Straight To Hell Episode 3 opens in 2005 where Kazuko and Minori discuss how marriage often limits women in a patriarchal society. Kazuko volunteers to cook Minori and Kawatani’s favorite dish, and begins to tell her life story, including her marriage to Mita in 1963.
Mita confesses to Kazuko that he is a virgin and thus begins their married life. However, Mita and his family put pressure on Kazuko to have a child. She offers to help him with the hotel business Mita left him and he tells her to forget it and start a family instead. Kazuko soon learns that the pressure is largely coming from her controlling mother-in-law.
She is refused permission to work but can care for the family’s chickens. The routine is grueling and she gets caught up in it as it goes. One night, she tries to call Hisao at the Ginza club, but her mother-in-law makes her go back to bed, where Mita is waiting.
Things go downhill when Kazuko overhears the maids making fun of her, saying she’s only tolerated until she produces an heir. They characterize her as nothing more than a “chicken” to lay eggs for the family. In a fury, Kazuko fires the maids, kills the chickens, makes a final meal, and leaves Mita, heading back to her hometown.
Minori admires Kazuko’s courage in 2005, and Kazuko inspires Minori to fight for her rights by becoming a bestselling writer. Inspired, Minori decides to fight back against her ex-husband trying to halt her writing career.
Then Kazuko reflects on the rapid industrial growth of Tokyo during the 1964 Olympics. A week after the marriage, leaving Mita, she decides to open a new club in Ginza to take advantage of the influx of visitors.
Kazuko, however, brushes off fortune-telling as a scam, which strains her relationship with her mother Mine. Mine later apologizes but continues to worry about her daughter’s future.
Kazuko’s business journey has not been without its challenges. She visits Isezaki, a local gangster who wants to extort protection money, but his uncle intervenes and avoids further trouble. Determined, Kazuko successfully launches two more clubs and juggles managing all three.
Then a new figure appears in her life: Sudo, a real estate businessman. He ignores her at first, but Kazuko becomes fascinated and even jealous of his attention to other women. Finally Sudo asks to borrow 500,000 yen. Himao warns her, but Kazuko lends him the money after he confesses that he’d been avoiding her because he’d been intimidated by her and actually attracted to her.
The episode closes with Kazuko risking her money and her feelings in the hope that this is the start of a romantic relationship.
Episode Breakdown
Notably, Kazuko’s brazen challenge to Mita and his family is in episode 3. She doesn’t take away their power entirely, but her actions, most notably killing the hens, symbolically strike at her mother-in-law’s pride and control.
It’s frustrating to see Mita try to suppress Kazuko’s independence, especially because it was her ambition that brought him to her in the first place. The fact that she leaves the marriage so quickly shows how strong she is and how she will not conform to societal expectations.
My concern for Kazuko’s future introduces an emotional element, implying a clash of values across the generations. It also brings up questions of Kazuko being affected by her mother’s beliefs later in life.
Sudo’s arrival adds an element of intrigue, but what is his motive? Whether he returns the money or turns out to be duplicitous will probably play a large part in future episodes.
