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Love Square
Movie

Love Square

2005 • Unknown

Woke Score
2
out of 10

Plot

Miki has a good job and works in an office. She's been dating Ryosuke and they're happy together... except for the fact that Miki is also in a relationship with her college professor Tanaka. Tanaka is trying to break up with Miki because of his wife, but Miki won't hear of it. Ryosuke is also unfaithful, and he has a one-night stand with Chihiro, who also has a boyfriend. The plot thickens when both girls discover they are pregnant, and don't know who to name as father. This romantic drama about relationships is proof that love can also come in squares.

Overall Series Review

The movie centers on Miki, an office worker, and the chaotic nature of her love life, which extends beyond her boyfriend, Ryosuke, to her married college professor, Tanaka. The plot introduces further complexity when Ryosuke is also unfaithful with another woman, Chihiro, who has her own boyfriend. The narrative focuses on the intense personal drama resulting from this 'love square' of infidelity and the subsequent crisis when Miki and Chihiro both become pregnant. The story is a mature, secular drama focused on the emotional and physical consequences of these highly dysfunctional relationships, without injecting broader political or social commentary. The conflict is entirely personal, revolving around the paternity and future of the unborn children, and the emotional wreckage of the main characters' choices.

Categorical Breakdown

Identity Politics1/10

The film’s focus is entirely on a personal drama involving infidelity and an unplanned pregnancy crisis. The characters are judged by their actions, not their immutable characteristics. The narrative makes no attempt to vilify any race or lecture on privilege or systemic oppression.

Oikophobia1/10

The movie is a domestic Japanese drama focused on individual relationships and morality. It does not engage in criticism of Western civilization, its institutions, or its ancestors. The plot's critique is limited to the personal behavior of its characters.

Feminism3/10

The female leads are not depicted as flawless 'Girl Boss' figures; Miki and Chihiro are deeply flawed and make ethically poor choices, alongside their male counterparts. The central crisis involves two pregnancies, placing a consequence of gendered reality at the core of the drama, which counters an explicit anti-natalist message, but the highly non-traditional and cheating relationships do not align with complementarianism.

LGBTQ+1/10

The entire plot revolves around heterosexual relationships and the direct, biological consequence of those pairings (unplanned pregnancy). The narrative does not center alternative sexualities, deconstruct the nuclear family as an ideological project, or contain any form of gender theory lecturing.

Anti-Theism1/10

The movie is a purely secular romantic drama. There is no presence of traditional religion and therefore no hostility toward it. The morality is shown to be subjective based on the characters’ actions, but the story does not contain explicit anti-theistic lecturing or frame religious characters as villains or bigots.