Your Divorce Is Served! Episode 1

Detecting Domestic Delights

THIS IS WHAT I NEED!!!

🩷

This is my first time watching a Japanese BL (and a Japanese drama) and I am loving what they are delivering. Established relationships is my favorite trope and mystery is one of my favorite genres, so the combination of both is amazing.

Starting off with plot, I like that they split the plot into two storylines: the divorce cases plotline and the main couple plotline. With the story of the divorce cases, it is a stand-alone plot, meaning a viewer do not have to watch all of the previous or future episodes of a series to understand the episode they are currently watching. With this show, a person only needs to watch this episode and the next one to understand the full storyline of the divorce case. This is helpful for the general public to easily get in & get out for a show. The main couple's story is the one where a person needs to watch all of the episodes in order to understand fully, but it is pretty simple to catch on.

For this episode, it slowly introduces us to the main characters' lives and shows us what their relationship's dynamic & routine is typically like, what a typical divorce case looks like, and what lengths do they typically go through for their clients. They set up a strong foundation, so I am excited to see them play with what they set up in future episodes.

As for the characters, it is giving black cat x golden retriever vibes and I love it! Hajime (Goki) has a cold, strict demeanor at work (most likely to mask his shyness & awkwardness), but he is so soft & lazy (in a good way) when with his boyfriend. It is cute that everyone in his life has a very bright personality. Kai (Rintaro) is very energetic & youthful, yet he knows when to be calm when he needs to be. They are complete opposites, yet they work really well together as they share the same determination in helping people. Seeing their domestic, healthy relationship is such a contrast to seeing the the toxicity of the couples in the divorce cases' storyline. I wonder if we will get to know their backstory later on and why Hajime hates being called "sensei" & his thing with stones. If not, I am taking Love Is A Poison (another Japanese BL) as their origin story in my head canon since their plots line up lol.

Moving on to technical things, the screenwriting & the directing are great. Even though each episode is only around 20 minutes long, it is very well-paced and they made such efficient use of the short time duration. The editing & camerawork were also good. I love the difference in video quality between this show and the talk show the characters were watching. It makes the viewing experience more immersive. I also really like the music's timing & usage as it does not overpower scenes and was used to highlight scenes. Two tiny complaints that I have (which I am not going to reflect in my score since they are so minor) are the flashbacks & the abrupt editing. When they do flashbacks or visual recalls of previous scenes, I wish they have a sound effect or a visual filter that quickly indicates that this is the past. As for the abrupt editing, I felt that the way they edit few scenes is sudden by the way they quickly move onto the next scenes like the scene of Mao (Masumi) walking past the office's sign. They could make the scene more extended to give a more mysterious impact of who is this person because due to that shot being so short, I thought the person walking was Azusa (Anna) since they are both wearing blue and she was previously walking in the shot before. Another abrupt ending of a scene was the one with Kai & Hajime cuddling in bed since it would be better if they moved onto the next scene when they stopped moving rather than moving on when the characters are still in motion. Other than that, everything else was great.

When I do ratings, I do not let the acting influence my score for the first 3 to 4 episodes since I need to get used to how the characters normally express their feelings. I also decided to not review Anna's (Azusa) acting since I am not used to the overexaggerated acting that is typically seen in Japanese dramas (I do not know if that is good overexaggerated acting or bad overexaggerated acting), so it would not be fair of me to rate this acting style that is very common in Japan. However, I will still comment on everyone else's acting. I have nothing bad to say about the acting quality. Everyone (including Azusa) seemed very natural. The dynamics between the characters are great & sweet. Goki & Rintaro (Hajime & Kai) gives off such great chemistry. I particularly love the scariness of Masahiro (Shohei) with the kitchen scene, the desperation of Mao (Masumi) with her talk to Hajime at the end, and the determination of Hajime (Goki) with his speech. I really love that speech as it gives off such anime vibes, but it does not look cringy at all seeing that type of scene in live-action. Also, when Mao thanked him, Hajime going back to reality and immediately becoming shy was so cute.

Favorite Scene: Hajime & Kai's nighttime routine scene (so domestic!!!) and Hajime's speech to Mao (great delivery)

Favorite Character: Hajime & Kai (of course lol) (I will only include the favorite character segment in my reviews in the first & last episode or whenever I decided to add or remove a character)

As for the next episode, I do hope that they get more evidence as I did not expect Masahiro to be so good at knowing whenever someone is onto him. I noticed that each divorce case takes up two episodes, so here are my little predictions for what the future episodes are going to be about:
Episodes 1 & 2: Typical divorce case with more intensity
Episodes 3 & 4: Seems like a typical divorce case, but with a twist to it
Episodes 5 & 6: Case that is very similar to Hajime & Kai's story like they will be reminded of their personal lives (it will probably happen in these two episodes or episodes 7 & 8)
Episodes 7 & 8: Case that is very sad & might have a similar mood/emotion to Hajime & Kai's story like the main conflict will probably happen here (it will probably happen in these two episodes or episodes 5 & 6)
Episodes 9 & 10: Hajime & Kai's story (not saying they are going to break up, but these two episodes will most likely focus on them or their families)

I have seen dramas with these types of structure before, so my predictions are based on that knowledge.

I gave this episode a 10 because I only have very minor things to complain about and everything was great & what I wanted.

See you in the next episode!

P.S. The ending song ("MXMM" by aoen) is so good. I was listening to it all day yesterday. It gives us a cute & refreshing sound, yet with some powerful parts. The lyrics are also sweet as it talks about having a crush on someone and you think it is a one-sided thing. Despite all of that, the love for this person is at a maximum.

P.S.S. I saw some people debating whether this is a BL or not. I guess it really depends on each person' definition since some define a show as a BL if the main couple is a BL couple and others define a show as a BL if the main storyline is a BL storyline. To me, I would call it a BL since I have a feeling that the plotline with Hajime & Kai will become more significant as more episodes get released.

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