I just finished episode 2 and I have to say I was really disappointed by the comedic tone the show has, even though…
I have finished episode 29. It picks up regarding a more serious atmosphere around episode 20. Afterwards it gets much better and is much more engaging and volatile especially post episode 25 which changes a lot plotwise . The beginning was rather weak and episode 16-18 with the Gempei War were the worst episodes so far (episode 16 being the worst episode of the show so far due how badly it ended a plotline).
Right now it has vastly improved after the Gempei War for example the Soga brothers and Noriyori‘s story were decent. It‘s good that Yoritomo will apparently be gone soon so that there is focus on the events post Yoritomo.
I am glad that it's moving along fast. I hope that Yoritomo is removed soon in the next episodes so that we can move on quickly.
Them already using Kaneko Daichi as Yoriie and Sakaguchi Kentaro as Yasutoki when the Soga brothers incident takes place should have been avoided (in reality Yoriie and Yasutoki were 10 years old at this point).
As for Yoshitoki's wife Hime no Mae the portrayal of her and Yoshitoki so far is not like described in the Azuma Kagami. In reality he chased after her for one year bombarding her with letters. In Kamakura dono he fictionally chased after aunt Yae for such a long time that they apparently didn't want to give the same plot to Hime no Mae.
After episode 18 I have to say it's the worst Heian drama so far.
Battle of Awazu butchered. No interactions between Kiso Yoshinaka and Imai Kanehira and no death scenes (in particular, Kanehira's suicide).
Ohime's fiancee Yoshitaka was cast way too old to downplay that Yoritomo orders the death of a child. In the Yoshitsune Taiga Yoshitaka was cast with a 12 year old actor.
Dan no Ura in episode 18 was also butchered. While you saw the Taira women and child emperor Antoku drowning the male Taira were a non factor. In particular Taira no Tomomori the de facto leader should have gotten interactions and his suicide scene.
I am only still watching since the events post Yoritomo's death and rise of the Hojo are rarely depicted (only Kusa Moeru focused on this).
If you are watching this for the Gempei War you will be disappointed, totally.
All in all rather watch the Taiga Yoshitsune, Kusa Moeru and Taira no Kiyomori instead.
His portrayal of Kiso Yoshinaka in Kamakura dono was bad. They casted Imai Kanehira as a recurring character but completely ruined their ending scenes in Awazu which are the best scenes from the Heike Monogatari. Even in the Taiga Yoshitsune Ozawa Yukiyoshi was a more decent Yoshinaka since the scenes at Awazu were at least decently done.
In episode 16 the end of Kiso Yoshinaka and Imai Kanehira was so badly depicted, it is the most favorite scene of the Heike Monogatari for a reason since it’s touching and great. Whose idea was it to not show anything and just switch to a scene of Ohime and her fiancee Yoshitaka. This made me super angry 😡.
is this not updated because totally different cast from an article I just saw acting alongside jun such as alice…
The characters on this page (Matsumoto/Ieyasu being the lead, Hiroshi Abe as Takeda Shingen, Arimura Kasumi as Sena, Okada Junichi as Nobunaga, Mansai Nomura as Imagawa Yoshimoto, Tsuyoshi Muro as Hideyoshi) are the six primary characters.
The new characters are the newly announced support cast mostly vasalls of Ieyasu like Ii Naomasa, Hattori Hanzo, Honda Tadakatsu.
Hirose Alice is Ieyasu's sidewife Oai/Saigo no Tsubone and the mother of Ieyasu's son Hidetada.
Arimura Kasumi is the main female lead Sena/Tsukiyama dono who married Ieyasu when Ieyasu was still a minor. The reason why she is the female lead is since the other main characters beside Ieyasu (Sena, Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, Yoshimoto, Shingen) are obstacles in Ieyasu's way to become Japan's most famous shogun.
Since episode 10 has aired now so far my impression:
Good: Most of the Hojo family is well casted: Tokimasa's actor is perfect since he can become ruthless from one moment to the next perfectly, Miyazawa Rie is perfect as the stepmother Maki no Kata. I am also warming up to Koike Eiko as Masako.
Many likeable sidecharacters: Wada Yoshimori, Miura Yoshimura, Hatakeyama Shigetada, Awa the sister of Yoshitoki and Masako etc.
A more realistic portrayal of Yoshitsune. He will even have more wives than Shizuka for once.
