CriticalCritic

It was an alright watch, but it felt very surface-level and was obviously lacking in nuance. When the drama started, I was actually surprised that it seemed genuinely critical of the industry, but that quickly fell by the wayside, just like Fumi’s resolve and sense of self. She was such a wishy-washy character who really could have benefited from better writing — and by that, I mean having at least one woman on the writing team.
It really is one of the downsides of watching Japanese film/TV, because you just know that a female-led drama is rarely going to reach its full potential, especially when it tackles complex topics like plastic surgery and self-identity.
The worst example of this was the voice actress episode. What is it with Japan and always turning female friendships against each other in the worst possible ways? They’re constantly portrayed as jealous and scheming behind the scenes, and this time they even threw paid sugar-daddy sexual assault into the mix for good measure.

Fumi not making any distinction between corrective/reconstructive and cosmetic surgery when asking Rin to fix her face, and then going on to open her own clinic at the end of the drama, really tells you all you need to know about how uncritical this drama ultimately is towards the industry and harmful beauty standards. She even got that lovely feminine makeover that always seems to happen to this type of character in Japanese dramas.

The character Rin was probably the biggest disappointment of the series. They could have done so much more with her, and I would have loved to see more interactions between her and her girlfriend. The writers could have really teased out a side of Rin that we wouldn’t have seen otherwise, making her feel more human and giving the character some much-needed duality.
I did like the way the relationship was written, it showed that Rin genuinely had a loving, understanding girlfriend and a home to return to, which made her feel much more human. But like I said, they could have done so much more with it, especially by fleshing out the girlfriend as a character in her own right. It would have been the perfect way to give us another side of Rin and actually make the audience truly root for her.

So yeah... great premise in terms of story and characters, but unfortunately the drama slowly started to collapse under the weight of its own poor writing and its reluctance to truly delve into the societal effects of plastic surgery and beauty standards. It constantly hints at having something deeper to say, only to back away from it when things get interesting. There was so much potential here to explore identity, femininity, the pressure to conform, and the way the beauty industry shapes how women see themselves and each other, but most of it remained frustratingly surface-level because the critique was shallow and hollow.

And speaking of plastic surgery... Naka Riisa’s performance could have been so much better without all the Botox. She looked visibly strained in some of the more emotionally demanding scenes, and for the rest of the series, her facial expressions barely changed. It made the whole thing feel unintentionally on-the-nose and, frankly, a little ironic.