“Ossan’s Love”: a masterful portrayal of Japanese comedy and universal love

Ossan’s love is a romantic, yet light-hearted Japanese film that focuses on a love triangle between three middle-aged, working men. It not only captivated a new audience upon its release but also highlighted a huge societal obstacle in Japan: homophobia. 

The film revolves around the intersecting lives of three men who work at the same company: Soichi Haruta, a 33-year old employee; Ryota Maki, his younger co-worker, and love interest; and Musashi Kurosawa, his 55-year old boss, and other love interest. The film begins with a love confession from Musashi to Soichi, through which the audience discovers Musashi is romantically interested in his young employee. When Soichi rejects Musashi’s advances, the viewers are led to assume that Soichi is only attracted to women. However, these expectations are soon subverted when circumstances force Soichi and Ryota to share an apartment unit where they, over the course of several weeks, develop a close friendship that turns into something much more. What began as a casual acquaintance between the two becomes, through interactions at work and at home, a deep-rooted friendship and budding romance. 

The heart-warming developments between Soichi and Ryota are interwoven with countless comical moments involving the boss Musashi as he continues to pine over Soichi. The film’s humor, which features absurdist and immature jokes, never fails to draw laughter from its young audiences. Yet, the film also does a great job at catering to adults through some of its more mature humor and sentimental scenes. Meanwhile, the business meetings, drunken nights, and hectic schedules of the three working men make the film deeply familiar and relatable to audiences in the Japanese business scene. 

Despite its comedic moments, the film’s portrayal of Ryota and Soichi’s evolving relationship as well as Musashi’s unrequited love is always genuine. Diverging from the typical misrepresentation, fetishization, and censorship of LGBTQ+ issues perpetrated by Japanese media, this film humanizes its gay characters and normalizes — without ever trivializing — their relationships in the eyes of both young and old audiences. Selling over 230,000 tickets in the first weekend of its release the film garnered unprecedented success across Japan, going on to become the country’s 12th highest-grossing film in 2019. The fact of its popularity has served as a signal of Japan’s changing attitudes towards LGBTQ+ issues and as an example to Japanese media outlets of the kind of LGBTQ+ representation they should be embracing in the future.