Many people say that we should experience as much as we can in our twenties, whether it be successful or not. But young people apply this concept only to job seeking, not to the most important thing in our life. Even though you have a good job, honor and a lot of money, you can’t fill an empty heart. The primary thing in our life is love. Love is so powerful that it exists even during a war. We should experience both the pain and the fire of love, but these days young men don’t love on the pretext of a time shortage, financial matters, finding jobs, and so on. The lack of confidence in their appearance is probably the most miserable reason among them. Everyone wants to hide at least one part of his or her appearance. Especially, as the expression “Dieting is not over until we die” shows, women feel stress about being fat. This 126th issue will introduce a British drama, ‘My Mad Fat Diary’ which airs its season 3 in 2015. The main character of this drama has a serious appearance complex; she feels such disgust with her fat body that she injures herself and is confined to a psychiatric hospital. In the end she overcomes her complex with dignity through love and friendship, not by dieting or plastic surgery. Now, let’s go into the painful but honest diary.
  The story of ‘My Mad Fat Diary’ starts at the psychiatric hospital, located in Lincolnshire in 1996. Rae is being consulted at the hospital, holding a diary with no confidence in herself. She writes everything down, from what she experiences to the thoughts and feelings that she can’t tell anybody. Even erotic thoughts! Rae has been confined to this psychiatric hospital for four months and is finally discharged. On her way home, she meets her best friend Chloe and she gets to know her other friends Pin, Arch, Chop and Izzy. With excellent taste in music and witty speech, she easily comes to be one of them and begins to like Arch. Before long, she fantasizes about kissing Arch but she gets shocked when she finds out that Arch, who is actually gay, forces himself to change his behavior. Arch says, “You know how hard it is that you have a secret you can’t tell anyone”, and Rae empathizes deeply and understands him so they become special friends. Meanwhile, Chloe is Rae’s dearest friend but she always thinks she is Chloe’s shadow, so she envies her all the time. Then one day, the boys go to see a famous performance and only Rae is invited to join them. She feels happy, thinking that she has finally beaten Chloe this once, but when she asks Chop why he selected her and not Chloe or Izzy, she loses confidence again when Chop answers, “You are not a girl, you are a man.” One day, when Rae is being harassed by a gang, Pin comes and rescues her. After the incident, Rae falls in love with Pin. Finally, everybody gathers and starts for the performance, when Chloe comes out to meet them. Chloe goes to the hospital for an artificial abortion surgery on that day. On the way to the concert hall, Rae takes Chloe and spends time with her, looking back on their friendship. After a while, as Rae’s love for Pin grows greater, she hears that Chloe likes Pin. From then on, her envy for Chloe who gains the attention of the boys all the time, is growing. She has gained confidence in herself through Pin’s attention toward her, but when she watches Chloe and Pin kiss, she thinks Pin likes Chloe, too. She writes these feelings in her diary. Suddenly, she realizes that she has left the diary at the restaurant where Chloe was. She goes to the restaurant to pick up the diary but Chloe is so angry and throws away Rae’s belongings. Rae thinks that Chloe has looked at everything in the diary and that she can’t be associated with Chloe and the other friends any more. Rae confesses her illness to everybody on the day when her mother remarries Karim. After her confession, while talking with Chloe she realizes that Chloe didn’t see her diary. She just saw a note that her best friend Rae also liked Pin, so she was angry. Chloe encourages love between Pin and Rae, and finally Rae accepts confession from Pin. In the last scene, Rae, being confident in herself, says she won’t keep her diary any longer. The drama ends with a doctor saying, “you are finished being treated,” which gives us a sense of expectation for the next season.
  ‘My Mad Fat Diary’ has only six episodes per season, but it is produced with such a solid and detailed composition that we can be easily immersed into it. In particular, famous pop music from the 1990s is used as the soundtrack and some special effects make Rae seem to write and draw on screen. I was fascinated by ‘My Mad Fat Diary’ and empathized with Rae’s sense of inferiority caused by envy and jealousy, and I wanted to encourage Rae who refuses love because of her low self-respect. Some Korean dramas describes a story of a fat and ugly heroine who succeeds in changing herself into a beauty. Unlike these dramas, Rae comes to recognize her value through friendships and love, which leads her to love herself. Now, there is opportunity for love all around us. I hope you don’t kick this opportunity, especially because of an appearance complex. If you love yourself and stop lowering yourself with your appearance complex, you will encounter more sweet and happy love.