Love as Scripted by Junji Itou

I love this panel from Love as Scripted, from Junji Itou. It brings art to the forefront, and replies in the same language of the one who abandoned the other in the game of love and hearts. That’s also one of the reason I went for this comic and write about it today, to celebrate Valentines Day hangover with a comic by the master of horror Junji Itou.

Love is an error. But the error is not found. Most of us mortal folks have endured heartbreaks of different frequencies. Some of them were mutual, while some of them have been bitter but bearable to some of them have left a hole so big no bandage could mend it for years to come. The time of Valentines Day is even worst, as the social media either throws discounts and events at you with activities to be done with your loved ones, to people close to you professing their love, or getting engaged, proposed and married. Phew!

Love as Scripted is about a lady protagonist who has been told by others what a roving eye her arm candy has, and yet she ignores smitten by his charm. The backdrop is theater and practicing your art makes you get intimate and intense quickly rather in short notice. Believable. Many hearts have been merged at the backdrop of art where you are free to express yourself and give yourself permission to be what you want to be and feel like. That’s why that freedom to be what you want to be connects you on a core level, and you fall in love when all the elements in your environment is that friendly. Imagine a theater with a play you are working on is a romantic one, and you tend to spend copious amount of time with director, actor, and other professionals. It’s easy for sparks will fly in a rather creative close knit environments like schools, colleges and workplaces. Staying with someone for a longer period of time will lead on to something or the other like that, and deep bonds are built.

But what if it’s not.

What if, those bonds are broken with cold, distant casual way?

When one is in love, and the other is not, that’s when the hearts are broken and tears fall and unsavory things happen. Here Junji Itou’s character is a Casanova who tends to play with women, and leave them when the theater project is over. His defense is, wait for it, inspiration. He wants inspiration in form of different women. Ha, haven’t we seen this before? His lady love does not buys this.

Charisma and charm are seductive and you need will power to resist which is why I like Love as Scripted. It is about a Casanova who dumps women, and scripts himself talking to them when they claim they can’t get over his abrupt ghosting. Narcissist? Pretty much.

Now this Casanova is really creative. He has done this dozens of times, and so has created videos, several of them, talking to the women he eventually breaks up or rather ignores them to oblivion. He like really talks to them about him, with pauses so that she also talks and have a legit conversation. Smart move. But we are reading Junji Itou, so it is a little too smart. He creates a script, just too real, that is kinda perfect. And perfection is overrated, and in this case dangerous. The fact that love can be scripted reeks of fake. But getting it right is so weird. To create video that works for the women who would think of it as a perfect replacement is a codependency of unhealthy proportions. That’s what this comic is all about. It’s about love.

Happy Post Valentines Day.