We will see all the court machinations since even Sanetomo's story will be entirely shown as announced.
Characters that are often neglected will get screentime: Two examples. Imai Kanehira who is super important for the Kiso storyline and crucial to understand Yoshinaka's character. I think Yoshinaka is only interesting when Kanehira is around. Sato Gozen who is often ignored in favour of pushing Shizuka despite Yoshitsune having more wives than Shizuka (Warabihime, Minazuruhime, Sato Gozen)
The bad: I normally like Oguri Shun but Yoshitoki is super boring so far. Hope he improves when he becomes more important at court. I am not content with the Hime no Mae cast since it should have been a a-list young actress to get Yoshitoki out of the boring plotlines with aunt Yae.
Yui as Yaehime, Yoshitoki's aunt. I dislike her interactions with Yoshitoki, they are uncomfortable. I have nothing against the historical Yae but this is a typical badly written unnecessary OC female Taiga character (along with Kiri from Sanadamaru and Koma from Kirin ga Kuru.). In Sanadamaru Otani Yoshitsugu's daughter should have been the heroine and in Kirin ga Kuru Mitsuhide's wife Hiroko. In Kamakura dono it should have been Masako as a family heroine.
Mitani as I mentioned in my reviews for Sanadamaru already had trouble with female characters which is also mentioned by Japanese reviews about Sanadamaru and Kamakura dono.
Many people on twitter actually thought that Hotta would be the wife of Yasutoki (Sakaguchi Kentaro) instead of Yoshitoki/Oguri.
In real life Yoshitoki was 29/30 when chasing after Hime no Mae (age unknown likely late teens to mid 20s and his son Yasutoki was 9/10 years old at this point.
In Sanadamaru Matsuoka Mayu played Otani Yoshitsugu's daughter from 13 to adult woman with young children who was the wife of Sanada Yukimura (close to 30 when they married) played by Sakai Masato (in his 40s). While the writing in Sanadamaru wasn't good or accurate historically she did a good transformation lookwise from childbride to adult woman with children. Matsuoka Mayu has good acting chops.
Hotta could have been a fitting Wakasa no Tsubone (wife of Yoritomo's oldest son Yoriie and relative of Hime no Mae).
I hope that Shizuka's cast will be great since Yoshitsune and Benkei are fitting lookwise.
I would have hoped for Matsuoka Mayu as Hime no Mae since Hime no Mae is described as a very diginfied character who rejected Yoshitoki for one year until marrying him.
Hotta Mayu from what I have known is rather teen centered regarding her projects so far (not one historical from what I have seen).
However Shizuka could still be played by someone like Nagano Mei, Matsuoka Mayu (Mayu was also sometimes said to be a possible Shizuka). Kawaguchi Haruna would be good as well but she was only recently on Kirin as Kicho.
Well curious how the chemistry between Oguri and Hotta will be. With Matsuoka I could have imagined Hime no Mae's plotline more.
Yeah, I really hope they don't do anything about a possible loveline between Yae and Yoshitoki, since historically…
Both Yoshitoki's first girlfriend as well as Yoshitoki's other sister do have the title Awa no Tsubone in history.
Yoshitoki's other sister will marry Ano Zenjo the brother of Yoshitsune. She acted as a wetnurse for Sanetomo and her husband was ordered to be executed by Yoriie, the older son of Yoritomo and Masako. Yoriie also wanted to executed her but Masako didn't allow this.
As for Yae episode 5 hinted that she will have an affair with Yoritomo again soon since they reunited romantically and she left Ema Jiro.
Yoshitoki will likely fear for her safety since Yasutoki's birth will be at the same time Masako lashes out against another mistress of Yoritomo (Kame no Mae).
I think they will keep Yae around for raising Yasutoki only. The love interest of Yoshitoki will then be Hime no Mae just like in Azuma Kagami.
Yeah, I really hope they don't do anything about a possible loveline between Yae and Yoshitoki, since historically…
I would prefer Nagano Mei as Shizuka as well since she is a good actress and lookwise resembles Shizuka's character more.
Mayu as Hime no Mae could be good since I would love seeing her and Oguri Shun acting the romantic romcom like subplot between Yoshitoki and Hime no Mae from the book Azuma Kagami that Kamakura dono is based on.
