Welcome to my weekly blog post where I give thoughts on dramas I’ve started, finished, or am in the middle of. I give my thoughts on dramas.

This week I started recapping Eye Love You, an adorable Japanese series which I will give an initial review of below. I also recapped episodes 11 and 12 of Until We Meet Again, which are fun episodes with a lot of crying and occasional xylophone to remind you it’s a Thai BL.

This week I have two Japanese shows with Love in the title, which only describes how I’m currently feeling about one of them.

Let’s get the bad news over with first. I finished:

Although I Love You, and You? – 好きやねんけどどうやろか – 2024

Currently airing Japanese BL with 10 episodes.

The owner/chef of a small restaurant falls in insta-love with an office worker who was relocated from Tokyo to Osaka.

Here’s a highlight from episode 1.

Here’s a link to my initial review.

Maybe I jinxed things, but the 10-episode length led to prolonged, senseless conflicts. Ultimately the drama lands just above Naked Dining for me, which is not great.

The original manga is pretty short. To fill the long run time they added in a returning ex and work/love conflict. These are staples of dramas and Japanese dramas in particular and they didn’t do anything original with them.

The bar owner tried to push his ex away, but when his ex ignored them he let him do whatever he wanted. Then our main love interests handled the work/love issues by adding obstacles rather than removing them. The final resolution involved so much outside help that it doesn’t give me any confidence about the long-term prospects of their love.

I guess as long as they have friends willing to invest time and energy into keeping them together it might work.

When they were being cute and sweet they were really cute and sweet. There wasn’t enough of that to get me through everything else.

As with all dramas, I’m sure some people like this one, but I don’t know who I’d recommend it to.

Staying in Japan, I have an initial review of:

Eye Love You – アイラブユー – 2024

A currently airing Japanese romcom, I’m at 7 out of 10 episodes kinda.

A woman who can hear people’s thoughts and the young Korean man whose thoughts she can’t understand.

Here’s a link to the trailer.

I say “7 episodes kinda” because I’ve watched 7 episodes in Japanese and rewatched the first 3 episodes in English. Since I’m barely fluent in Japanese my understanding of those later episodes is limited.

On that note, this show is about one of my favorite themes: Communication.

There’s the obvious issue between our two leads, they come from different cultures and speak different languages. Our female lead is also used to relying on her unique ability to help her understand those around her. Since she can’t understand what our male lead is thinking, she’s thrown into an extra state of confusion. It’s essentially like she’s lost a sense.

Then there’s our secondary couple. Given that they both grew up speaking Japanese, you’d think they’d communicate better. If anything though, they are even worse at it.

I hate needless misunderstandings as much as the next person, but when it’s baked into the characters, I love it. (See also: My Beautiful Man.) 

It doesn’t hurt that our male lead is the most adorable puppy I’ve ever seen. He’s the rare male lead who is an open book of feelings, which makes it more funny that our female lead can’t figure him out. (The actor was also recently in Castaway Diva, where I liked him more than I liked the show.)

The show is a romcom and a Japanese drama, so the acting and characterization are at an 11 the entire time. If you think she’s not going to literally fall into his arms the first time they meet, you have another think coming. 

There is also a lot of delicious-looking Korean food, delicious-looking chocolate, and discussions about sea otters. 

I’m enjoying it so much that I am recapping it.