What a gem.

I had actually started watching the first ep when it was an on-going drama, but when I realized it was about forensic pathology, I got sort of creeped out and dropped it, so glad I listened to one of the recent reviews that was left on here. I was looking for something to watch and so I restarted watching it.
I BINGED IT FROM LATE NIGHT TO EARLY MORNING.

Each episode literally got better and better, and the cast lineup was amazing.
Satomi Ishihara and Kubota Masataka were originally what pulled me in. Those two together had great chemistry. I hope they work together in the future again!

Supposedly there's a second season coming because the last episode said that their journey was to be continued. So super excited to watch that whenever it airs.

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Favorite Drama of 2020: heroine gets scouted by CEO, falls in love

If you are into romance (with AMAZING CHEMISTRY), good-looking female and male lead, comedy, dessert-tasting, and also heartache ?, then I suggest you stop reading soon and WATCH THIS DRAMA.
However if YOU ARE NOT into the older man/younger woman trope, then keep reading this, and make up your mind at the end..

Summary: The drama is about a 21 year old girl, named Kiki Inoue, who failed debuting as an idol with her group, and was sort of pushed out by a forced graduation.

❤️ Kiki is played by 19 year old Nana Mori (2001), she is an up-and-coming actress we must all watch carefully. ❤️
"You couldn't have asked for a better actress to play the role of Kiki" - Nakamura-san (male lead) commented in an interview.

After failing in achieving her dream to become an idol, she falls into a slump. She gets hired to work at a convenience store (also better known as konbini) where she spends the rest of her days working half-heartedly and eating the desserts the store has out for sale. During this time she earns a name for herself as convenience-store-dessert-tasting-critic. Each time she eats a dessert, she is able to accurately review each one and make a Instagram LIVE about it.

Although she doesn't have so many fans as a critic, her reviews catch the eye of the CEO of the same convenience store chain she is a part of. ➡Here comes the male lead, President Takumi Asaba, she calls him "shacho" (boss/president).

❤️ Takumi Asaba is played by Tomoya Nakamura (1986), an actor who has been around for VERY long time, but only until recently has he gotten popular through his last few dramas. ❤️

From what I gathered, the Asaba-shacho was hired to work at a company to help get the chain out of the danger zone, he is sort of a like a restructuring acting CEO. His job is to make sure the company brings in a profit while avoiding to get rid of specific things and departments.
Shacho realizes that the Sweet Department as his company is barely keeping up with most convenience chains when it comes to their Sweets section at their stores, so he decides to reform the Sweets Department at his company, and finds Kiki's reviews on instagram by accident.

The story is done at a great pace and never lags, not once.
Each episode will leave you with a cliffhanger, aching to watch more.
The acting in this drama is superb. Great character development for both the main leads and the second leads.
The soundtrack is very uplifting; the main theme song, "Silent" by Sekai no Owari has a nostalgic Christmas feeling to it.


⚠️⚠️SPOILER STARTS ABOUT HERE⚠️⚠️
He ends up hiring Kiki at the company's headquarters to help move the Sweets Department in the right direction, because her energy alone helps move people and bring them together.
While he hires her at his company, she begins to see a different side to him, different from the one when she first met him.

‼️Here's another thing, Kiki is 21 years old, and the President is in his early 30s‼️ So their age gap of at least 11 years makes him oblivious to her seeing him in any possible romantic way. To him, she's this little girl who he brought into the company. Now in real life, the female lead is 19, and the male lead is 34. Compared to their characters there isn't much of a difference in age, but their age gap comes out to 15 years. (So if you're not into Older Men/Younger Woman trope then, this might not be for you). But honestly their chemistry is beyond electrifying. I've seen many dramas with this trope, and this one is probably the first that hits it straight home.

Anyways, Kiki falls for him. Like really falls for him. ? Here comes the heartache, his ex-girlfriend works at this company, in the sweets department. Now she's really nice, but like Asaba-Shacho, she doesn't think of Kiki as a women, rather a little girl who he brought in because she's got good taste buds and loves eating sweets. The ex and him try to restart their relationship, which inexplicably hurts Kiki emotionally, because she knows no matter what he will never look at her the same way that he views a women near his age, who has style, intellect, and manners. So Kiki tries to avoid thinking of him all the time. As for her ignoring her feelings, well I think I can speak for most of when I say, you can't just throw away your feelings. All you can do is wait for them to die down until you stop seeing that person in a different way.

So Kiki ends up working full-time at headquarters helping Asaba-shacho's childhood friend, Mako-chan, design new sweets. There's a lot of baking involved in this show, and massive amounts of sweets being eaten. Mako-chan is the second male lead btw. (Second Lead Syndrome for me was real for about four episodes, until Mako-chan knowing very well about Kiki's feelings starts saying and hinting some things.
Like its bad enough that Kiki is in love with Asaba, but she also screenshots a photo of the two of them standing next to each other from a press conference, and keeps looking at it whenever she's happy or sad. And Mako-chan still says such things when he knows she's also in pain just watching Asaba and his once-again-girlfriend exchange glances with each other. That's what I can't forgive, you know. LIKE I SAID, there's a lot of heartache during the middle.

⚠️⚠️As the story progresses, we learn the Asaba-shacho gets removed from his position as CEO⚠️⚠️ because he's been talking to a person who buys company for cheap and sells them in parts. I guess the company was so in over its head that Asaba-shacho, as restructuring CEO, knows that if sales don't improve, then selling the company to a buyer is the only other damage control he can do.

As he leaves the company he's now been fired from, Kiki runs to his side and begs him to stay or at least explain. Asaba wishes her well and practically leaves her hanging, then she confesses she's in love with him rather earlier on in the drama. (This took me way off guard, because Japanese dramas don't really do this in the middle of the season.)

Anyways the rest is for you to watch.

One of the reasons I got into this drama was mostly because I liked the male lead, Nakamura-san, but once I saw the first two eps, I found myself cheering the female lead on. Watching how earnestly our main heroine tried her best to create a dessert only to find out her dessert didn't win the competition made me really feel for her. Her dream as an idol didn't work out, and then she lost the baking competition, but for those two weeks, inventing and baking this cream puff Shacho asked from her helped get Kiki out of her slump. So I can relate to her in a way. She really wanted to create something that would win, and she ended up investing a large amount of time in this competition, so seeing how it turned out really hit home. Not to mention, the actress, Nana-chan is a natural at crying, she doesn't over do it, and still gets the tears out. BTW the male lead doesn't act like a TSUNDERE the entire time, he softens up a bit after he gets fired. Kiki helps get him out of his slump.

P.S. note:
This year has been so awful that this drama which began airing around October helped me look forward to each Tuesday when it premiered. I started watching this drama when episode 2 (English subbed) has been released, but after watching the first ep, I found myself really falling for it. I don't say this very often, mind you. Also I understand a very good amount of Japanese, and I can read and write. So I started watching the weekly episodes every Tuesday before they were subbed in English.

To be honest I don't really write reviews for every drama I watch, but when I get an itching to write one, you just know this drama is worth me writing the review. As you can see, I gave each rating 10/10, and I did so for a reason. Everything about it hits the mark.
Also, the female lead has introduced this story as a "A Cinderella Story" with lots of delicious looking sweets, I would do that too, but the only difference is that the Prince Charming doesn't know how Cinderella looks like for most of the movie, which isn't true about this drama.

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