Renai Battle Royale (2024)

A fight for love, and more..

"Renai battle royale" was pretty good, and I think it was really deeper than a simple highschool romance.

- If you didn't see the drama :
This is not the best drama you'll see this year, but it's worth the watch. It's really thrilling and the main couple is really cute. The OST are amazing and the cast so good.
So I think it's worth your time.


- If you've seen the drama :

Here are some thoughts I have about it and I'd like to discuss :

* love is universal

The drama depicts many kinds of different love, not only teen love. Student-teacher relationships, adultery, homosexual love, friendship, maternal love... the drama shows love is universal and complex. It also advocates for "gay love" to be recognized as love, what resonates in a Japanese society where the homosexual marriage is still not recognized. I loved the drama for the way it makes us dive into teen love.
"experiencing love is part of growing up as a teenager"

*no-dating rule in Japanese highschool

In 2022, a female Japanese student sued her highschool for expelling her because she broke the no-dating rule enforced, she won the trial. When you think about it, Renai Battle royale is therefore quite realistic in a still conservative society where dating is sometimes banned in schools.

*two heroes fight for love

If the first reason for the female lead to be the love keeper is firstly money, the implication of the male lead changes their fight in a fight for love. The main couple is so cute, their scenes so tender, I just loved their romance. The lead actress was just perfect and so good at facial expression, like she literally broke my heart. The male lead is so cute and makes their love a sweet, heartwarming relationship.

*protecting teen girls

The drama also denounce the way teen girls tend to suffer more in relationships. The headteacher says it multiple times, and there is also the story of Ema, whose boyfriend ran away after finding out she is pregnant, and the similar story of the headteacher 's friend who killed herself. The drama advocate for protecting teens and supporting them in their relationship instead of restraining them. It also makes the watcher think about the way (japanese) society sees girls who have sex or get pregnant.

note : I'm not a native English speaker, I apologize if any kinds of mistakes were to be found in this text.

these are just assumptions made by me, which you can totally disagree with.

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No one has the right to forbid you from loving someone. It is you who decides your life

It came out of nowhere so I didn't really know what I was going to find and I wasn't looking for anything in particular but I found gold. This drama is pure gold and I'm not exaggerating.

The story seems simple but believe me it is not, when you think something will happen the course always changes constantly asking you and keeping you hooked to see what will happen again and when you think you are right they give another plot twist all the time. And it's not a bad thing, because you really don't know how Ichika will deal with things.

At first, because of her damn father, she acts as a couple hunter and to protect her secret they must pay her. This is not done selfishly, she is a girl where she sees that her mother works hard to pay her school fees, support her and suddenly, because of her disgusting father, her mother is forced to pay a sum that is too large that her father asked for. lenders and they do not stop bothering her. So she comes up with the only plan she could, since the school didn't allow her to work part-time either and she wouldn't be able to pay for everything either. So she decides to charge him to keep her secrets and delete any information that she could get the students expelled. But she is quickly discovered by Maki, a classmate he met a year before the school merged.

Maki is very immature but his way of being rebellious is explained since he has a father who is a real trash. To keep him "controlled" he beats her mother constantly, to the point of leaving her hospitalized. So when Maki discovers Ichika's true identity he wants to join her to make money. At first the two get along badly and neither understands the other, although there is chemistry between them from minute 0, but after an honest talk they both discover the reason for their decisions. So they move on, as feelings between them inevitably grow.

Here all the topics are discussed openly, abuse, power, teenage pregnancies, prohibited relationships between teachers and students, sexuality and homosexuality. I think there is a very important part here that I have never seen portrayed so well and that is the issue of homosexuality.

There are two people who are homosexuals, the vice president who is in love with her best friend but when it is not reciprocated she joins firmly in rabbit hunting (catching couples) and a boy who dates another. But I really liked the last one how he was treated, since when they found out about his secret, which Ichika and Maki couldn't hide, they didn't expel him. Why? Because they believe that love between men is not important because they are men and it does not count as love, when it is love.

Ichika then changes along with Maki and they only want to protect the love of others but they are discovered. That's when Ichika bravely confronts the director.

From the beginning i'm knew that the director had a great trauma and she was not wrong but she went to the total extreme. She firmly believes that a man will only use you and leave you hurt, that the right way is for students to only concentrate on studying as if they were robots without feelings. Without being aware that there is something called "sexual education."

