Disclaimer: this is a review, and as such it contains spoilers of the whole series. Please proceed to read at your own risk if you still plan on watching this show or if you haven’t finished it yet. You have been warned.
Koi wa Tsuzuku Yo Dokomademo
(恋はつづくよどこまでも / Love Lasts Forever)
MyDramaList rating: 7.0/10
Hiya! Back with a new review before the end of the year. The reason my review of this came later was because I watched it twice – not just because I liked it so much but because halfway through the first time I realized I was actually supposed to watch it in combination with the special episodes belonging to the spin-off “Mada Mada Koi wa Tsuzuku yo Dokomademo”. So then I decided to watch Dali and the Cocky Prince first and then get back to watching KoiTsuzu a second time the correct way, with one special episode after each main episode. I really recommend people to watch it this way as well, since it will make much more sense and you actually get more information on the love stories playing out in the background that aren’t featured as much in the main story. All in all, I did not regret watching this a second time. I’d been looking forward to watching it for a while and I was not disappointed. Now I can’t wait to share my thoughts on it. Let’s go!
Koi wa Tsuzuku yo Dokomademo is a 10-episode J-Drama, with episodes lasting about 50 minutes (each special episode lasts about 15 minutes). The story starts when Sakura Nanase (played by Kamishiraishi Mone), originally from Kagoshima, is on a graduation trip to Tokyo. She makes a wish at a local shrine to meet her romantic match one day, as her family has a history of men that are lacking in one way or another. She buys a cute cat strap charm from that same shrine and just as she makes her way back, she sees an old woman collapse on the street. Without hesitation she runs over, and when she realizes she doesn’t know what to do to help her, she starts shouting for help in a loud voice. Fortune has it that it doesn’t take long for someone to come to the rescue – a very handsome man at that. Not only that, he actually turns out to be a doctor! Tendo Kairi (played by Satou Takeru) works at Hiura General Hospital and just happens to be jogging nearby when he hears someone shout for help. Because of their teamwork, the old woman is brought to a hospital safely, and Tendo thanks Sakura for shouting for help. The smile that he gives her before he leaves impacts her deeply – not only does she feel like she’s just met her soulmate, she also realizes that she now knows what she wants to do with her life: she wants to become a nurse.
I just want to comment from the start that I was happy that Sakura’s determination to become a nurse also started here. It wasn’t just that she fell in love with Tendo on the spot and that was her whole reason for pursuing nursing, she also fell in love on the spot with the idea of becoming a nurse, with as a bonus that she could work together with Tendo in the future. It just made her desire to become a nurse more genuine, unlike for example in ItaKiss, where Kotoko becomes a nurse purely because Irie becomes a doctor and she doesn’t want to be separated from him. I also liked how realistic Sakura was from the start, she came into action immediately after she saw the woman collapse and she immediately put her scarf under the woman’s head for support. She thought about trying to reanimate her, but she realized she didn’t exactly know how to do it, and that’s why she decided it would be better to call for help. This was so smart of her, honestly, not to just try something and fail as it may have had a bad impact on the woman’s situation. I don’t know, it just made me think positively of Sakura from the start, the way she was so smart and determined in her own way.
By the way, I will be calling the characters by the names that are used to address them most in the series. It just feels weird and unfamiliar to call someone by their first name while their first name is rarely or never mentioned in the show. While Sakura’s first name Nanase is mentioned several times, and Tendo also starts calling her that more at the end, she’s still called ‘Sakura’ most throughout the show so I’ll stick to that.
Sakura proceeds with studying to become a nurse and gets admitted to Hiura General Hospital five years after her fateful encounter with Tendo. However, when she meets Tendo on her first day, he’s nothing like she remembers. He’s harsh and cold, and he immediately puts her in her place as a rookie. He even calls her a ‘useless boulder that keeps the river from flowing’ (referring to newbies that only get in the doctors’ way). Sakura is shocked, especially when she learns from her fellow nurses that Tendo’s nickname at the hospital is ‘Maou’ (‘Devil’). His kindness only extends to his patients, and he doesn’t even treat his fellow colleagues amiably most of the time. Sakura’s brazen confession to Tendo on her first day immediately makes her fellow nurses see her in a favorable light, though, and it instantly earns her the nickname ‘Yuusha’ (‘Hero’). They can only admire her for facing the ‘Devil’ like that from the start.
After making multiple mistakes, mostly in front of Tendo, and even being discouraged by him to continue nursing as an occupation a couple of times, Sakura still decides to enter the Cardiology department after her rotation period ends, the department where Tendo works. She is joined by her fellow rookie Sakai Yuika (played by Yoshikawa Ai), who in contrast to Sakura, is ambitiously driven to become a doctor to follow in her mother’s footsteps. Sakai makes it clear that she finds Sakura’s reason to become a nurse (driven by love-at-first-sight) quite irresponsible. Other than that, Sakura’s fellow nurses and the other doctors all really seem to like her and she’s welcomed into the team with open arms. They all support her in her feelings for Tendo and encourage her to win his heart, which is really sweet. One doctor that’s actively willing to help Sakura out with winning Tendo’s heart is Kisugi Koichi (played by Maiguma Katsuya), Tendo’s peer and one of the Cardiology’s most popular doctors. In contrast to Tendo, he’s very social and loved by everyone he encounters because of his likeable personality. Even Sakai can’t stop herself from falling for him at some point. While Kisugi initially wants to help Sakura get closer to Tendo, also because he wants Tendo to open up more, he does find himself falling for Sakura as well, but he never forces himself on her, and even after she rejects him, they keep being very close and friendly with each other. He becomes one of Sakura’s closest friends and allies within the hospital.
