andoR

There's no queerbaiting. It's just a healthy best friends scenario between a hetero and an ace woman who both don't (want to) fit in the box of stereotypical views of women in Japan. It's very apparent that there's nothing more all throughout the drama.

WOWOW also has some dramas with nudity, like Mosaic Japan, but that's a pay-tv channel, so it doesn't count either ;).
There's no rule or law against showing nudity in Japanese TV, it's just that the hypocritical sponsors driven by the very conservative society don't want any in their broadcasting. There may be some on that list with "nudity", but I still don't think that any of those show actual frontal nudity of women, which is basically the starter package that really counts as nudity in the US for example. I don't see what the fuss is about anyways. I think showing someone nude from the front under a shower just washing up is way less erotic/provocative/"offensive" then showing sex scenes where nothing at all is seen except their shoulders, faces and voices. But that's maybe my upbringing speaking.

Thanks for the suggestions! I actually have those on my PTW or watched them already, NanUma and Brush Up Life are two of my favorite dramas of the last 10 or so years. I'd also strongly recommend "Kazoku Dakara Aishitan Janakute, Aishita no ga Kazoku Datta" and "Futekisetsu ni mo Hodo ga Aru!", another two of my favs in the last years (Kawai Yuumi needs more main roles!).
Unfortunately the number of those great dramas are almost the same as the ones I described above only, without counting all the Shoujo Manga naive-female-and-scum-male-trope and infidelity dramas that all follow the same template. That's why I was/am a little frustrated, because maybe 1 in 10 - 15 dramas is actually something that's not been made a 100 times. But, as I was told, this drama here is not really what's in the synopsis, so all good ;)

There's no nudity in Japanese free TV in this century and longer. The major "family oriented" sponsors who are eager to throw money at every infidelity drama as long as it doesn't show any skin that's usually under some clothes make sure of that. Regardless of time, day or station. Well, except if showing underwear is nudity, which it isn't, but even that's super rare. Which drama did you watch with nudity in it? (genuine question and I meant no offense with my comment, only wanted to offend those hypocritical companies).

Let's make a deal. I leave my "judgmental pitch fork" at home if you promise to take your reading glasses with you! ;)
It was a question and based off of the synopsis, made before even an episode aired. I even commented as such in my 2nd comment and said that it sounded interesting after someone made me aware of what's going on in it. No need to come out swinging.

Good job Netflix. Translating an already fine as is English title into a completely different English title... again. They should think about employing some competent translators for subtitles instead of worrying about a waste of time decision like this.

Thanks!

No problem! Turned out to be a good thing you did, it's why I put it on my plan to watch list for when it finished airing ;)

Well, if it's like that, I'm actually all for it. I was just commenting based off of synopsis and tags, which would make it like I described. After your comment, maybe I'll give it a shot some time if it'll be subbed. Let's just hope there won't be any stupid clichés like as soon as she falls in love or "gets better at housework" her career gets flushed down the toilet because she isn't able to do her work well anymore if she wants to do or be good at something else ;)

Isn't this literally "Watashi no Oyome-kun" + kid? Seems like Japanese writers are really out of ideas. It's almost always either "if female has a career she's not able to do anything else in her life" (there's another one this season with that topic), "naive female meets verbally abusive scumbag and falls deeper in love the more abusive his words become" or "female falls in love with perfect guy, but he's a habitual cheater". No wonder the Japanese don't want to start families anymore if those are the only examples they get from media.

Indeed. Thanks. Must've been a Freudian slip ;)

I think none of the biggest 50 (it's probably more) corporations in Japan have a female CEO. Most of them probably don't even have a single female board member... but I digress. Real story: a Japanese friend of my best friend who lived in Japan for a few years was told to be on top of the list for promotion in a big corporation, then her superior got wind that she was in a long lasting relationship and somehow a same-age male colleague of hers was promoted. When she asked her superior why, he said (I'm not making this up) "it's ok to not work so hard and concentrate more on your relationship, you probably want to get married in the not so distant future anyways and he needs to provide for his soon-to-be-family, so you understand, right?". I found it so archaic and discriminating that it was almost funny again. Well, she quit a few months later, after her complaint got denied by HR and now works in a smaller company as section chief.
But of course it's not all the men's fault, because a lot of women still only work for those corporations to fish for successful men, but I think it's just stupid to generalize everything and everyone like these "working women JDramas" always do. If you're interested in these kind of topics, I recommend watching "Waru: Hataraku no ga Kakko Warui Nante Dare ga Itta?" with Imada Mio. It's a comedy, but it pretty realistically shows a lot of the generalizations and problems ingrained in a Japanese corporation.

