Ashita, Watashi wa Dareka no Kanojo (2022)

Need to love and feel loved - A bitter reality

Honestly, I was not sure if I should watch this drama or not, as the provided summary doesn't appropriately describe the true plot of this series.

CHARACTERS

In the drama we are following the story of 5 woman that seem to be related in a way. Yuki (portrayed by Yoshikawa Ai) is a 19 year old university student who is working as a Rental Girlfriend in order to make ends meet. When she is working and meeting with clients, she seems like a sweet, cheerful, and kind girlfriend; however, we get to know that in reality she has been through a lot and she carries a secret from her childhood that holds her back. Rina (played by Yokota Mayuu), who is Yuki's university friend, is a colourful, smiley, and cheerful girl that everyone likes and wants to be with her. In addition to her cheerful outside looks, Rina is a rather lonely girl that seeks attention and confirmation from people around her.

Ayano (played by Ugaki Misato) is working with Yuki at the same agency as a Rental Girlfriend and is mainly focusing on the outside looks of the people around her. This obsession with looks came from her bitter past when the people around her made fun of her due to her outside looks. The fourth protagonist is Moe Maya (played by Yanai Yumena) who is classmate with Rina, with low self-esteem and self-confidence. People around her call her ugly and she can't seem to belong anywhere, even though she is trying. Lastly, Yua (played by Saito Nagisa) is a cute girl that is a regular in a host club and is only visiting a specific host. Later on, Yua takes Moe to the host club that she is regularly going.

PLOT

The main plot of this series is to show how every person needs to feel loved and appreciated, in any way, from their peers. However, for me, the plot focuses not only the need to feel loved by others and love other people, but how important it is to love themselves. It is a rather bitter series which shows how shallow our society is, what are the expectations for women, and how easily women can be manipulated into doing things they don't want in order to fulfil the needs of their partners.

For example, in order Yua to help her favourite host (Haruki) in the host club, she is working in the adult world and she is meeting with clients that she can't refuse. She does that in order to help her favourite to rise through the rank and keep his sales high. Moe follows a similar story. Moe was a full time university student who after she started talking with a host she decided to drop out from her university, and in order to request for the host (Kaede) during her visits, she decides to also enter the adult world and do things that she doesn't want to.

MY OPINION

Honestly, this is a drama that is worth watching. Just a heads up: this is not a typical Romance series. Don't expect to find cute and colourful moments among the couples. This is a close to reality type of series. Unfortunately, there are many people who belittle other people's feelings and take advantage of them, and there are other people that are trying to survive in this world with noone beside them. I don't understand why the rating is relatively low. The rating here is not representative of how good the drama is (in my opinion!).

As an individual, I related mostly with Moe, as she and I share some common things. Since the moment that she answered Kaede's phone call, I knew that this is not going to have a happy ending. I was really routing for Kaede's feelings to be true towards her, but as we show in the end Moe was just a client to him. Even though, seeing her being depressed over him was sad, I was clad that in the end she was able to overcome her obsession and she took her life back to her hands.

Anyway, this is a good drama to watch, SO WATCH IT! BYE!

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An interesting dive into adult entertainment in Japan

At first I was critical but I wanted to watch it because Itsuki is in it. After the first episode I was hooked because of the lead character. This drama gives a very complex insight into not only the adult entertainment in Japan and how women fall into it, but also an overall oversight of society's expectations of women along with rather complex takes on different emotions. Each woman is flawed in their own way in this show, at first you might not like them at all but as it goes on you are shown more and more why they act as they do. I don't love all the characters but I somewhat came to understand them.

To my understanding the acting is really great, everyone seems authentic and they manage to explore complex emotions of their character pretty well. Some character seem totally one dimensional at first but the actors manage to bring out the inner turbulence during each story. So far my only issue with the drama is that nothing seems to be really resolved. Issues you think have been taken care of are suddenly undone off screen and a character returns back to 0.

This drama had me really involved, I cursed and felt with them, I judged and then understood somewhat. It was a journey for sure and I am sad that it only has 12 episodes. It is deeply entertaining and I recommend it to anyone who is open to learn more about the topic of adult entertainment.

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