Sakura and Tendo even find out they live next door to each other, in an apartment building close to the hospital where many of the hospital residents live as the rent is so cheap. The landlady of this building is Tendo Ryuko (played by Karina), Tendo’s older sister. She is the opposite of her brother in personality, although she also used to be a resident doctor at Hiura. She’s very outgoing and she loves booze. She even tells Sakura she quit being a doctor because she wasn’t allowed to drink on night shifts, lol. She eventually gets her own love story with Sakura’s fellow rookie in pediatrics, Nishi Ryusei (played by Watanabe Keisuke).
The series basically depicts Sakura’s journey, both in becoming a nurse and growing in her occupation, but also in obtaining Tendo’s favor and affection. In the end, as we know from the start, Tendo will fall for her and Sakura will be able to melt away his cold and harsh exterior with her genuine brightness and kindness. Apart from that, there’s the love stories between Ryuko and Nishi and Kisugi and Sakai in the background, but these are mostly established in the MadaMada special episodes.
I will try to incorporate the events of MadaMada in this review as well, because as I explained earlier, they provide a lot of background events and development between side characters that don’t get highlighted as much in the main series. It’s a nice way of adding more layers to the main series, as you won’t be able to understand some references made in the main show if you haven’t additionally watched MadaMada. Especially in the final episode, when the protagonist of MadaMada appears in the main show for the first time, you won’t get that if you haven’t seen MadaMada. I also feel like the final MadaMada episode is the real final episode to the main story, as it wraps up the show much more neatly than the main show’s final episode.
I will elaborate a bit on the main characters first and talk about their individual character development throughout the story. Although it’s only 10 episodes, I still think they managed to balance all the events and the characters’ respective growth pretty well. Let me start by our Heroine, Sakura herself. Honestly, I really liked Sakura’s personality. She is so genuine in her work and she never gives up, no matter how many times she is scolded. The only time her spirit breaks is when one of her patients unexpectedly passes away, and this just proves how incredibly empathic she is. She may still have a lot to learn when it comes to practices and actually medical treatment, but if there’s one thing that comes natural to her, it’s bedside manners. Because of her empathy and genuine kindness towards others, she has no problems putting the patients’ minds at ease. She’s excellent at small talk, she talks with the patients and makes them feel comfortable and special. She even makes helpful notebooks for the patients to take with them when they get discharged. She pays a lot of attention to each and every patient, and she always writes extensive nurse notes in their digital files. More than once these notes actually solve a problem to a patient’s condition that otherwise wouldn’t have been noticed. So you can’t say she has absolutely no aptitude for being a nurse. She seems to be the embodiment of what Department Head Doctor Koishikawa Rokuro (played by Yamamoto Koji) describes in the first episode: within the kanji of ‘patients’, ‘病人’, the doctors take care of the ‘病’, aka the sickness part, and the nurses take care of the ‘人’, aka the people part. While it does take her some time to get over her own insecurity when it comes to her professional potential as a nurse, for example in terms of assisting in surgeries and emergencies without panicking etcetera, the moment does come when Sakura decides she’s going to put her heart and soul into nursing and when the seeds of her effort start bearing fruits, we can see that Tendo’s attraction to her becomes more effortless. She truly grows into her potential and this doesn’t go unnoticed, and we see Tendo growing towards her most in the moments when she’s not even trying to get his attention. That’s also probably why, when Tendo finally starts reciprocating her feelings, it initially comes as a shocking surprise to Sakura, and for a while she can’t seem to believe that it’s actually happening, especially because there doesn’t seem to be an immediate change in the way Tendo treats her at work. But it becomes more obvious when more situations arise in which Sakura’s confidence is shaken, or when other people try to get in the way of their relationship. Tendo keeps confirming how solid he is in his feelings for her, and this ultimately makes Sakura become more confident in their relationship as well.
I get that people have their opinions about Sakura’s initial motives to become a nurse. I could understand that for someone like Sakai, it could be considered a luxury to have ‘first love’ as a key motivation to pursue a career while she herself is doing it purely with professional success and financial stability in mind, and also because she wants to make her mother proud. Sakura herself comes from a small place in Kagoshima, she grew up with her grandparents, parents and older brother in one house, so a lot of familial warmth. As romantically-inclined as she might seem, she really takes her chosen path seriously and she doesn’t purely live through her fantasies about Tendo (again, unlike for example ItaKiss’ Kotoko). She is very good at snapping herself back to reality, into working even harder and becoming a useful asset to the Cardiology team. Tendo occasionally warns her not to get too invested in each patient’s story, but she just can’t help herself as the natural empath she is. She may see herself as a rookie without much world knowledge or professional experience, but her personality just always lights up whatever room she enters and people are drawn to her bubbliness effortlessly. I mean, she even gets to Tendo, even though he initially tells her that there wouldn’t be more than a 0,0001% chance that something would ever happen between them, so I guess that says something.
Let me quickly go through the patients that Sakura gets involved with, to establish an analyzed summary of some ‘arcs’ that happen in the story, and to go through the development Sakura goes through because of these patients. I liked that this series didn’t really adapt a case-by-case format, but that all the patients’ stories continued throughout the entire show, some even from beginning to end.
