Popular Example: The 2019 film It’s Not That I Can’t Marry, I Don’t Marry touches on this, but the classic dorama Watashi no Uchi ni wa Nanimo Nai (There is Nothing in My House) explicitly shows how a mertua turning a daughter-in-law into a maid kills the romantic spark. The husband, bound by oyakō kō , watches silently. The message is clear: In the battle of "Jepang mertua vs relationships," the mertua wins unless the couple flees geographically.
Unlike the relatively relaxed mertua culture found in some parts of Southeast Asia where the wife often retains autonomy, the post-war Japanese model placed the yome at the absolute bottom of the household totem pole. The Jepang mertua was expected to:
Where the mertua is actually the wife’s ally against the cheating husband. The "Ghost" Trope: Where the mother-in-law is dead, and her memory haunts the relationship more than she ever could alive. The "Reborn" Trope: In Isekai romance manga, the female lead is often reincarnated into a period drama specifically to avoid the dreaded Jepang mertua by either killing her with kindness or exposing her fraud early.