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This review may contain spoilers
Five Episodes In, and This Is the First J-Drama I Don’t Want to Drop
I went into Duty First, Kiss Later almost by accident. I started it while waiting for an appointment because I didn’t want to interrupt another drama I was already watching. Five episodes later, I am completely caught up and genuinely annoyed that there aren’t more episodes available yet.
That is especially notable for me because Japanese dramas usually do not work for me. Every J-drama I have tried before this one has been dropped by around episode 3. This is also my first Japanese BL, and apparently I have once again managed to choose an unusually strong first entry into a new country/genre combination.
The setup is simple: Takoi is a 38-year-old police officer who is beloved by basically everyone in his small community. He is warm, helpful, approachable, and kind to everybody. Shiono is a younger officer in another division who is talented, highly praised, on a fast career track…and inexplicably irritated by Takoi almost every time they interact.
Takoi cannot figure out what he ever did to make Shiono dislike him.
Then he finally corners Shiono and demands the truth.
Shiono kisses him.
That is where the romance begins, but what surprised me is that this drama has much more going on than a simple “straight older man unexpectedly falls for younger male coworker” plot.
The central issue so far is actually Takoi himself.
Takoi considers his kindness one of his best qualities, and in many ways it is. But he treats everyone with such intense, undifferentiated warmth that he does not always recognize when he is creating false expectations, crossing emotional boundaries, or saying something comforting in the moment without considering the consequences. Shiono sees this flaw much more clearly than Takoi does, and the drama uses it both for humor and for some surprisingly thoughtful character development.
At the same time, Takoi is trying to understand what it means that he has fallen for a man when he has always thought of himself as straight. I really like how this is handled. He is confused, flustered, and occasionally ridiculous, but his struggle is never treated as meaningless. Shiono also does not pressure him. Once he realizes how destabilizing this is for Takoi, he gives him space and lets Takoi make the important moves himself.
That makes their growing relationship extremely sweet.
What I am enjoying most is the balance. This drama is genuinely funny without becoming silly, romantic without becoming weightless, and surprisingly thoughtful about kindness, boundaries, intention versus impact, and what it means to make one person feel different from everyone else.
Episode 5 also raises the emotional stakes considerably, and the final scenes hurt in exactly the way they were supposed to.
Five episodes in, I am very impressed.
If you like adult BLs, workplace settings, an age-gap romance where the age difference actually affects the characters, grounded humor, and a relationship with something more substantial to explore than simple attraction, this one is absolutely worth trying.
Now I just need episode 6.
That is especially notable for me because Japanese dramas usually do not work for me. Every J-drama I have tried before this one has been dropped by around episode 3. This is also my first Japanese BL, and apparently I have once again managed to choose an unusually strong first entry into a new country/genre combination.
The setup is simple: Takoi is a 38-year-old police officer who is beloved by basically everyone in his small community. He is warm, helpful, approachable, and kind to everybody. Shiono is a younger officer in another division who is talented, highly praised, on a fast career track…and inexplicably irritated by Takoi almost every time they interact.
Takoi cannot figure out what he ever did to make Shiono dislike him.
Then he finally corners Shiono and demands the truth.
Shiono kisses him.
That is where the romance begins, but what surprised me is that this drama has much more going on than a simple “straight older man unexpectedly falls for younger male coworker” plot.
The central issue so far is actually Takoi himself.
Takoi considers his kindness one of his best qualities, and in many ways it is. But he treats everyone with such intense, undifferentiated warmth that he does not always recognize when he is creating false expectations, crossing emotional boundaries, or saying something comforting in the moment without considering the consequences. Shiono sees this flaw much more clearly than Takoi does, and the drama uses it both for humor and for some surprisingly thoughtful character development.
At the same time, Takoi is trying to understand what it means that he has fallen for a man when he has always thought of himself as straight. I really like how this is handled. He is confused, flustered, and occasionally ridiculous, but his struggle is never treated as meaningless. Shiono also does not pressure him. Once he realizes how destabilizing this is for Takoi, he gives him space and lets Takoi make the important moves himself.
That makes their growing relationship extremely sweet.
What I am enjoying most is the balance. This drama is genuinely funny without becoming silly, romantic without becoming weightless, and surprisingly thoughtful about kindness, boundaries, intention versus impact, and what it means to make one person feel different from everyone else.
Episode 5 also raises the emotional stakes considerably, and the final scenes hurt in exactly the way they were supposed to.
Five episodes in, I am very impressed.
If you like adult BLs, workplace settings, an age-gap romance where the age difference actually affects the characters, grounded humor, and a relationship with something more substantial to explore than simple attraction, this one is absolutely worth trying.
Now I just need episode 6.
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