First of all, there’s Shirahama Anri (played by Sumida Moeno), a young girl in the pediatrics department that’s under Tendo’s direct care. Her discharge keeps getting postponed as her heart transplant keeps falling through and at one point she almost jumps off the hospital roof in desperation, but Sakura manages to calm her down. It isn’t until the very final episode that Anri finally gets the surgery she needs; a mechanical heart transplant. In any case, it is because of an earlier one-on-one talk she has with Anri that Sakura realizes how sad the girl must be, despite always keeping herself strong and smiling in front of the other kids in pediatrics who all depend on her. This is something that Sakura notices because of her emotional capacity to connect with Anri, and this ends up saving the little girl’s life. After this, Tendo decides to officially give Sakura another chance at his department.
The second patient to make a big impact on Sakura is Kanda Mitsuyoshi (played by Kaneko Daichi), a young man who works at an electric appliances store. He longs to go back to work and take out the girl he likes to tonkatsu after his discharge. However, just as he is about to go into surgery, he collapses and during the emergency surgery he unexpectedly passes away. Sakura, who is supposed to observe in his surgery, finds herself unable to move in the chaotic operation room and seeing this person pass away has a huge emotional impact on her. She talked with him, she learned about his plans after discharge, and now suddenly he is gone. After this, Tendo ends up comforting her when she gets so emotionally drained she collapses at home.
Other patients include Mr. Sugamo Manabu (played by Okabe Takashi) who can’t honestly face his wife during his hospital time, Mrs. Tsuruoka Keiko (played by Miho Jun), a middle-aged lady who desperately needs heart surgery but doesn’t want to as it would disable her from going to her estranged daughter’s wedding ceremony, a patient-turned-stalker called Tazawa (Mori Ren) who takes Sakura’s empathy as a bit more than just patient care, and the son of the main sponsor of Hiura General Hospital, a young man called Kamijo Chikashi (played by Kiyohara Sho) – I will get to him later.
During the caretaking of all these patients, Sakura proves her worth as a nurse more and more and Tendo starts taking notice of her skills, potential and nature more and more as well.
Even though this series is fairly uncomplicated when it comes to the romance part, there are several occurrences of a love rival.
In order to get to the major one, I will first discuss Tendo’s back story.
It’s revealed by some of his colleagues that Tendo underwent some sort of emotional change during his career as a doctor. It’s mentioned that ‘he used to smile more’ and we also see a picture he keeps with his fellow residents in which he smiles happily.
And then we learn that Tendo went through something really harsh. He used to have a girlfriend, Wakabayashi Minori (played by Renbutsu Misako) who was his fellow resident. However, she eventually became a patient as her heart condition deteriorated and she passed away. Losing her has been incredibly hard on Tendo, and you could say he closed himself and his heart off from anything but taking care of his patients after that. When Sakura finds out about this, she feels like even though she won’t be able to erase those painful feelings from his heart, she does wish for him to get over his grief and she really wants to help him with that. She keeps telling him that she will take care of him, that she will cherish him, and he gradually starts accepting that.
However, at some point, Minori’s younger sister Miori (played by the same actress, Renbutsu Misako) starts working at Hiura as well and she manages to make a dent in Sakura’s confidence. She actually makes Sakura feel like she’s less of a match for Tendo just because she is more closely connected to Tendo’s past with Minori. As a matter of fact, Miori even confesses her feelings to Tendo. Sakura initially just assumes that Tendo will be swayed by her just because she looks like her sister and she believes he’s not yet over Minori. This is the only time in the series when Sakura is discouraged in her feelings for Tendo and even basically tells him she gives up. After which Tendo (for good reason) tells her off because ‘what the heck are you talking about after all this time’. After literally being won over by her feelings for him, now suddenly she starts saying things like that? I couldn’t blame him for his disbelief there. Anyways, they both leave no room for other people that want to take over their relationship. Miori also ends up accepting her defeat. Sakura may be the opposite of how Minori used to be, Miori can’t deny what the two of them have.
And then there is Kamijo Chikashi. As I mentioned before, he is the son of the main sponsor of the hospital, and that’s why he gets a very exclusive VIP room and the privilege to choose which doctor takes care of him. Sakura meets him for the first time outside, before his take-in, and there he already starts flirting with her, but she brushes him off by saying she has a very handsome and skillful boyfriend. When he is taken into hospital care and sees Sakura and Tendo for himself, he keeps criticizing Tendo for not cherishing Sakura enough. Honestly, while he can be seen as quite a petty person, it all stems from a place of loneliness. He’s from a rich family, he has a lot of money, and you can bet that most of his ‘friends’ are only around him because he treats them very generously. There’s this one scene when his friends come over to hang out in his hospital room and he gives them all tickets to Universal Studios. They just happily accept it, telling him they love him, but not one of them expresses sadness about the fact that he won’t be able to join them. They’re really just in it for the benefits he provides and that is sad. Sakura, again, being the watchful empath that she is, notices this and this is why she can’t bring herself to dislike Kamijo, even though he keeps calling on her for no reason and is clearly out to seduce her and take her away from Tendo. He even sues Tendo at some point, causing him to be taken off Anri’s mechanical heart surgery, and tells Sakura he will only drop the lawsuit if she comes with him to the overseas facility he’ll be transferred to next. Seeing as this is the only way to clear Tendo’s name and enable him to participate in Anri’s surgery, Sakura tells Kamijo that although she can’t come with him, she will leave Tendo. Luckily it doesn’t take Tendo long to track her down in Kagoshima and he brings her back to Hiura after meeting her family.
And I guess there was also Kisugi, even though he was never truly a love rival to Tendo. I was really touched when he told Sakura that he was rooting for her because he just really wanted to see Tendo smile again after what happened with Minori, he just wished for him to experience love and happiness again, as a real friend. Kisugi was a really nice guy, even when he confessed his love to Sakura he was okay with being rejected, and when it seemed like it would become awkward between them after his confession, he was immediately able to be as friendly with her as he had been before, making her feel like nothing had changed between them. When he starts recognizing Sakai’s advances towards him when she tells him she wants to help him get over Sakura, he eventually opens up to that possibility – in the final episode he invites her out for a meal, just the two of them, for the first time.