They should have just included a first girlfriend character who later isn't around anymore for Yasutoki's mother. I think they can only use Yae as Yasutoki's mother right now since there is too little time to include someone else.
In Kusa Moeru Yasutoki by the way also wasn't Yoshitoki's son. Yoshitoki had a fictional first girlfriend there called Akane and Yoritomo one night slipped into Akane's room... Then she gives birth to Yasutoki. Maybe this could be a reference to Kusa Moeru.
According to Interviews Kame no Mae, Yoritomo's mistress will see both Masako and Yae as rivals. Masako will see both Kame no Mae and Yae as a danger to her marriage. Thus Yae and Yoritomo doesn't seem to be over yet. Maybe this will also be connected to Masako's reaction when she finds out about Kame no Mae and Yoshitoki if Yae really becomes involved with Yoritomo again just is extremly worried that Yae will be targeted by Masako next.
The real Hojo were ruthless and would have certainly only given positions to family members only. Yasutoki was specifically chosen since 1. He was the oldest. 2. Hime no Mae's sons Tomotoki and Shigetoki did get posts but their mother was a Hiki clan member a clan that was so influential at court that the Hojos destroyed this clan.
The son of Iga no Kata was out of question for the Hojo since the Iga clan was powerhungry. To avoid Iga no Kata pushing her son to the front Masako suggested that Yasutoki is the heir and banished the Iga clan.
Yeah, I really hope they don't do anything about a possible loveline between Yae and Yoshitoki, since historically…
Tsuchiya Tao along with Nagano Mei is rumored to be a possible actress for Shizuka, Yoshitsune's dancer girlfriend.
Both Tao and Mei have worked with Suda Masaki before and Tao is experienced with dance.
Yoshitoki's wife Hime no Mae (the one he bombarded with love letters) is heavily theorized to be played by Matsuoka Mayu since Mayu matches the description of this wife a lot. Mayu also has often worked with Mitani and Oizumi (Hime no Mae was Yoritomo's employee before becoming Yoshitoki's wife). Mayu despite the Netflix series about Geishas is also pretty free.
The last wife Iga no Kata will join around October/November thus for her there is still a lot of time. Iga no Kata is usually depicted as evil thus I except someone who can play evil characters.
The thing is that Yae makes it very unlikely that Yasutoki, the oldest son of Yoshitoki will be Yoshitoki's son on the show. Yasutoki was born by a non entity woman when Yoshitoki was 20 and this woman (who just has a title Awa no Tsubone is never mentioned again).
My theory is that since Yoritomo will cheat on Masako soon with Kame no Mae (around 1182) that he will also sleep with his ex Yae again. Yae gets pregnant again and Yoshitoki covers this up by pretending that Yasutoki is his son by an unknown woman (Yae's first son by Yoritomo called Sentsurumaru was killed by her father Ito Sukechika).
So far (first 3 episodes) it's ok but Masako is such a strong and important character that they should have chosen a actress with really good acting chops (Koike Eiko is ok but far away from Iwashita Shima who played Masako in Kusa Moeru). With Oizumi I hope that since he has played evil characters before that he can play Yoritomo as ruthless as possible.
Yoshitoki is at the moment rather bossed around since at this point the historical Yoshitoki was a teen and he only later gets influence at Yoritomo's court and after Yoritomo's death.
Worst part to me in my opinion so far is Yui as Yae. The story of the historical Yae is over in episode 3 (impregnated by Yoritomo, her child then ordered to be killed by her own father Ito Sukechika, Yoritomo moves on to Masako and Yae is remarried to Ema Jiro). My problem is shipping her with Yoshitoki. She is Yoshitoki's aunt (Yoshitoki is Ito Sukechika's grandson, Yae is Ito Sukechika's daughter, Yoshitoki's mother was Yae's sister).
Yoshitoki had three significant wives: The mother of his heir Yasutoki. This woman is largerly unknown but Yasutoki was his oldest son who was born when he was 20 years old.
Hime no Mae. Hiki Tomomune's daughter. She was an employee of Yoritomo. Yoshitoki fell head over heals for her when he was 29/30 and bombarded her with love letters for over a year. Yoritomo played wingman and Hime no Mae and Yoshitoki married. They had two son's. After Yoritomo died the Hojo turned against the Hiki clan due to their influence on Yoritomo's son Yoriie (which resulted in the destruction of the Hiki clan) and Yoshitoki divorced Hime no Mae.
