Oh my BOSS – love not included

No, there is no Mafia Love story about falling in love with the Boss!  

Well, it is another story about a young girl moving to the big city of Tokyo! Somehow, it feels different because she is not looking for a big and dreamy life. She is looking for a standard and stable life. Her name is Nami.

Nami Suzuki (Mone Kamishiraishi) was born and raised in a small rural town. She doesn’t have a specific dream to pursue and she is an easy going person. As an ordinary woman, she desires to be happy with an ordinary life. She follows Kenya, who is her childhood friend and her unrequited love, and applies for a job in the supply management department of a large publishing company in Tokyo. Nami gets hired by the company, but she is assigned to work in the editorial department of a fashion magazine.

There, Nami Suzuki works with chief editor Reiko Horai (Nanao). She is a devil-like boss, who makes spiteful remarks and has a cold personality. Reiko Horai treats Nami, who doesn’t take her job seriously, in a callous manner. But, as Nami Suzuki watches her boss deal with her job, Nami begins to change her attitude toward her work.

Of course, in daily life in Japan, this is a group, and society mindset. “Don’t be different, just be a contribution to society”. Also means, You struggle to find yourself and what personality are you.

This is a mindset that comes after the recuperation from World War II. Companies promoted a family (kazoku) inside the company and outside. For that goal, they paid and arranged for housing , home appliances, and even marriage interviews with a matchmaker. 

However, the 90s crisis Brought these into decline. People lost housing because they were fired. Between 1990 and 2000, it’s called the Lost Decade. Most Salarymen had to adapt to the circumstances,  and the ones that couldn’t adapt, in a act of desperation, committed suicide. 

Today, the ones raised in a family with the old mindset stay very stuck on what is the norm. The ones raised in a family that adapts receive the new and try to transmit the need for a change to the rest of the Japanese society or even take the Japanese society to the world.

In these dramas, oh my BOSS love not included, the old mindset is represented by the youngest and from a low class background , Nami. And the adapted mindset is represented by the female boss that comes from a high class family Reiko. Reiko’s career path against her family , due to her father not wanting her as head of the company, is affordable. She did struggle economically with anything in her life including going to live in Paris. While Nami had to save up just to afford to move across the country. 

One of the biggest mindsets that changed recently was the Age of Consent Law. Previously it was 13 years old and was one of the lowest in the world,today, it is 16 years old . One of the biggest consequences of these changes is the dramatic increase of Sexual harassment case, such as the 22 people claimed experienced sexual assault or harassment by a film director or producer, on March 13th.