Kiwi

I loved the leads in this. I also thought it was well directed, for the most part, and the conversations felt organic. The photography was nice, as were the locations. It was nice that, while it did resort to the bad communication and third wheel tropes, they weren’t dragged out, and were resolved without melodrama.

Did I mention that I love the leads? The music was exactly what I’ve come to expect from J-dramas, and while that’s not a bad thing, it’s also nothing to write home about. Call it “suitable.”

In case I haven’t said so, the leads are fabulous. Neither does the cartoonish overreaction thing that one of them, naming no names, did in a prior role. Oh, and both can act, together they have chemistry, and are believably comfortable getting intimate in NC scenes. They’re also very pleasant to look at.

This is a safe, pleasant, engaging love story, centred on an office workplace, but with distant past roots. It’s not alienating with homophobic tropes like gay for you only, or internal conflict over trying gay for the first time, and the one outsider who learned they are a couple was supportive and unshocked that there was gayness going on. I find strong reactions to queerness incredibly repellent, and the WTF reaction this character showed was that these two people were together, which was understandable, given their apparent relationship.

I do hope that being out of the closet professionally becomes more of a norm in Japanese dramas one day 🌈