Then he married Iga no Kata in a political marriage. The Iga clan were a plotting clan and tried to push Iga no Kata's son with Yoshitoki above all his other sons which is why Iga no Kata did not get along with Yoshitoki's sister Masako. It is also rumored that Iga no Kata poisoned Yoshitoki. After his death the Iga family were banished by Masako.
Hime no Mae and Iga no Kata are not announced yet which is why I worry much about their casting and that their storylines are rushed and not well written like Otani Yoshitsugu's daughter in Sanadamaru (in history a very interesting character who should have been Yukimura's heroine but the script gave her the short end of the stick and added her way too late).
I don't like love triangles in general since it's always obvious who the main character will choose and the other romantic option is just drawn into this to set up drama (in Western books see Jacob from Twilight or Orion from the Starcrossed triology). In Asian dramas it's the same since the second love interest often just gets some consolation at the end and the romantic interactions with the main lead are pretty much pointless.
One of the more interesting love triangles was the one of the Peach Girl manga since both guys could have worked with Momo. The movie version interestingly avoided much of the triangle since it made the guy she ends up with the male lead.
Matsuoka Mayu. She was a seiyuu in a Pokemon movie, in A Silent Voice, in the Japanese dub of Disney's Cars and voices the heroine in the upcoming movie Birthday Wonderland.
Takahata Mitsuki has worked as a seiyuu as well. For example she was the voice of Lily James in the Japanese dub of Cinderella.
It picks up regarding a more serious atmosphere around episode 20. Afterwards it gets much better and is much more engaging and volatile especially post episode 25 which changes a lot plotwise . The beginning was rather weak and episode 16-18 with the Gempei War were the worst episodes so far (episode 16 being the worst episode of the show so far due how badly it ended a plotline).
Them already using Kaneko Daichi as Yoriie and Sakaguchi Kentaro as Yasutoki when the Soga brothers incident takes place should have been avoided (in reality Yoriie and Yasutoki were 10 years old at this point).
As for Yoshitoki's wife Hime no Mae the portrayal of her and Yoshitoki so far is not like described in the Azuma Kagami. In reality he chased after her for one year bombarding her with letters.
In Kamakura dono he fictionally chased after aunt Yae for such a long time that they apparently didn't want to give the same plot to Hime no Mae.
Battle of Awazu butchered. No interactions between Kiso Yoshinaka and Imai Kanehira and no death scenes (in particular, Kanehira's suicide).
Ohime's fiancee Yoshitaka was cast way too old to downplay that Yoritomo orders the death of a child. In the Yoshitsune Taiga Yoshitaka was cast with a 12 year old actor.
Dan no Ura in episode 18 was also butchered. While you saw the Taira women and child emperor Antoku drowning the male Taira were a non factor. In particular Taira no Tomomori the de facto leader should have gotten interactions and his suicide scene.
I am only still watching since the events post Yoritomo's death and rise of the Hojo are rarely depicted (only Kusa Moeru focused on this).
If you are watching this for the Gempei War you will be disappointed, totally.
All in all rather watch the Taiga Yoshitsune, Kusa Moeru and Taira no Kiyomori instead.
The new characters are the newly announced support cast mostly vasalls of Ieyasu like Ii Naomasa, Hattori Hanzo, Honda Tadakatsu.
Hirose Alice is Ieyasu's sidewife Oai/Saigo no Tsubone and the mother of Ieyasu's son Hidetada.
Arimura Kasumi is the main female lead Sena/Tsukiyama dono who married Ieyasu when Ieyasu was still a minor. The reason why she is the female lead is since the other main characters beside Ieyasu (Sena, Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, Yoshimoto, Shingen) are obstacles in Ieyasu's way to become Japan's most famous shogun.
Good:
Most of the Hojo family is well casted: Tokimasa's actor is perfect since he can become ruthless from one moment to the next perfectly, Miyazawa Rie is perfect as the stepmother Maki no Kata.
I am also warming up to Koike Eiko as Masako.
Many likeable sidecharacters: Wada Yoshimori, Miura Yoshimura, Hatakeyama Shigetada, Awa the sister of Yoshitoki and Masako etc.
A more realistic portrayal of Yoshitsune. He will even have more wives than Shizuka for once.