I guess these were the main really ‘dramatic’ events in the series that posed a temporary ‘threat’ to the main leads’ relationship, but still nothing ever really stood in their way because there was nothing that could make their feelings for each other waver. I always like it when at least in that department there is barely any room for misunderstandings, because both leads just make their mutual feelings so clear. True, in the beginning Tendo doesn’t express his affection for Sakura that much, but as soon as he senses she is starting to have doubts, he starts confirming them to her more and more. He doesn’t want her to doubt his intentions and his feelings, so he always finds a moment when it’s just the two of them to reassure her, and these scenes are always very thrilling as they are the only moments where he openly expresses his affection (and physical attraction) to her.
Honestly, as much as I loved their intimate moments, I was also super frustrated because they are literally interrupted EVERY. SINGLE.TIME. Every time Tendo starts kissing her, especially that time when things are getting heated as she expresses she doesn’t feel sexy enough for him, what the heck was with that random interruption?! How did those two people barge into Sakura’s own house like that?! Apart from just being frustrated because of the interruption itself, I just didn’t see the reason why they had to be interrupted like that every single time. Even at their wedding in the final episode, why was it necessary to suddenly make one of the guests collapse to cut off their vows like that? Honestly, I lived for their moments together so I really would’ve liked to see at least one uninterrupted make-out scene. It was a rare occurrence to see Tendo get so soft!
Especially when they are at her parents’ house (although it does end cutely when Sakura insists on sleeping under the same blanket as him) and come on, THAT CREAM BREAD KISS. I squealed out loud when that happened but OF COURSE just at that moment people come barging in. Seriously, at least give them ONE single uninterrupted kissing scene! Just ONE! T^T
As I mentioned, in the MadaMada special episodes, we get to see more than just Sakura and Tendo’s relationship play out. In the MadaMada episodes, the figure that stands at the center is Nekota (played by Kuroba Mario). Actually, he isn’t mentioned by name at all, but this is how he’s mentioned on DramaWiki. Nekota is the Cat God from the shrine that Sakura makes her wish at in the first episode, and in the MadaMada episodes he’s disguised first as an izakaya waiter and then as a bartender, both in places that the hospital residents frequent after work. His gimmick is that he tells people’s love fortunes, and these consist of him doing a funny little cat dance before he writes a wise quote on a piece of paper to give to the inquiring person. These quotes are usually not very direct, but they always play out in one way or another, sometimes not even to the person it’s given to. The main message he passes on is that love works in mysterious ways, that sometimes things don’t happen the way you expect them to, they may even happen to someone else instead, but still there’s never a shortcut to love and things will happen the way they will. He is basically someone who keeps appearing in the background to check up on people’s romantic relationships. In the main story, he only appears in the final episode as a new hospital rookie, and when one of the nurses recognizes him, he just smiles and says he wants to keep an eye on everyone, or check out their workplace or something. This is what I meant when I said earlier that you won’t understand his appearance if you haven’t been following the MadaMada episodes.
In any case, he helps out a lot of the side characters without them even being aware of it. For example, Sakai’s crush on Kisugi. In the main show, it just seems like at some point she becomes more interested in him, but MadaMada shows the actual moment her crush on him starts, and from then on her behavior in the main story starts making more sense as well. The fortune she receives from Nekota is ‘Don’t tuck away the fluttering of your heart’ (or something along those lines). While Sakai initially doesn’t even believe she has the luxury to think about love, this changes when Kisugi tells her off for studying and pushing herself to work until she faints and urges her to take better care of herself before she takes care of her patients. Impressed by the way he addresses her so strictly as no one at the hospital has actually scolded her before (she’s the most requested rookie by all departments after her rotation period ends), she immediately accepts that this feeling is more than just admiration. In her own way, she starts doing her best to win his affection, and in the final episode she manages to get him to invite her to dinner by being really strict with him as well. Even though she’s sceptical of Nekota’s fortune-telling, she does accept it as soon as she realizes this feeling, and from then on she doesn’t attempt to ‘tuck the fluttering of her heart away’ anymore.
And then there’s the story of Ryuko and Nishi. Nishi is first introduced as one of Sakura’s fellow rookies, together with Sakai and Kano Misa (played by Hotta Mayu). Nishi and Kano move to Pediatrics while Sakai and Sakura go to Cardiology, but the four of them keep hanging out regularly after work, sometimes at Nekota’s izakaya, sometimes at Sakura’s house. Nishi is a very sensitive guy, who initially has difficulty dealing with blood when it appears in front of him without warning, but he gets better at it. He meets Ryuko when he’s at the movies, and falls for her at first sight. Their bond is initially kind of mysterious, as they keep meeting coincidentally a couple of times before they even really know each other’s names. When Nishi finds out that she’s not only Tendo’s older sister but also Dr. Koishikawa’s ex-girlfriend, he gets very discouraged, retreating into his own insecurity while Ryuko is waiting for him to actually make a move and sweep her off her feet. It takes a while for him to get his act together and still pursue Ryuko, and both of them go through periods in which they first want to figure themselves out – first Ryuko tells Nishi that she’ll date him after he becomes more mature but then realizes she herself also needs to mature. In the end they are reunited when Nishi applies to work at Ryuko’s family’s hospital that she ends up taking over as director.