Because in Japan it's no problem for men to pursue work and a career and have a life outside of it, but if a woman does it she needs to sacrifice anything else in her life, her home, relationships (platonic and romantic), etc because she needs to work twice as hard and achieve twice as much as men her age if she wants to get promoted. If she'd be in a relationship, nobody would promote her because "she'll quit anyways if she gets married and/or pregnant". That's still the actual mindset of corporate Japan and one of the reasons why they're in the bottom 2 or 3 of "1st world countries" in every statistic about working women.

7.8 is pretty good for a JDrama. If you compare it to KDramas, you probably need to add 0.7 oder 0.8 if it's a good story. I think some people deduct 0.5 or 1 rating because the production quality isn't as high as Netflix dramas or sometimes I even think people just rate JDramas a 1 although they never watched a single episode.

Please, someone slap some sense and rational thinking into them. I'm talking about the people who produce and write these dramas by the way.

Is it because it's a GL or because it's very low budget that people are praising this? I've seen a few dramas from this YT channel and they were all pretty borderline, especially when it comes to acting, but I think "Little Cupid" is just cringey. It's like two sisters lost a bet and had to act like lovers for a certain period of time. And that's also exactly how their interactions look like, from their conversations to their skinship, including kisses. They don't even try to make it look like a real kiss, even if it's just on the cheek or the forehead, it's just like they'd bump faces.

I enjoyed the hell out of this one. Their chemistry was off the charts, as friends as well as as a couple. Ongsa's smug looks when she was praised and her awkwardness when was smiled at by Sun aswell as Sun's mad jealousy are definitely pure gold. They should make a 2nd season about their time in university. But I guess the topic wouldn't matter because everything with and about these characters would be super fun. Also, the second couple was extremely funny together because they were polar opposites and played perfectly off of each other.

But there's one thing I think they should've done different/better, which is why I deducted half a point. It really bothered me that Sun couldn't (or didn't want to) put the puzzle pieces about Earth together bit by bit. She's quite intelligent and there were way too many hints to not notice anything. I absolutely waited for Sun to ask Ongsa questions because she's getting suspicious, but it never came. I know this had a purpose (if you like the person, you like the person), but I think it would've been way better than finding out all at once and it wouldn't have taken away anything from the message it tried to send. It would've also lessened the blow considerably and I thought Sun's behavior after she found out was a bit too dramatic and artificial because, like I said, it was pretty obvious if she would've put one and one together.

This could also be called "Welcome to the shitshow called idol business, where men in their 20s/30s/40s/etc get enabled to glorify 16 year olds as their pure and innocent fantasy girlfriends and everybody around them is totally ok with that".
Pretty good drama, with, in my opinion, a pretty realistic showing of a mentally not quite healthy and drained semi chika Idol. I wish there would be more stories like this one or Oshi no Ko that show the "darker" side of the show and especially the idol business without always pitting two performers against each other.

Really seems like you were lucky or you've only seen night dramas that air after 11pm and have some real young actresses/actors in it ;). But the vast majority of 30 minute romance Jdramas that air before 11pm are completely hands off except for clothed shoulders or hips and they look like fish when they kiss.
Sorry, this one's going to be a bit longer and from the females perspective only, but let me explain what I meant in my op (I hope I didn't completely misunderstand your post and you think "what's this guy even on about with his rant, I don't give a crap about that"). In those dramas I mentioned the lead roles are often played by Idols or models, basically just to promote them and their "real jobs", and those have a strong tendency to be prohibited from doing more than what I described above, if you even really see them put their lips together. The reason for that, in most cases, is that they get promoted by their agencies/management as a pure, innocent, naive and available girl next door that never kissed someone (in an idol's case) or the "I'm having so much fun posing in this way too small bikini that I want people to only look at me and my big boobs" character (in case of the model, sorry for being a bit crude). They rely on fan support and popularity rather than success of the product (music, drama, magazines, whatever), which in turn means their career takes a massive hit if the "fans'" fantasies get ruined and they actually show that they're not 100% pure, naive and available but actually know what they're doing in scenes with skinship. I wish they would behave like actresses if they want to be in dramas and not play pretend just so their face gets seen by more people. To give you an example of the (mostly male) Japanese fan base: Even an actual actress, Tsunematsu Yuri, needed to justify herself in a pretty long letter because she received some real harsh backlash for showing herself nude and in some racy scenes in The Naked Director 2. Those "fans" insulted her as a w*ore, that she's cheap and that they'll stop being her fans because of the role, basically just for being an actress and not some character her agency set up for her.

Well, I don't know how much you know about the Japanese entertainment business, but young tarento (talent), basically jacks-of-all-trade in the industry like the two leads here (both are probably model first, actor/actress second), are often prohibited by their agencies/management to really kiss or be shown too intimate with the opposite gender. I think 80 - 85% of JDrama "romance series" don't have "real actors/actresses" in it, especially the 30 minute ones. You can thank the Idol business and their stupid enabling of obsessive fans for that.