9.5/10 is my rating. This is a 2016 Japanese romantic comedy drama with 11 episodes in season 1 ranging 45-58 minutes run time and 1 spcial in season 2 running 121 minutes. It is based on a popular manga originally titled "Running away is shameful, but useful“ after a Hungarian proverb.

First I provide a synopsis then review

Synopsis
Moriyama Mikuri (Yui Aragaki) graduated and has only been able to secure part time work. Dreading being back out in the job market, her father secures her a house keeping position with a former work associate, Tsuzaki Hiramasa (Gen Hoshino). For the first time Mikuri feels supported and appreciated by her employer so when her father decides to retire to the country Mikuri comes up with a wild plan. Hiramasa at first rejects the idea but then runs all the scenarios and determines if Mikuri became a contract wife as she proposed, they could continue their mutually beneficial arrangement while keeping up social appearances. Knowing their friends and family would not approve of their arrangement, hilarity ensues as they struggle to make their marriage seem outwardly real. Soon they discover there may be more than just a contract drawing them together.

Review

I have not watched many Japanese dramas as I found they were either way too sexualized for me or didn’t make the manga to live action transition well. This one was a pleasant surprise. I enjoyed the marriage of convenience premise and that they fell in love very naturally. There were some breaks in the 4th wall moments but they were not obnoxious. It is overall a well paced and heart warming romance with many comedic moments. Highly recommend to anyone that is a fan of marriage contract and just heart warming rom coms with straight forward plots. The 2nd season special episode was actually a nice wrap up to the story. It was as well written as the main story and did not seem like an afterthought as some do.

Spoilers*
Hiramasa is very robotic in the beginning and it can be frustrating knowing how he really feels about something and watching him struggle to express it. These are big, complicated emotions for an engineer. It is enjoyable to observe his character development and they do a great job bringing the viewer in on that journey. Mikuri herself can be a little ridiculous about her emotions. I felt there were several times she misread a situation and got all spun up about it when she should have known he did not mean it the way she was taking it. But that is love which can cloud rationality. It took on some social issues like the traditional male and female roles. Japan is on a different path than the US and it is hard to watch them making some errors that US made that I think have caused problems. Mikuri wants to be equal with equal responsibilities and winds up putting a lot of pressure on Hiramasa. He learns and I think their relationship is better for it but it seems they are able to make it with one partner working and the next level is people not being able to make it and the state raises the child. They also tackle unequal treatment in the workplace, age gaps and homosexuality. To me it was interesting that the age gap was too large between the aunt and Hiramasa’s work colleague at 17 years but between the gay couple the age gap was not even mentioned. 17 years is a large gap but I don’t think, since they were both fully adults that is the only consideration. In their cases she was 50s but had a young bright personality that resulted in her fitting in with the younger crowd better than those her age. Her younger love interest, in his mud 30s, was so selective about partners that it seemed he would never select anyone his agenor close. The very things he did not like were attributes of his generation or younger. They were very compatible personality wise and it seemed if they weren’t together both would remain single. The special was also a reflection of early to mid COVID pandemic when we all though asymptomatic transmission was a thing, children were at high risk, and social distancing, masks and sanitizers were going to save us. It was heartbreaking their young family was apart but was an accurate reflection of the world at that time.

Deep Spoiler* Their chemistry in this is very real as the main couple married in real life. Gen Hishino is most famous as a singer and you can see a lot of his music videos.

#FullTimeWifeEscapist
#YuiAragaki
#GenHishino
#MarriageofConvenience