Truth be told, I didn’t really feel this pairing. Not necessarily because of the age gap (Nishi is 22 and Ryuko 35), but just because I didn’t really feel their ‘click’. As much as I liked Nishi as a character, as Sakura’s good friend who was also maturing in becoming a nurse in his own way, I couldn’t help but feel he was a bit spineless, especially opposite Ryuko, who was such an independent strong woman. I was surprised that they made these two an actual couple and didn’t just make it Nishi’s one-sided crush or something. I have to admit that the MadaMada special episodes that focussed on them filled in their love story a bit more and gave them a bit more depth, but still I felt like they weren’t a perfect match. Of course, Sakura and Tendo also didn’t match each other in personality, but at least they had chemistry and intimacy, and I missed all of that in the Ryuko/Nishi pairing, so that was a pity.
Apart from these pairings, I just want to give a shoutout to the side characters, aka the other nurses and doctors, the ones that got highlighted more in MadaMada, because they actually grew on me so much they became my favorite characters besides the leads.
Starting with the doctors, I’ve mentioned him before, but the head of the Cardiology department is Dr. Koishikawa. I loved him from the first episode on, when he came into the rookie’s orientation and plain forgot the cool thing he wanted to say and ended up saying, ‘we have a really good bakery!’ haha. And then after that he came with the whole ‘病人’ thing. In the MadaMada episodes, he uses this same reference to describe ‘lovers’ or ‘恋人’, stating that younger people sought more after ‘恋’, the love aspect, and adults sought more after ‘人’ the people aspect. Honestly, if I didn’t love this man enough already in the main story, he KILLED me in the MadaMada episodes. There’s this situation where he gets involved in a misunderstanding regarding Nishi’s feelings for Ryuko, and he ends up believing Nishi is interested in HIM instead. His extra acting, his facial expressions, just everything he did made me laugh out loud. And the most beautiful thing was that he just accepted it, like he was actually prepared to go along with it if Nishi really felt that strongly about him. This guy really cracked me up every single time he appeared, he was awesome.
Then there were the nurses in Sakura’s department. By the way, I loved that they normalized male nurses as well, and there was never any mention of it being a feminine job or anything. I remember that in ItaKiss, there was one male nurse and he was depicted as being super feminine, so it just set a kind of tone for how male nurses were perceived or something? In any case, I liked that there was no generalization in this drama concerning that whatsoever.
Sakura’s team leader (if I can call her that) is Negishi Mariko (played by Hiraiwa Kami). She is always very sympathetic to Sakura’s situation and always goes easy on her subordinates. There is one ‘arc’ in which her son is admitted for an ablation, and she asks Tendo specifically not to include Sakura on his case. Even though she is rooting for Sakura’s progress as a nurse, when it comes to her own family she has to admit she doesn’t fully trust Sakura’s skills. I think this was a very tricky situation, because I understood both sides. I understood how, when personal relations are involved, one might have different feelings towards who they’d feel comfortable taking care of them. I’m just glad it didn’t create a dent in the bond between Sakura and Negishi, and Negishi also ends up apologizing to Sakura, who of course doesn’t make a big deal out of it. Negishi is really sweet and supportive to Sakura from the start, she really feels like a mom.
Then there is Numazu Yukito (played by Miki Kousei), a kind of comical character who is respected by his team mates nevertheless. He has a funny bond with Kisugi, whom we works with closely, and Kisugi always teases him. I liked that they also didn’t make a stereotype of him, despite the fact that he may not have been perceived as generally ‘handsome’ and that he was a little chubby, he still has a girlfriend (I did find it rude no one believed him in the beginning) and there is nothing amiss in his confidence. He was funny without trying, and that made me like him. In the final episode, his younger brother makes an appearance. I just found out that these two brothers are a comical duo in real life, so that’s probably why they let him make a special appearance, haha.
Which brings me to Ishihara Kozue (played by Takiuchi Kumi). Kozue is one of the nurses that gets highlighted a lot in MadaMada, and for me this actually caused her to become one of my favorite characters. She’s one of these women who’s very active in marriage hunting, she really wants to find a guy and is one of the few people who’s willing to take Nekota’s fortunes seriously as they do somehow tend to have an effect on her. I just liked her personality, she was so funny and bubbly and didn’t care what other people thought of her.
Apart from Kozue, there are two other nurses in the Cardiology department, Nakano Ai (played by Eren) and Takatsu Wakana (played by Mikami Ai). These two appear in the background mostly, but they make some additional appearances in MadaMada. They are a fun bunch who always love to gossip during lunch break over a box of sweets.
In the Pediatrics department, there is Yuuki Sayoko (played by Katase Nana). It’s suggested that she used to also have a crush on Koishikawa when he was dating Ryuko in the time the latter still worked at the hospital, but she’s still friends with both of them. She’s a very friendly figure to have around, someone who also always really supports Sakura as well. There’s one other nurse from Pediatrics, Hara Shizuka (played by Ando Sei), who also gets more screentime in the MadaMada episodes.
I want to tag everyone’s actors because everyone deserves a shoutout. One of the reasons I didn’t mind watching this again is because it truly felt like being part of a big family, everyone was so comfortable and pleasant with each other and I loved everyone’s dynamics.
Apart from that, there are two other nurses (or matrons?) that appear mostly in MadaMada, but also occasionally in the main show. These are Ofuchi Tomoko (played by Hara Fukiko) and Kobayashi Fumie (played by Horimoto Yukie). I loved that, while these characters’ names aren’t even mentioned in the series, they are still written as individual characters, and MadaMada also gives them the opportunity to shine, be it just briefly, to give more insight into their respective personalities. I liked the MadaMada special where Ofuchi accidentally puts on Kobayashi’s pants and lives in the assumption that she’s lost weight for like half an hour, lol. It was nice that they also gave her that whole scene with Sakura about the spicy and salt squid, haha.