We will see all the court machinations since even Sanetomo's story will be entirely shown as announced.
Characters that are often neglected will get screentime:
Two examples.
Imai Kanehira who is super important for the Kiso storyline and crucial to understand Yoshinaka's character. I think Yoshinaka is only interesting when Kanehira is around.
Sato Gozen who is often ignored in favour of pushing Shizuka despite Yoshitsune having more wives than Shizuka (Warabihime, Minazuruhime, Sato Gozen)
The bad:
I normally like Oguri Shun but Yoshitoki is super boring so far. Hope he improves when he becomes more important at court.
I am not content with the Hime no Mae cast since it should have been a a-list young actress to get Yoshitoki out of the boring plotlines with aunt Yae.
Yui as Yaehime, Yoshitoki's aunt. I dislike her interactions with Yoshitoki, they are uncomfortable. I have nothing against the historical Yae but this is a typical badly written unnecessary OC female Taiga character (along with Kiri from Sanadamaru and Koma from Kirin ga Kuru.). In Sanadamaru Otani Yoshitsugu's daughter should have been the heroine and in Kirin ga Kuru Mitsuhide's wife Hiroko. In Kamakura dono it should have been Masako as a family heroine.
Mitani as I mentioned in my reviews for Sanadamaru already had trouble with female characters which is also mentioned by Japanese reviews about Sanadamaru and Kamakura dono.
Rare to see Sato Gozen depicted.
In real life Yoshitoki was 29/30 when chasing after Hime no Mae (age unknown likely late teens to mid 20s and his son Yasutoki was 9/10 years old at this point.
In Sanadamaru Matsuoka Mayu played Otani Yoshitsugu's daughter from 13 to adult woman with young children who was the wife of Sanada Yukimura (close to 30 when they married) played by Sakai Masato (in his 40s). While the writing in Sanadamaru wasn't good or accurate historically she did a good transformation lookwise from childbride to adult woman with children. Matsuoka Mayu has good acting chops.
Hotta could have been a fitting Wakasa no Tsubone (wife of Yoritomo's oldest son Yoriie and relative of Hime no Mae).
I hope that Shizuka's cast will be great since Yoshitsune and Benkei are fitting lookwise.
Hotta Mayu from what I have known is rather teen centered regarding her projects so far (not one historical from what I have seen).
However Shizuka could still be played by someone like Nagano Mei, Matsuoka Mayu (Mayu was also sometimes said to be a possible Shizuka). Kawaguchi Haruna would be good as well but she was only recently on Kirin as Kicho.
Well curious how the chemistry between Oguri and Hotta will be. With Matsuoka I could have imagined Hime no Mae's plotline more.
Sakaguchi Kentaro as Yasutoki.
Hotta Mayu as Hime no Mae (called Hina on the show).
Shizuka Gozen is still not announced.
Yoshitoki's other sister will marry Ano Zenjo the brother of Yoshitsune. She acted as a wetnurse for Sanetomo and her husband was ordered to be executed by Yoriie, the older son of Yoritomo and Masako. Yoriie also wanted to executed her but Masako didn't allow this.
As for Yae episode 5 hinted that she will have an affair with Yoritomo again soon since they reunited romantically and she left Ema Jiro.
Yoshitoki will likely fear for her safety since Yasutoki's birth will be at the same time Masako lashes out against another mistress of Yoritomo (Kame no Mae).
I think they will keep Yae around for raising Yasutoki only. The love interest of Yoshitoki will then be Hime no Mae just like in Azuma Kagami.
Mayu as Hime no Mae could be good since I would love seeing her and Oguri Shun acting the romantic romcom like subplot between Yoshitoki and Hime no Mae from the book Azuma Kagami that Kamakura dono is based on.
They should have just included a first girlfriend character who later isn't around anymore for Yasutoki's mother. I think they can only use Yae as Yasutoki's mother right now since there is too little time to include someone else.
In Kusa Moeru Yasutoki by the way also wasn't Yoshitoki's son. Yoshitoki had a fictional first girlfriend there called Akane and Yoritomo one night slipped into Akane's room... Then she gives birth to Yasutoki. Maybe this could be a reference to Kusa Moeru.
According to Interviews Kame no Mae, Yoritomo's mistress will see both Masako and Yae as rivals. Masako will see both Kame no Mae and Yae as a danger to her marriage.