Ichika loses so the no-love law has not been repealed, but she follows her path along with the support of her mother, her classmates, and her best friend. Maki? Well, they relationship continues but Maki decided to study abroad so they have a long distance relationship. Everything seems to be going well for Ichika despite that stupid rule, but something happens in the end that you don't expect. And a new match hunter appears who demands an amount of money from him to not reveal that he is still in a relationship with Maki.

At this point I don't know who he/she is or what really planning and why he's going straight for Ichika. I guess (and I hope there is a second season). Not only because of this new event, but also because there are still unresolved unknowns. Why the director tells Ichika that she will soon find out that the no love rule is necessary? What happened to Maki's mother when she tells Maki's father that she has to talk to him? What happens to Maki's older brother ?Nothing about the Maki's family has closure. So I hope they please make a second season.

Now my personal thoughts: I have been involved in the world of Japanese dramas long before any other drama from another country and I am also informed, I know that studying in Japan is so competitive and complicated that many students commit suicide when they do not meet expectations of society. But adolescence is a very important and complicated age at the same time. It is important to discover who you are and what you like, first love, even if they reject you, is a feeling that you must live since it is a painful but beautiful feeling, which will help you mature gradually.

Having sexual desires at that age is normal but if it is not taught correctly, pregnancy can happen. That stupid rule won't work, since when we are young when something is forbidden to us, we are more likely to go against it.

I would really like them to do a psychological test on the teachers and principals. You cannot let a traumatized woman decide the lives of young people and prohibit them from things that are natural in adolescence.

When I was in high school I also remember that we had a ban on not being around boys, but that didn't stop them from going out no matter how rigorous they were being with us. In my time, sex education was shit, so it was normal to see pregnant classmates and drop out of school. All this would be fixed, not by prohibiting but by educating. As adults we have to talk about this topic openly, because it will be valuable information for young people. In my case, I received that education from my father and I thank him for speaking to me openly about sexuality and sex. In fact, to this day he spoke openly about these things because my father is a man without mincing words, he doesn't draw things with colors and Rainbow tells you and explains it to you as explicitly as possible so that you understand things that I sometimes don't understand about men. In fact, our first conversation never made me feel uncomfortable, but quite the opposite. He informed me of absolutely everything.

The performances were perfect, the soundtrack was incredible and suited each moment. The cinematography was beautiful. My only complaint I need a season two!! After that I can't find any fault with it.
I recommend it? Absolutely.

PS: There are many people who criticize Ichika for initially charging to keep the relationship secret. I mean, at first a classmate offered her money but she rejected her. Why? Because at first she only did it out of empathy, not so that she would be seen as a poor girl whose silence had a cost. In fact, before doing anything, she tries to call her father to fix his own problems and stop getting his mother into trouble but he doesn't answer her. Then she gets home and even though he argues with the moneylenders she realizes that his mother is the one who sinning of naivety she signed the contract and now she had to take responsibility. Ichika thought a thousand times before doing what she did, something that she later regrets very much for her actions, but it is a a girl who sees her mother working herself to death and still not having enough money. She couldn't work because the school didn't allow it, so like any teenager to help her mother, She agrees to charge to make money. Is it wrong? I don't know, I'm honestly not a judge to judge her. She had a big problem and wanted to help and lighten the load on her mother. I would have acted accordingly the same way. Life is not black and white, there are nuances and you have to put yourself in their shoes. When you are younger you do questionable things and it is not to defend her or defend me. Sometimes we do things that are not "morally" right because we have to support our families. Can you regret it later? Of course you can, Ichika regretted it and asked for forgiveness. But they are It's those mistakes that make you grow as a person. If we never screwed up, we wouldn't be human. So don't be so hard on a teenager who had a big reason for what she did. Maki too. He did the same, and although he was a millionaire, he did it so that he and his mother could get away from the control and abuse that his father exerted on him mother. When you love your parents a lot you just want to help. We can screw up, of course. But no one is in a position to judge the actions of others. I have lost most of my family for defending my father from a very unfair treatment, do I regret it? No. Because I think my father needed someone to support him and understand him and I took that role, being aware of the consequences. That's why I don't regret it, my father was always there for me, whatever the situation and now it was my turn to do the same for him . My words were harsh because with the relatives who I was facing them, they were tough, as if they were perfect when they weren't at all and they did much worse things, my father, the only sin he committed was being born and having different values than his brothers. So the situation warranted it. Was I harsh? Yes, I lost a lot in the process? I don't think so because I don't want people like that in my life. Do I regret it? No, I would do it again. Would I apologize? No, I wouldn't. So when you experience situations like Ichika you can understand her much better and leave morality aside.

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