J. Shruti
A Japanese limited series directed by Yuki Tanada, in which Aya (Asami Mizukawa) is going through her husband’s wardrobe. She comes across an instruction manual.
In the beginning, we have Aya, swept with awe in Tokyo, infatuated with the dream of moving to a big city. A fantasy contextualizes this: Her, walking out of a towering corporate building, clad in designer clothes.
Aya gets promoted at her organisation, and casually remarks how the women who used to gossip about her superior, now talk behind closed doors about who Aya is seeing and sleeping with, ostensibly in a bid for power etc.
Clichés don’t exist to bore, they exist to humble. Aya, initially cocky and prideful, is left with lingering memories of a man she had spent five years with and the relationship she derided because it was too comfortable. Could she go back?
You see her cast a fond eye toward the women who move past her in the city, feeling a sense of solidarity with their bubbles of anonymity.