The Yakuza Boss's Beloved (2025)

The Yakuza was not mafiaing enough.

Instead of making the female lead less bland as the drama progressed, they decided to make the drama itself more bland to match her vibe. Why? No one knows.

If you want to watch it for mafia romance? Don’t bother. Bad guy turned good for female lead? Don’t bother. High stakes and thrills? Don’t bother. I feel like what the show initially presents and what it actually delivers is completely different.

The mafia plot, even though central to the story, somehow barely exists and feels like it lacks impact. It’s the “good mafia” if you know what I mean. I did enjoy how puppy-like Odagiri Ren was towards the female lead, but when faced with danger and trash people, I wish he was more… mafia like. Otherwise, why is the yakuza even part of the plot?

I enjoyed Sugawara Makoto as a character at first, because I expected well delivered character development. And no, I don’t need her to become a confident extrovert, but girl needs to grow a backbone and learn some assertive skills. At the end of the day, she always had to be saved and could not deal with anything alone.

While the chemistry between them was great, it was the best when they were not kissing. Yet again - my man you are almost 40, playing a character who is probably in his mid 30’ - what is that fish kiss? What is this k-bl from the early 2010s? He is supposed to be madly in love with her, so why does it feel like they don’t really want to kiss each other?

Performances were decent. I think it’s hard for me to judge since for me the characters were weirdly written - a bit too juvenile for the age and circumstances they were in.

At the end of the day, the Yakuza aspect ruined the experience for me, because I kept expecting something else, something more. If it was just an office show with forced co-habitation, I’d probably rate it higher. Adjust your expectations and it might actually be a decent watch.

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Everything but a Yakuza romance!

I dived into this as a Yakuza romance enthusiast, expecting the angst and romance to have me swooning. But what I got was a watered-down hotchpotch family drama without the thrill.

Just after finishing "Lover's Revenge" and this drama, I realized that the FL, Konno Ayaka, chose two dramas with the SAME timid, lovely, easy to trample with and "mommy issues" personality in the same year. Felt like her character was teleported from the previous drama to this, no change, same old "help me" puppy eyes with "this world can't have another innocent person like me" face.

The storyline was mid, acting was okay, side characters are nonexistent in a way that they don't intrigue you at all, just some cartoons popping up here and there. The Yakuza ML was more of a office worker than a leader so won't be seeing him fighting, but some occasional glare fights and mostly (99.999%) being diabetic sweet to the FL.

This was a Yakuza romance without the Yakuza part. It means, you ordered chicken soup without the chicken, but it was still okay as it "got the flavor", so you ended up finishing the bowl. But you will definitely not order this again.

Personally I wouldn't recommend, but do check it out if you are really interested as everyone got different tastes. If you don't like this, just want to let you know, you've been warned.

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