoko and Goto talk about their scars. He pulls down his kimono to show off his collection of slash wounds, assuring Satoko that the single ugly surgical scar is no big deal compared to what he's sporting. Satoko smiles and tells him that proof of the gaping wound in her chest, far older and deeper than any of his, is her badge of honor.
This is the point where I started to feel like Firefly Wedding may actually work as a more straightforward romance between Satoko and Goto. Her whole life, Satoko's stepmother told her that her medical issues had made her an expensive obligation for her family, and a good marriage was the only way for her to pay them back. However, the very thing that made it essential that she marry well, her heart surgery, became a liability in a time that emphasized unblemished bodies as a necessity for beauty. It works on a symbolic level as well: despite her devotion to cultivating her femininity, Satoko has a strong personality that she would have to conceal in order to be an attractive bride in a patriarchal society. Just as the layers of kimono hide her chest, layers of gendered expectations hide Satoko's true self.
But not so with Goto. He has no qualms about a woman with a scar, nor one who will yell at him and bonk him on the head to stop him. Around him, Satoko can smile and take pride in who she really is. He accepts her because he believes she accepts him. And increasingly, he may be right. Satoko collapses, having overstretched herself, and when she wakes up, the two share a tender moment in their room in the brothel where they talk about their pasts… and their future together. Goto grew up on the island, born to a courtesan with no idea who his father was. He was left alone when a man murdered her, and his first kill was avenging her.
Do not take this to mean that he's a perfectly sweet psychopath, here to rescue Satoko from the restrictions of her old life; he is still very much a danger to her. One of the things that makes Firefly Wedding so disarming is how it sits in the history of shojo romance; although the genre has mostly moved away from this, I am forever haunted by the bad boyfriends of the 90s and 00s like Boys Over Flowers’ Tsukasa Doumyouji and Hot Gimmick’s Ryoki Tachibana. Like Goto, these romantic leads were emotionally stunted and violent: Ryoki blackmailed, berated, and hit the protagonist Hatsumi, and Doumyouji was so jealous that he sent multiple of Tsukushi's male friends to the hospital. Despite this, the manga assured us that they were good, kind boys at heart, just so awkward that their passion just came out as domineering behavior. It probably also helped that they were handsome, wealthy, and powerful in their communities.
I never cared for this sort of romance, but Firefly Wedding seems to be in conversation with it. When Goto says that his favorite thing about Satoko is how she accepted him, she takes it to mean that he values her for what she can do for him and not some quality inherent to her. This throws her into a sulk – she is 16, after all – and when she starts saying that maybe she won't marry him because she doesn't think he loves her the way a man should love his wife, Goto starts threatening murder-suicide again. This time, she handles it by barking at him and kicking him out of the room so she could sleep, but there's still the tension that he could turn his sword against her at any time.
The episode ends with the hook for next week: Goto has managed to bribe a captain to get them off the island! But they won't be able to depart for ten days, so they'll keep hunkering down at the brothel until then. Satoko prepares to pay back at least some of what she feels she owes through labor, but has a run-in with the Mean Girls. Their Regina George informs her that every courtesan on the island adores Goto, because as a guard he protects them from bad clients. Satoko shouldn't try to get close, because he already has a favorite: Yukari. Enter a smirking redheaded woman!
Rating:
Firefly Wedding is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.
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