In Hataraki Man, the protagonist, Hiro, and her status quo boyfriend do break up in the end, but it's made rather clear that it was a happy and functional relationship once upon a time--it's not that they were really incompatible all along, and she'd have been okay if she was only with The One, but because they both had demanding careers and became extreme workaholics who prioritized work over each other for so long that they grew too far apart to fix things. And the show's belief in the satisfaction of a work-related identity is so powerful that that doesn't even come across as wrong, or even a mistake--just as a realistic consequence of choosing that kind of career.
Maybe it's a subtle distinction, but it makes a huge difference to me--instead of being about how romance will only work if you find The One (message: The One may not be taller than you, but he understands you perfectly, and that's all you really need--take that, romantic cliche!), Hataraki Man really believes that you will be a different person at different stages of your life, and you will need different things, and be capable of different things.
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ninetydegrees
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on 2007-08-26 11:55 am (UTC)Maybe it's a subtle distinction, but it makes a huge difference to me--instead of being about how romance will only work if you find The One (message: The One may not be taller than you, but he understands you perfectly, and that's all you really need--take that, romantic cliche!), Hataraki Man really believes that you will be a different person at different stages of your life, and you will need different things, and be capable of different things.