If the universe miraculously gave you a chance to undo your mistakes, would you have done something differently? On the night he lost his job and his wife decided to file a divorce, Hong Dae Young wished he could turn back the time. After a successful free-throw shot, he found himself 18 again.
18 Again is a 2020 romantic-comedy drama that shows us no matter how minimal we think our decision is, it has huge effects on our future, us, the people we love, and strangers we never would have thought we’d be connected with.
Romantic comedy has always been my go-to genre in whatever forms of entertainment, film, TV shows, manga, novels, etc. When I looked up 18 Again while preparing my materials at work sometime last 2021, I thought this was going to be an epic show, and I was correct.
I watched it 3 times. The first 2 times were for work. I had the honour of managing the Filipino dubbed version of this show for a streaming platform in the Philippines, so I had to go through all the episodes again and again. The third one, happened last month when I decided to watch it for leisure. Consuming every frame as slowly as possible.
Regardless of how fast I watched this, I always cry, which is kind of odd when you think about it. I came to watch a romantic comedy to cry and feel kilig, why did I cry for 16 episodes straight? What is going on?
There is a lot to unpack in this 16-episode series, but for this article, I focused on the main areas that made a huge impact on me.
Love
What is love? We’ve probably learned tons about this while listening to songs, watching films, listening to podcasts, and listening to that one friend who knows all the gossip at work.
In 18 Again, I learned that despite love having different levels depending on who you show it with, it always comes down to the simplest form of being and giving your best to whoever you’re sending love to.
Some people show their love in extravagant gestures like singing them their favorite song publicly or putting up a show dressed up as their favorite superhero. Some silently walk by your side until you’ve arrived home or leave you a gift on your table with a sweet handwritten note.
These are the usual love languages we know of, but other manifestations of love shows quite negatively, and unfortunately, most of them happen at home with our closest family members.
For sure most of us can identify with the screaming reprimands we hear from our parents when we go home late or we do something their beliefs don’t align with. They always say that they do that because they love us, but we usually wonder “Why does it feel painful? Why do I feel angered by it? Is this love?” In return, we show the same actions we received.
No matter how simple people make it, showing love becomes complicated depending on how we learned to show it.
If the love we have was shown negatively, the love we would’ve received gets pushed back and would probably manifest when things come to an end.
Single Parenthood & Divorce
There has always been a stigma surrounding single parenthood and divorced parents. From where I’m from, women who raise children on their own are often seen as, for a lack of a better term, whores. They’d always blame women for being too vulnerable and letting someone do that to them.
From where I am as well, divorce is very much frowned upon. We’re a very religious nation, and getting separated with your husband is very much frowned upon. I understand how people say that before you get into marriage, you have got to know them very well beforehand, but in my opinion, I think living with them before marriage is a vital part of that.
As a human being, I know for sure that I do a lot of things alone that I don’t do when I’m with other people. Marriage isn’t just casual dates on a weekend, and movie nights on Friday. It’s building a home together, bringing families together. If you marry a person, you are marrying the person’s habits and attitude, the person’s best and worst. You’d all get to learn that if you spent a lot more time with them, but live-in situations are also viewed negatively here.
Discussions should be made when things get complicated, but if it gets draining physically, mentally, or emotionally, maybe the best thing to do is pour your energy somewhere else. No matter how overused this phrase is, life really is too short to keep fixing things that can’t be fixed, and society has to learn this too.
Regrets & Chances
We’ve all done things we wished we didn’t. What reasons might have caused it? We‘ve might have forgotten already but for us, it lasted way too long than we would have thought when we decided to do it.
The series revolves around the premise that we could get another chance at life but the world doesn’t seem to allow it. What society has deemed “perfect” makes it navigating life much easier. Despite what happened to you or what the circumstances are right now, they judge you based on what they think is a perfect fit.
We really can’t blame anyone or anything for what happened to us. We should just take responsibility and do our best for the remaining days of our lives. Chances don’t end when our 20s do. It doesn’t end when a marriage contract has been signed, or when children are born. Wherever we are in life, we always have a chance to make our days great.
Note: After writing this piece, I just realised, I was so deep into reflecting on reality that I haven’t cited any scenes from the series. Trust me when I say the series is so good that it makes you think about life so much that you sometimes forget this is just a series (if that makes sense). If you ever decide to watch it, enjoy!
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