sapphila

yeah the screenwriter of the drama said that she felt fujisaki being a fujoshi wouldn't translate as well in live action (i mean obviously some gags are better off drawn/animated) so she constructed this storyline for her in the drama with the approval of the mangaka...

As someone who became fan of the manga because of the drama i totally understand the issues you mentioned. Since you said you're open to conversation, I can give some kind of explaination, there are a lot of things you should take into account about the jdrama in comparison to the manga: this drama focused more on the slice of life aspect because BL shows were not really as widespread as they are now in J-Dramas and it was a risky move to be made in the first place. The characterization choices are so the characters can be more digestable to a TV audience; that's why Adachi is a lot less negative than his manga counterpart and why Fujisaki is changed from a closeted fujoshi to a kind aroace (confirmed btw) coworker. You should also know that the second half of the jdrama is probably not as enjoyable to a manga reader because the J-Drama was made based on only the 4 volumes that were out at the time. And I agree that whoever has problems with the lack of intimacy should just pick up the manga. To be frank, I wouldn't be surprised if the lack of kiss is also a marketing tactic to give people an incentive to buy the manga (at least in the show)

Haruta and Maki solidified themselves as one of my favorite couples of all time with this season. Yet the most memorable scene from this season for me is going to be Goro wiping his mom's shoes while she wasn't looking and the fact nobody ends up noticing it. So much love expressed into this scene by that simple action and it proves that OLR is a master at all the genres it covered; a great romance, a great comedy and a great feel-good slice of life.

Sometimes I find myself giving a lot of grace to BL/GL shows and queer shows in general as only recently they have been able to be made more "mainstream" or at least easier to make and find. Ossan's Love with its first season alone had managed to become the first BL to go mainstream and while I loved it, I cannot say it was without flaws. But like I said I could overlook them not only because my enjoyment overpowered my complaints but also because for such an early show for the BL genre I want to take into consideration the context it was made in.

But Ossan's Love Returns was literally flawless. I don't know what was the shift. Was the rise of shows like Kinou Nani Tabeta and Cherry Maho that made the writers realize how desperate the audience was to see Harumaki in a similar or context? Or was it simply the natural order of events after making them go through so much (2 job transfers and a near death experience)? Either way, this season was some of the best romantic comedy TV could offer. Not only in a queer context but in general. In fact, I don't think I can name a heterosexual show that's able to balance comedy/romance/slice of life this well. I'm usually not a fan of such a big cast of relevant/reoccurring characters as shows usually fail to flesh them out or they take up too much screen time just for runtime's sake but OLR nailed every single one of them. Even characters and relationships I felt at times I had no interest in, didn't feel like they were dragging the show at all. The comedy remained as enjoyable as the first season but was able to somewhat free itself of the 2018 borderline homophobic humour and still be hilarious.

This show could have been so good if it actually followed the manga a little more closely... Obviously I don't mean 1v1 because that's not possible, especially in a foreign context, and also not enjoyable. But when the writers were left to their own devices the writing felt so out of character, it made me think that most people working on this had only watched the J-Drama. Generally, it's fine when adaptations make a lot of changes, especially ones that have been done before (take for example Boys Over Flowers or ItaKiss) but Cherry Magic is a pretty good story on its own and didn't warrant so many changes to the characters and their relationship dynamics. And so many writing choices were taken directly from the Japanese drama, and then not even improved on, which makes me wonder how there wasn't any copyright issue with that... Does having the copyright of the IP mean they can adapt the original drama too? Or are those similarities simply a non-issue and could be considered a 'coincidence'?