A great drama that follows the source material but not without it's flaws.
To preface this, I am an avid fan of the manga so my review will sort of compare the drama to it's source material in some cases.Story
I think the drama follows the story pretty well, obviously a lot is left out such as Kotaro's Mothed and some cute stories like Asako's birthday present. But that's to be expected when trying to condense an 11 volume manga into 9 episodes. However, the pacing towards the end is a bit fast and I felt a bit confused when it was suddenly ending.
Explaining the premise to people will probably elicit a raised eyebrow from your friends but don't let it put you off. This is a sweet love story about a two grown adults falling in love and how they navigate those tricky bumps in every relationship and how Asako overcomes some traumatic past that causes her intense anxiety.
Cast
The casting in this is impeccable. ESPECIALLY Asako. She looks and acts exactly like her manga counterpart (albeit slightly more melodramatic in some scenes but this is to be expected with a drama). Kotaro's actor is also great and even the side characters are well cast. But I am blown away by how well cast Asako was.
Characterisation
I have to admit, as much as I liked Kotaro's actor, his characterisation was waaaay too over the top at times to the point that I felt like I was watching a Disney channel show aimed at children. Asako could also be a bit over dramatic to the point that it was annoying too.
Now something about this drama that I really didn't like was how the intimate scenes were done. Every single intimate scene is tasteless with this over the top montage of them running around in a steamed room or some other dumb stuff and then lying in bed basically hyper ventilating. I couldn't even watch these, I had to skip over them everytime. I don't even understand why when the show is supposed to be aimed at adults and they do have one scene where they are very clearly having sex so it surely couldn't be due to age rating. In any case, removing the scenes entirely would have been preferable to this garbage they came up with.
Also the music very rarely fit any of the scenes to the point that it became very noticeable. Not great sound design there.
It's still really worth watching but if you like to read manga, I definitely recommend picking that up too!
Was this review helpful to you?
I am literally obsessed with this
I love this drama so much, I have watched and re-watched it multiple times and every time I go back I fall in love with it over and over again.For some context, I originally watched the anime, then the Korean drama, then the Taiwanese drama and then this one came out about half a year later. In comparison, this is a close tie with the Taiwanese version for me, there are things I like about both of them but I generally come back to this one.
This drama is a take on the haters to lovers trope with one half of the duo being head over heels in love with other. It is pure fluff the whole time and it is just gold getting to watch them gradually fall in love.
Was this review helpful to you?
