Musuta Kusaka's Everyday Journey with Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Japan

One day, my mother brought home her boyfriend. The boyfriend was a transgender man. His name was R. From that day on, we became a family. I lived under the same roof with him from when I became a university student until I got a job and started living on my own. Along with the Kusakabe grandparents.

Me, my brother, my mother, R-kun (FtM), my grandparents.
A house with a roof over its diversity. Well, it’s not going to work.

So, I was nervous at the end of the movie ” Egoist “. “Kosuke, stop it.”

How many times have I wanted to get into the screen and scold Kosuke? It’s not that easy to live with a complete stranger, even if they’re a relative of the person you love.

The following contains spoilers. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, please watch it first. Suzuki Ryohei gets 500 million points. Miyazawa Hio gets twice that. Agawa Sawako gets twice that. It’s an astronomical masterpiece. Ryohei in particular goes from “Hentai Kamen” to “The Blood of Wolves Level 2” to “Egoist,” a dizzying metamorphosis that makes your eye pressure rise. I have no doubt that this will become one of his masterpieces.

https://egoist-movie.com/

But back to the main topic. The part that made the biggest impression on me was the end of the film. The main character, Kosuke (Suzuki Ryohei), loses his lover, Ryuta (Miyazawa Hio).

However, Ryuta’s mother, Taeko (Agawa Sawako), knew about their relationship. As a mother, Taeko fully understood the irreplaceable nature of their life together. Not only did she understand, but she shared her grief with Kosuke, feeling deeply grateful. As they spend time together mourning Ryuta, the two begin to connect with each other.

This is where the egoist becomes an egoist. Kosuke, having no other options, asks Taeko to move in with him.
Would you like to live with him? He does so quite forcefully. Despite Taeko’s hesitation and confusion.

Kosuke has come to love the family of the person he loves more than anything. A good guy. As he puts it, he has an excellent income. A reliable guy. And there’s no doubt that he sees Taeko in his own biological mother, who died young. He’s also a stubborn guy.

But, no, that’s why my heart was screaming at the screen.
“Kosuke, don’t do it!” “No matter how much you love someone, there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to live happily with them!” That’s what happened in my own home.

There are only two types of separation: separation by life or separation by death.

In the case of the Kusakabe family, it was separation by life. Moreover, it was a bad ending, filled with hatred and ugliness. R’s mother had invited him to live with her, but his grandparents, who moved in later, kicked him out.

Many transgender people face various difficulties. They cannot return to their parents’ homes. It is difficult to build understanding relationships. There are restrictions on where they can work, and they are prone to find themselves in economically disadvantaged situations. R-kun was no exception.

However, despite knowing this, his grandparents could only see him as an outsider, someone who was not part of the family. His very existence was a strange and stressful experience. His grandparents were blind followers of a new religious movement, and they were not happy that R-kun had refused their solicitation. They

found fault with everything about R-kun’s lifestyle, taking away his time and space. And finally, R-kun never came back. His grandparents were from Tohoku, and grew up in poverty after the war, and even lived in a room rented by someone else due to the housing shortage during the postwar reconstruction. What did they learn from their hardships? Or what did they worship to the gods and Buddhas?

I later heard from my mother that my grandparents had said they were “relieved.” When I heard that, I was speechless. Since I was already living alone, all I could do to make up for my sins was to help R-kun find a new job.

However. I feel that condemning my grandparents as “They are racists” or “They are the egoists” misses the true nature of something. Of course, this turn of events is heavily shaded by misunderstanding, prejudice, and discrimination. But there is definitely something that cannot be solved by saying, “Discrimination is bad! It is socially unacceptable!” Because it is an extremely private space called home, where sociality often does not apply.
Later in life, I also ran away from there.

Perhaps people are not designed to live with others until they die. Not with family, or even with family. Living in a group and living with someone are slightly different.
If that is the case, I think that living with someone is inherently very difficult, or even miraculous. Can we be aware of this?

So, I felt a deep sense of relief at the last scene of the movie. Ah. This is not a separation. It is not a separation due to the karma of life.

If they had ended up living together by mistake, what kind of love, hate, or love and separation would have happened in the future? I’m sure that new encounters and new loves await Kosuke in the future. What would happen to Taeko if she had lived with him at that time?

I think that everyone is more or less egoistic. If Kosuke is an egoistic person, he wants her to be selfish and stay with him until death, rather than living and parting. Or rather, he wants her to be selfish. The emotion that I couldn’t name when I couldn’t protect R-kun in the past. I felt like I understood the true nature of it here.

Taeko has been diagnosed with cancer and is on a respirator in a hospital bed. From her appearance, it can be seen that she will never be able to return home.
Kosuke watches from beside her. With her breath shaking, Taeko makes a request to Kosuke. Kosuke smiles and says “Yes,” and gently holds Taeko’s hand.

At that moment, Kosuke’s smile is beautiful. It shines with the joy of being with the one he loves until the very end.

As symbolized by this moment, not a single second of this movie is wasted, and Ryohei’s acting is simply superb throughout the entire film. If you finish watching a movie and think, “I can’t imagine anyone else playing that role,” then it must be a masterpiece.

Speaking of Ryohei, of course there’s his muscles. No, especially his muscles. Speaking of muscles, there’s also Hio. There’s a love scene where the two of them caress each other’s muscles with their muscles. There’s a bed scene where they don’t just caress each other, they lick each other. It’s more like a love scene than a bed scene. A parade of Ryohei and Hio’s muscles that are super sloppy.
I’ve written a lot about this, but honestly that’s the only thing I remember. In other words, it’s a great movie!