Thus Yae and Yoritomo doesn't seem to be over yet.
Maybe this will also be connected to Masako's reaction when she finds out about Kame no Mae and Yoshitoki if Yae really becomes involved with Yoritomo again just is extremly worried that Yae will be targeted by Masako next.
The real Hojo were ruthless and would have certainly only given positions to family members only.
Yasutoki was specifically chosen since 1. He was the oldest. 2. Hime no Mae's sons Tomotoki and Shigetoki did get posts but their mother was a Hiki clan member a clan that was so influential at court that the Hojos destroyed this clan.
The son of Iga no Kata was out of question for the Hojo since the Iga clan was powerhungry. To avoid Iga no Kata pushing her son to the front Masako suggested that Yasutoki is the heir and banished the Iga clan.
Both Tao and Mei have worked with Suda Masaki before and Tao is experienced with dance.
Yoshitoki's wife Hime no Mae (the one he bombarded with love letters) is heavily theorized to be played by Matsuoka Mayu since Mayu matches the description of this wife a lot. Mayu also has often worked with Mitani and Oizumi (Hime no Mae was Yoritomo's employee before becoming Yoshitoki's wife).
Mayu despite the Netflix series about Geishas is also pretty free.
The last wife Iga no Kata will join around October/November thus for her there is still a lot of time. Iga no Kata is usually depicted as evil thus I except someone who can play evil characters.
The thing is that Yae makes it very unlikely that Yasutoki, the oldest son of Yoshitoki will be Yoshitoki's son on the show. Yasutoki was born by a non entity woman when Yoshitoki was 20 and this woman (who just has a title Awa no Tsubone is never mentioned again).
My theory is that since Yoritomo will cheat on Masako soon with Kame no Mae (around 1182) that he will also sleep with his ex Yae again. Yae gets pregnant again and Yoshitoki covers this up by pretending that Yasutoki is his son by an unknown woman (Yae's first son by Yoritomo called Sentsurumaru was killed by her father Ito Sukechika).
With Oizumi I hope that since he has played evil characters before that he can play Yoritomo as ruthless as possible.
Yoshitoki is at the moment rather bossed around since at this point the historical Yoshitoki was a teen and he only later gets influence at Yoritomo's court and after Yoritomo's death.
Worst part to me in my opinion so far is Yui as Yae. The story of the historical Yae is over in episode 3 (impregnated by Yoritomo, her child then ordered to be killed by her own father Ito Sukechika, Yoritomo moves on to Masako and Yae is remarried to Ema Jiro).
My problem is shipping her with Yoshitoki. She is Yoshitoki's aunt (Yoshitoki is Ito Sukechika's grandson, Yae is Ito Sukechika's daughter, Yoshitoki's mother was Yae's sister).
Yoshitoki had three significant wives:
The mother of his heir Yasutoki. This woman is largerly unknown but Yasutoki was his oldest son who was born when he was 20 years old.
Hime no Mae. Hiki Tomomune's daughter. She was an employee of Yoritomo. Yoshitoki fell head over heals for her when he was 29/30 and bombarded her with love letters for over a year.
Yoritomo played wingman and Hime no Mae and Yoshitoki married. They had two son's. After Yoritomo died the Hojo turned against the Hiki clan due to their influence on Yoritomo's son Yoriie (which resulted in the destruction of the Hiki clan) and Yoshitoki divorced Hime no Mae.
Then he married Iga no Kata in a political marriage. The Iga clan were a plotting clan and tried to push Iga no Kata's son with Yoshitoki above all his other sons which is why Iga no Kata did not get along with Yoshitoki's sister Masako. It is also rumored that Iga no Kata poisoned Yoshitoki. After his death the Iga family were banished by Masako.
Hime no Mae and Iga no Kata are not announced yet which is why I worry much about their casting and that their storylines are rushed and not well written like Otani Yoshitsugu's daughter in Sanadamaru (in history a very interesting character who should have been Yukimura's heroine but the script gave her the short end of the stick and added her way too late).
One of the more interesting love triangles was the one of the Peach Girl manga since both guys could have worked with Momo. The movie version interestingly avoided much of the triangle since it made the guy she ends up with the male lead.
Takahata Mitsuki has worked as a seiyuu as well. For example she was the voice of Lily James in the Japanese dub of Cinderella.
Though I will check out Nisekoi and Switched.