The reason why I feel that the final MadaMada episode should be considered the final episode of the whole series is because it literally picks up right after Sakura and Tendo’s wedding. The main series ends there, and then MadaMada still continues a little bit further. After Sakura returns from her one year abroad in Sweden and the couple gets married, Sakura walks into Nekota, who’s now a new rookie at Hiura, and she recognizes him. I loved how she was telling Tendo how useless his fortune-telling was at the time because it didn’t help in any way to make her get closer to him, and Tendo was like, ‘what are you talking about, we’re married now, it definitely must’ve helped in some way’, haha. I also liked that the MadaMada episode ended at the shrine where Sakura prayed at in the first episode, near the street where they met for the first time. And that they managed to work Nekota’s fortune-telling ritual against him and wrote ‘koi wa tsuzuku yo, dokomademo’ on the sheet of paper as their final fortune-telling. It just felt like a much more neatly wrapped-up ending, in which we see that these two are going to be just fine.
I knew this wasn’t going to be a long review since the series is relatively short, but since the MadaMada special is also included it still feels quite lengthy what I’ve written up till now, haha. I think I’ve mentioned most of what I really liked about the series. I’ll just insert a few things that may have bothered me a little bit before I continue on to my cast comments.
Honestly, as much as I have grown to love this series, the MadaMada episodes definitely added some points to my ranking for it. I cannot deny that the series in general (including MadaMada) has some serious cringe tendencies. I wasn’t really bothered by it as much in this case because it really helped that all the actors completely went for it, but I did see a lot of comments saying that they found it cringy and even embarrassing to watch at times. I mean, it’s a J-Drama, it’s bound to get cringy. I have to admit I had it multiple times with Tendo. He was supposed to be this really cold and distanced handsome guy who didn’t express his feelings, but when he would start expressing his feelings to Sakura, sometimes it came out really cheesy, but that was all the more because you just wouldn’t expect to hear these words from him. When they were getting intimate, and the ways in which he kissed her (I repeat: THE CREAM BREAD KISS), yes they were cringy, but they still made my heart beat faster. It did help a lot that it was Satou Takeru, of course, but seeing him in this kind of role just made me feel all kinds of ways, haha.
So yeah, I mentioned before that I was a bit frustrated/disappointed by the fact that they kept interrupting Sakura and Tendo in their intimate scenes. They managed to build up these scenes so well, and then just as they were getting it on for real, usually Ryuko (either alone or accompanied) would barge in and ruin the moment. After a few times it’s just not funny anymore!
Something that I mainly had while watching the main show for the first time was that it felt like they suddenly had the urge to add in a couple of repetitive dramatic events. I have to admit I was a bit distracted at the time because I’d just found out about the MadaMada special and was preoccupied with the question whether I was even watching the show correctly, so it may have been caused by that. But, for example, the fact that they made Sakura get involved in an accident two times. Admittedly, the first time was not that big of a deal, despite the fact that there was this whole dramatic ‘I wish I could’ve spent more time with you’ moment in the ambulance – she ended up walking out of there that same night with just a single bandaid. But then that time when they jumped in to push some kids out the way of an approaching car and Sakura got hit instead and then suddenly half the people present were lying wounded on the street? Like, what was that? As far as I could tell, the car didn’t even get that far, but somehow all the people walking in front of them had also gotten hit by the same car?! Thinking about it, I just didn’t see why they suddenly came up with this serious accident in which a lot of people got hurt, just to make Sakura collapse into a coma for three days. Especially after watching it again and thinking, how are all those people on the ground when the car didn’t even reach them o__o
I mean, in a way I get it, because each dramatic event that happened ultimately led to one of the leads expressing their true feelings in the heat of the moment, but sometimes I found it pretty extreme. I will only stay nice about this one because it ended in Tendo summing up all the reasons he loved Sakura, the reasons he wasn’t able to put into words before when she and her family asked for it. This was one of my favorite moments because it really showed how much he’d been watching her, and how he’d truly seen the kind of person she was.
“How you always give your best effort for everything. How, no matter how much I scold you, you never get dejected. How you constantly observe your patients. How you trust people blindly. How you were raised with so much love. How you don’t realize you’re sexy. You sing your weird song when you’re drunk and you can’t eat ice cream without making a mess. You can’t do any chores, and you fall asleep too easily, but when you laugh you are the cutest in the world. If these words make you happy, then I’ll say them whenever you want. I love you.”
Lastly, I found it a very interesting choice to confront Tendo with his past connection to Minori by making the exact same actress play her younger sister. This really weirded me out from the start, because I actually thought it was Minori herself and it was like, SURPRISE SHE DIDN’T ACTUALLY DIE or something. I get that the whole point was that Miori was the spitting image of Minori, but seriously, using the same actress was pretty unexpected. And also the fact that Miori just went there to poke her nose into Tendo’s business and that she started involving herself in his relationship with Sakura because she felt like she had the right to, what was up with that? It felt like she just expected him to come to her immediately only because she reminded him of Minori. I didn’t really understand this logic.
Oh, before I forget, I am downloading that ending credit song, ‘I Love…’ by Official HIGE DANdism, I really liked it! And I also realized that an instrumental piano ballad version of the same song was used in several dramatic scenes, that was a nice twist. 🎵IRREGULAR~🎵
Let’s move on to the cast comments! This is going to be quite extensive, I imagine, as I have so many people to give shoutouts to besides the main characters. I liked that the majority consisted of actors I didn’t know before, but this also means that I can’t really make comparisons to previous performances I’ve seen of them. In any case, let’s go!
