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Shanai Marriage Honey japanese drama review
Completed
Shanai Marriage Honey
3 people found this review helpful
by raspberries
Feb 4, 2021
7 of 7 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 8.0
Story 8.0
Acting/Cast 8.0
Music 7.5
Rewatch Value 7.0

When the sweet and cute romance takes seriously their relationship

Overall

I can only say good things about this drama, to be honest, I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought. It's short, which is a good thing in itself, especially if you want a quick watch to entertain yourself easily; the plot is nice; sweet and simple; I particularly enjoyed how stress-free it was, how it was completely uncomplicated. No big villains, no tense situations, no cases of bad miscommunication. So all in all a nice, relaxing watch...
Recommended to: someone who likes romance enjoys fluffy stories. Like that must be requisite number one to watch this drama. The fluffiness here is to the roof. Also, someone who wants to take a break from angsty stories...

Story

The plot is pretty simple, a couple marries after meeting each other through a dating app, they barely know each other (besides their names, what else did they know?...), soon they find out that they work in the same company, and the story unfolds. It has a sort of episodic nature, with the main couple trying to work around a certain issue that married life throws at them.
Truthfully I enjoyed this show because, even though the plot seems nothing out of the ordinary, the characters seemed really nice. The female lead is a competent career woman, she gets along with her colleagues well, acts cutesy but is not silly, is straightforward and honest with her feelings, very optimistic. I enjoyed that for once, a cute and feminine girl was portrayed as a good worker, that her cute behavior made her seem more like a warm person; we often see how she tries to connect with others, caring about how those around her are doing. The male lead is a little bit more complicated, tries to seem cool and nonchalant, but recognizes his mistakes, doesn't let jealousy overtake him, and respects the female lead. Which is nice, honestly all the characters seemed nice. Even the supporting characters are just regular people, which I found charming.
The story just revolves around the main couple and how they try to work out their marriage, on the contrary to other dramas, they take their relationship seriously from day 1. At some point, in the beginning, it feels rushed, but then I understood that they were just attracted to each other from the start. What I appreciated was the honesty of the characters, so many times we see in dramas that a lot of the plot is driven by miscommunication, an issue that could be solved easily with the characters talking is sometimes dragged endlessly. Not here, they address the things that bother them and just try to not give up on their relationship. They make mistakes, they apologize, they feel insecure, they ask what is going on.
I totally understand why someone could not enjoy this drama, to be honest, I was just in the right mood when I watched it, and I knew what I was getting into, the other reviews and comments warned me about the nature of the show. Don't expect huge character development or a complicated storyline. Could the show have been better? Well yes, I often think what could the drama do better, perhaps focus more on the relationships of the leads with their friends, flesh them out a little more. The dialogues are pretty straightforward and direct. But it is what it is, and I for one appreciate a show where the characters are just nice people dealing with a quirky situation.

Acting
I'm not going to dwell on the acting too much. Often with shoujo manga adaptations we see how the actors tend to over-act, I've seen actors that are generally good do exaggerated expressions just for the sake of the drama, it doesn't mean that the actor is doing a bad job, is what the drama requires them to do. It is nerve-wracking? Yes, and it can be the sort of thing that puts off people, and it's okay. But in this drama you see nothing of it, again, it depends on the script, but the leads acting was good enough, they balance each other well and the chemistry was there. Yes, the female lead is over the top cute, but that's her character, this works well with the male lead's cool character. Given that up to 90% of the time the lead actors have to carry the show, they do a pretty good job.
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