Mertseger

It's Sakurashimeji「恋春日和」. There's an MV for it on YouTube in which Toyoshima Hana tries to win the love of a robot (and it's much better than this series, IMO).

Great review, as usual. It's hilarious that neither of our reviews mention Abe Sadawo and his character as the real anpan man.

Eh, pretty much both. But he's a twentysomething adult and a successful author, and she's a high school senior. Both have never had a romantic relationship before. Nevertheless, he has the social development and skills of a grade-schooler, and so is the least romantically ept of the two. It's probably worse than you are imagining given that, but it's all played for laughs and as if this were all sweet and harmless while all the characters around them constantly lampshade the creepiness as if that absolves everything. Your outrage may vary.

It went up on billibilli in September, and is still available.

Update: Irozuku subs reports that there will be a total of 5 of these shorts after Ep. 1, 2, 4, 5 and 7.

Heh: I'm looking forward to your review. I haven't seen Okaeri Mone, but I have encountered Imada before in a few best friend roles. Hopefully, you will be more enthused than I was by her performance.

Yes, we'll get special episodes most weeks for this (I doubt there will be one after the finale because these things usually are more promotional.) I've seen a few other series that have done this (Brush Up Life comes to mind), but they usually do not get subtitled. We are very lucky that IrozukuSubs has decided to do so.

I understand your concerns, but in the case of Because This Is My First Life it's a romcom that remains a romcom throughout. It actually covers three different couples and their romantic relationships. The elevator pitch for the main couple is that it's a romcom in which everything happens out of order. Let's see if I can remember this correctly: first they kiss, then they move in together, then they meet, then they get married, then they fall in love. And it all makes sense.

The series is also a commentary on exactly the kind of issues you seem to have with kdramas. The FL is a bit of a self-insert of the writer of the drama whose first drama https://kisskh.at/2963-flower-boy-ramen-shop is legendarily bad with all the things that people hate: a poor teacher becoming romantically involved a high school chaebol student, etc. But apparently the IRL writer's mentors and producers were forcing her to add those elements, and so that behind the scenes process of getting to be able to tell more genuine human stories is one of the plot arcs for the FL within BTIMFL. It's pretty brilliant.

I'm fairly sure you'll love it. One very minor note: it's on Netflix, and I sub to Netflix, but I still re-watch the series on unlicensed sites for one of the dumbest reasons ever. On the Netflix version they blur out shots of the movie poster for the movie The Graduate and all shots of Arsenal football games playing on various screens. That only effects a handful of shots total over the course of the series, but you have been warned .

I have only rarely dipped my toes into cdramas (mostly because they are so long). But my favorite kdrama romance might match your criteria well: https://kisskh.at/24678-because-this-is-my-first-life .

Oh, NHK. Always producing great things and then always screwing up the distribution and marketing outside of Japan. Whelp at least they haven't ruined the name of Kazoku Dakara Aishitan Janakute, Aishita no ga Kazoku Datta yet.

Thanks for the update!

I have no idea why the name changed here. It was previously listed on MDL using the romanji "Koisenu Futari" and there's no evidence that it's hit a legal source like a major streaming site using "The Aromantics" which is, indeed, a poor translation or description of the piece.

On Prime I'd go with Mother from 2010. On Netflix, Saving My Stupid Youth from 2014. And, of course, if you enjoyed Non's performance here, Amachan from 2013 from before she was royally screwed by the agency system in Japan and forced to disappear for 10 years. But this latter one is only available at unlicensed streaming sites and torrent sites, and like all asadoras of the time 156 episodes of 15 minutes length.

The best of jdramas are great, even if the bulk of Japanese productions are not as good as your average Korean productions (or those of the west).

It's best to not have any expectations going into this particular film. But I will say that from what I can tell by following responses to it over the years that even people who will find parts of it triggering based on their past personal experiences have generally been glad they watched it. Cathartic, perhaps, but generally not depressing, I would say for most people.

Apparently, at least not until the relevent perpatrators die. See Johnny Kitagawa. When I just glanced at the wikipwedia page about his abuses, I was surprised that there had even been attempts to expose him before he died (since he was so powerful).

But in Non's case citing plotlines in her subsequent movies as evidence of what may have happened to her is a bit sketchy since by that logic we should assume she happily killed people on the reg because she was in this series. OTOH, a court at least looked at SOME evidence in LesPro defamation suit and conceded that there was no evidence of power harassment (and there was no allegation of sexual harassment from the bunhsun's side) while being pretty clear that Non was treated shittly by the agency as is routine in the industry. The huge Yoshimoto comedy agency routinely took 90% from all their talent's entertainment income (and provided annually updated salaries) based on handshake agreements until the scandal in 2019.

Does sexual harassment occur routinely in all entertainment industries? Yes. Does it effect even the majority of talent? Almost certainly not. Is it wrong that it happens at all? Yes. Does power in the industry allow particular abusers to get way with it for decades? Yes. Did it happen to Non? Who knows? But plotlines in movies that she's been in are not evidence for or against. Heck, she's MADE (wrote, directed and edited) two movies herself and there are no such plotlines in those movies.

I'm not sure I've ever heard of any sexual harassment allegations directed at LesPros, but what is true is that she left LesPros in 2015 and a bunshun reported that she did so because they refused to meet some really mild demands including what looks to be fairly reasonable requests compensation relative to her popularity and accused them of power harrassment. (She was getting 50000Y per month during Amachan for the first three months and 200000Y per month for the second three months plus an unknown bonus amount. But the known amount is roughly a total of $7,500 for the lead role in the most popular series of the year). LesPros then sued the bunshun for about $1 million in defamation, and while the suit ground on for the following four years, the industry barred her from getting any roles because she left LesPros without their permission. LesPro won the case but only got roughly $66,000 but that was later reduced about $44,000 by a higher court. Her case led to FTC guidelines meant to allow actors to be able to leave agencies, but these are only guidelines and agencies in Japan continue to exploit their talent to extents that are pretty unimagineable in most countries.

If you venture into the high seas, there's a French dvd that has maybe B+ English subs with some minor pronoun problems (and onnii-chan consistently misheard as onnee-chan, and so lots of "sister"s referencing a guy).

The streaming version is indeed blocked but if you scroll down from there to the Download Hardsub line, you can still download the episode - I just downloaded it again, and it worked fine.

Then the above linked Shiawase Kanako no Koroshiya Seikatsu is your only real choice for a recent series. She was black-listed by the agency system in Japan for over ten years for having the utter gall (/s) to leave her agency in 2014. However, she had the lead role in the 2013 asadora Amachan, and it is a comfort watch for me that I have watched repeatedly. All 156 episodes: https://kisskh.at/6182-amachan

Episode 11.