First of all, Kamishiraishi Mone. So Kamishiraishi Mone initially gained fame (I believe) because she voiced the female lead character in that super hyped animated movie ‘Your Name’. At least that’s what I knew her name from. She’s also the older sister of Kamishiraishi Moka, who played Kageyama Reina in 3-nen A-gumi which I recently watched. They really do look alike!
On a more personal note, I actually studied at the same college as her in Japan! This was the year that ‘Your Name’ came out and I remember hearing rumors that she was in the same campus as me at the time. I never actually saw her in person myself (I didn’t even know what she looked like, I just knew her by name), but it’s kind of cool to think I was actually studying in the same building as her for a year, haha.
Anyways, this was the first thing I’ve ever seen of her acting in real life (besides voice acting, that is). I see she’s been doing a lot of dramas since 2017 and she’s getting more and more main roles as well, good for her. I really liked her in this drama. Her acting was so genuine and I loved how she just went for it in energy and zest, especially the (slightly) cringy scenes, she really didn’t hold back. It just seemed to come so natural to her, the scenes in which she was socializing with patients and just her general dynamic with every other character felt so natural, almost as if she wasn’t even acting. From the first moment on I felt myself rooting for her. I hope she’ll get more and more opportunities to shine as an actress because she was really good here and even though this was kind of a typical Japanese manga-adapted romantic comedy, she still managed to set herself apart from other heroines.
By the way, I loved that they incorporated that when her colleagues called her ‘Yuusha’, she suddenly appeared in the next shot wearing a hero’s attire including a scarf, head wear, sword and shield, haha. I just loved how they managed to fit these in so casually while everyone kept being serious, because those moments made this series all the more humorous. I really liked her performance! I didn’t even think about this until the very end, but there is a pretty big age gap between her and Satou Takeru, she was 21/22 when this show aired and he was 30 I guess. Looking at it the second time around it does look more obvious, but still they acted it out so naturally that it didn’t really bother me. They didn’t make their age gap get in the way of their on-screen chemistry, in any case, and I really admire that. I can imagine it can be quite scary to act out a romantic relationship with someone 10 years older than you.
I haven’t even seen that much from Satou Takeru before, I just realize that he was in Mei-chan no Shitsuji (this was ages ago, damn) and I’ve also seen him in the movie Kanojo wa Uso wo Aishisugimasu, which I believe should be left to exist on its own without its crappy Korean remake The Liar and his Lover (sorry not sorry). Anyways, I’m bound to see more of him, I can’t wait to watch him in his latest series First Love, for example. Anyways, I don’t really remember the kind of acting I’ve seen of him before, but as I mentioned I did sometimes struggle a bit with the way he expressed his affection to Sakura. It just seemed to be so out of character for him to utter phrases like ‘I’m not going to let you sleep tonight’, lol. But on the other hand characters like this are also my weakness, because I’m a big fan of the ‘seemingly detached but actually devoted boyfriend’ type. I would’ve liked to get a better insight to his psyche, though, because in the moments when he didn’t make his intentions clear, sometimes I really found it hard to determine what he was thinking. After we learned about his backstory and past with Minori, I was hoping that through those flashbacks, we would get to see more of how Tendo used to be, the time when he ‘used to smile more’, but because that wasn’t really explored, it was also hard to imagine the switch he must have made in personality.
What I did like was that, even though he was perceived to be very handsome by mostly everyone, he wasn’t made into an Irie-type character. It wasn’t that he became popular wherever he went and that Sakura had to deal with tons of love rivals. His personality kind of worked in her favor, if you look at it like that, lol. It was just nice to have a character that seemed quite typical for a Japanese drama, but still not THAT typical. That’s what I loved about all the characters by the way, the way they were all really unique and stood out in their own way without becoming stereoypes.
I also didn’t know Maiguma Katsuya from anything, so it was nice to ‘get to know him’ through his performance of Kisugi. I liked how down-to-earth he was, and that he just had this genuine sympathy for everyone. It was really touching to hear him say that he just really wanted his friend to smile and love again, he was such a nice guy. Even though he became kind of the second male lead, I believe that he already knew he didn’t stand a chance against Tendo, but he just couldn’t stay quiet about how he felt. It was all the more characteristic of him that he just continued treating Sakura the same way as before, because her rejecting him shouldn’t make things awkward between them. It just proved how comfortable they felt around each other as friends, and he remained an ally to the both of them until the end. I liked how genuinely kind and caring he portrayed Kisugi, and that he also opened himself up towards possibly accepting Sakai’s feelings at some point. He had a mischievous streak to him, which came out in for example his treatment of Numazu, but he always remained a very likable and dependable senpai to his colleagues. I liked how he revealed there was this thing going around where people called him and Tendo ‘Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio’, lol. The quirkiness of his character always appeared at such the right moments, and they were balanced in so well with this more serious behavior when it came to work and patients for example, and I think his character was just very well written.
