A modern fairy tale romance?
Mr. Kurosaki's Pure Love Never Stops is a romance based on a manga between a high school girl and a twenty-something guy. (The actor is 24, but the exact age of the character is not particularly revealed. The character has successfully published a few novels, and has a younger half-brother who's in college.) I believe the intention of the series is to be a modern variation of fairy tales like Cinderella or Snow White in which the young protagonist encounters a rich and handsome guy who is immediately and utterly devoted to her and after overcoming some obstacles the two fall in love and live happily ever after. There should be room in our narrative media to tell that kind of story. And so the central question of this review is: does this series tell that story successfully and well? Is this series worth the watch even if the age-gap does not immediately have you noping right out of it? No, no: it is not (IMO, of course).
The primary failure of this series is with the writing and, particularly, the characterization of the male lead, Kurosaki (played by Yamanaka Jyutaro). Despite being a successful, established author securely living on his own the character has all the social skills and knowledge of dating of a middle-school boy. The series begins with his going up to the protagonist Koharu (played by Toyoshima Hana) working behind the counter at her family's onigiri shop and offering her 1,000,000¥ (that's a whopping $6,258.47 at the time of writing) to marry him.
The character's subsequent behavior is not much better with his continuing to pursue a long-term relationship with the repeatedly flustered schoolgirl as she tries to guide him towards more conventional ways of getting to know each other like, you know, going on dates and maybe even, gasp, talking to each other. Kuroskai is portrayed as successful and intelligent enough as a writer to have a large fan following, and yet he is so ignorant of and oblivious to social conventions and how parasocial relationships work that at one point he outs Koharu as a public figure without her consent, doxes her family's shop and then obliviously waltzes into the shop now filled with his fans. And does the script acknowledge in any way that there might be issues and consequences that might entail from his doing so? Nope: it's completely forgotten about by the next episode.
Kurosaki is definitely not portrayed as creepy though in the early episodes all of Koharu's family and friends repeatedly lampshade the issue by calling his actions creepy. The character genuinely does not evidence having any kind of malicious intent throughout the series. I guess we're supposed accept that his good looks and pre-adolescent demeanor somehow disarm the initial suspicions of those who are already close to Koharu: "It's okay! He does not really have hormones yet. At 24 or whatever. His love is pure! And it never stops!"
Koharu, on the other hand, is about as tropey of a heroine as one can find. Yes, she is gorgeous, but she's never had a boyfriend because her mom died and she has to work at the family shop and take care of her younger brothers. But she is also clumsy! What a novel idea! You see that means she repeatedly falls into the arms of whatever guy is around to catch her! What a brilliant idea that has never ever appeared in every shallow, mass market romance ever! And the production can make sure we understand what she's feeling when she's in Koharu's arms by making the screen go all glowy and add CGI sakura wafting gently down the screen.
The acting on the other hand is generally fine to good. This series is Toyoshima's first leading role in a television series after a bunch of interesting and good, solid support roles over the past few years. And Yamanaka is establishing a good solid acting career beyond his being an idol in M!lk. This series is overly reliant on voice-over while the leads maintain some sort of relevant expression but both the actors are charismatic enough to pull it off. There are no really deep emotive scenes for either of the two, but they do have reasonably good chemistry together.
This series is not meant to be a realistic exploration of various problematic issues that all societies around the world have to grapple with like consent and appropriate age ranges for first relationships. These issues are not just issues in Japan. But it's not unreasonable to ask that if you're going to make this series, why not have Koharu be in college? What does the series gain by having Kurosaki waiting outside a high school at the end of a school day to pick up Koharu for a date? If this series is meant to be a romantic fantasy for young women, then how would Kurosaki have to be and act for everyone to feel safe in his intentions and actions? This series has no answers to such questions, and instead hopes that the sufficient naivety of the two leads and clouds of supposedly comedic fluff will be enough to obscure the issues.
To swoon or not to swoon, that is the question. I, for one, did not.
The primary failure of this series is with the writing and, particularly, the characterization of the male lead, Kurosaki (played by Yamanaka Jyutaro). Despite being a successful, established author securely living on his own the character has all the social skills and knowledge of dating of a middle-school boy. The series begins with his going up to the protagonist Koharu (played by Toyoshima Hana) working behind the counter at her family's onigiri shop and offering her 1,000,000¥ (that's a whopping $6,258.47 at the time of writing) to marry him.
The character's subsequent behavior is not much better with his continuing to pursue a long-term relationship with the repeatedly flustered schoolgirl as she tries to guide him towards more conventional ways of getting to know each other like, you know, going on dates and maybe even, gasp, talking to each other. Kuroskai is portrayed as successful and intelligent enough as a writer to have a large fan following, and yet he is so ignorant of and oblivious to social conventions and how parasocial relationships work that at one point he outs Koharu as a public figure without her consent, doxes her family's shop and then obliviously waltzes into the shop now filled with his fans. And does the script acknowledge in any way that there might be issues and consequences that might entail from his doing so? Nope: it's completely forgotten about by the next episode.
Kurosaki is definitely not portrayed as creepy though in the early episodes all of Koharu's family and friends repeatedly lampshade the issue by calling his actions creepy. The character genuinely does not evidence having any kind of malicious intent throughout the series. I guess we're supposed accept that his good looks and pre-adolescent demeanor somehow disarm the initial suspicions of those who are already close to Koharu: "It's okay! He does not really have hormones yet. At 24 or whatever. His love is pure! And it never stops!"
Koharu, on the other hand, is about as tropey of a heroine as one can find. Yes, she is gorgeous, but she's never had a boyfriend because her mom died and she has to work at the family shop and take care of her younger brothers. But she is also clumsy! What a novel idea! You see that means she repeatedly falls into the arms of whatever guy is around to catch her! What a brilliant idea that has never ever appeared in every shallow, mass market romance ever! And the production can make sure we understand what she's feeling when she's in Koharu's arms by making the screen go all glowy and add CGI sakura wafting gently down the screen.
The acting on the other hand is generally fine to good. This series is Toyoshima's first leading role in a television series after a bunch of interesting and good, solid support roles over the past few years. And Yamanaka is establishing a good solid acting career beyond his being an idol in M!lk. This series is overly reliant on voice-over while the leads maintain some sort of relevant expression but both the actors are charismatic enough to pull it off. There are no really deep emotive scenes for either of the two, but they do have reasonably good chemistry together.
This series is not meant to be a realistic exploration of various problematic issues that all societies around the world have to grapple with like consent and appropriate age ranges for first relationships. These issues are not just issues in Japan. But it's not unreasonable to ask that if you're going to make this series, why not have Koharu be in college? What does the series gain by having Kurosaki waiting outside a high school at the end of a school day to pick up Koharu for a date? If this series is meant to be a romantic fantasy for young women, then how would Kurosaki have to be and act for everyone to feel safe in his intentions and actions? This series has no answers to such questions, and instead hopes that the sufficient naivety of the two leads and clouds of supposedly comedic fluff will be enough to obscure the issues.
To swoon or not to swoon, that is the question. I, for one, did not.
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