I kept thinking that Yoshikawa Ai looked familiar, and I got kind of a shock when I looked her up because I actually know her from some really unexpected stuff, haha. Under her real name Yoshida Riko she appeared in Hotaru no Hikari and Mei-chan no Shitsuji and she was the younger sister in Minami-kun no Koibito! And then I realized she was EtoMika in Hajimete Koi wo Shita Hi ni Yomu Hanashi, which I only watched really recently. Like, how did I not recognize her?! Even looking at EtoMika’s picture now I’m having a hard time accepting that it’s the same person, lol. To think that a hairstyle and a smile can really make that much of a difference! I liked how, as down to earth as she appeared in the beginning, she was able to set her prejudice against Sakura aside and open her mind more to other people’s feelings and situations. I believe Kisugi also helped her realize that nursing wasn’t just about become better through studying and working harder, but also about connecting and empathizing more with people. One time I was really impressed by her scene was when Sakura was in that coma and she was alone on the night shift and she just started crying. It was really endearing how she told Sakura that she needed her around because she was her only peer at Cardiology. She may have been a bit awkward in socializing, but she definitely grew a lot as a person, also because she met Sakura and all the other doctors. I also liked to see a bit more of her vulnerable side in the MadaMada episodes. I still can’t get over the fact that she was EtoMika, seriously, she was a completely different person and now I already respect her acting even more.
I hadn’t seen Watanabe Keisuke in anything before, but I found him an interesting choice for the character of Nishi. I can’t really explain why, and I don’t mean anything negative by it either, but he just stood out to me for some reason. As I mentioned before I didn’t really feel his chemistry with Karina, and again here, just like with Sakura and Tendo, we were talking about an age difference of 10 years, but the other way around. When this drama aired he was about 27 while Karina was 36. I wondered if this was all casted deliberately, haha. Anyways, I did like that, while he was quite sensitive, he still proved to be a good fit for a pediatrics nurse. It was nice to show that he really progressed, in the beginning he would freak out when faced with unexpected blood loss, but in the final episode he managed to deal with it without even a squeak. What I just generally liked about this drama was that everyone was just living their own lives in the meantime, and not everything was focussed on the main couple. It made it all the more relatable to see different hospital workers dealing with their own struggles, and I thought that was really nice.
I have to admit that he did crack me up in that misunderstanding with Dr. Koishikawa, because he just didn’t realize how the fact that he didn’t clarify that he was talking about Ryuko only made everyone extra confused. I still think the whole situation could have been resolved if he’d just put ‘Dear Ryuko’at the beginning of the letter, but it still made for some good comedy, lol.
I’ve seen Karina in Watashi ga Renai Dekinai Riyuu and Kirawareru Yuuki, and in both cases she played non-typical female lead characters that weren’t really interested in finding love. I mean to say that this was the first time I saw her as a really feminine character. I did like to see this side of her, because she can be so alluring and fun. I loved that she also wasn’t just Tendo’s older sister but had this whole history with the hospital as well, all in all I think they managed to establish and fill in their characters very well. It was nice that they gave her specific quirks, like getting people’s names wrong, and later revealing that her mother was just like that. It was funny overall that Ryuko was most like her mother and Tendo was exactly the same as his father, haha.
I found it a bit hard to determine in what way she was exactly attracted to Nishi, because she didn’t really seem to be her outspoken, booze&party-loving self whenever she was around him. Also, when she said she was attracted to him because she just needed someone to tell her directly that he liked her, I didn’t really feel it. They still ended up together, but all the intimacy they showed was a hug in the end, and it still looked more like a friendly hug. Like, it was nothing compared to the hug between Sakura and Tendo when Sakura came back from her year abroad. If they were going to make Nishi and Ryuko a couple, I would’ve liked to see Ryuko, as the more experienced person, act a bit more in character. For example, I could imagine her teasing Nishi when he’s too shy to be intimate or something. But it remained to be a bit ‘dry’ between them, more words than deeds, so that was a pity. Still, I love Karina so it was really nice to see her in this.
Yamamoto Koji looks so familiar to me! From stuff I watched I only see that he was in The Quiz Show but I doubt I remember him from that. In any case, he was one of my favorite characters in this show, especially in MadaMada. He cracked me up from the first time he appeared, as he was just such an easygoing and likeable Department Head. He may have been the boss and higher in rank (so possibly less easy to approach), but he really cared about each and every employee and patient. He may have been a bit clueless but he was also very wise. I couldn’t really picture him and Ryuko as a dating couple, but it was a nice thing that they were still on relatively good terms. What I really liked about him was that, in MadaMada when Nekota offered to read his fortune, he instead asked if he could read his ex’s fortune, because he cared about her ending up in an arranged marriage while she clearly didn’t want to. Just the fact that he wanted to make sure she would end up well even thought it wasn’t him just made him really sympathetic to me. He SENT me during the misunderstanding situation with Nishi, why did he suddenly become so extra?! Seriously, those random moments he would just gaze into the camera all dramatic, and then the English, ‘What? Letter’ and ‘Bittersweet’, I COULD NOT EVEN. He really made part of the show for me, loved his performance.
I see that Katase Nana appeared in Ikemen Desu Ne, but just as with the above, I can’t believe that’s the only thing I recognize her from. She looks so familiar as well! I really loved her character too, especially when her silly side came out in MadaMada. She was the main nurse in pediatrics, and she was just a very comfortable character to have around. I liked her dynamic with Ryuko when Nishi introduced her as the woman he liked and she was just like, ‘NO. NOT HER’, lol. It seemed as though they had been really close but somehow Sayoko had taken a distance from Ryuko after she quit the hospital? In any case, Ryuko seemed more affectionate towards her than the other way around. But then later on in the series they suddenly appeared all outgoing and drunk-partying together (crashing Sakura and Tendo’s intimate moment >_<) so that suggested they were close. She was also very friendly with Koishikawa, she joins him at Nekota’s bar regularly in MadaMada. It was funny when she fell for Nekota on the spot and threw him off in his cat dance because she was so enthusiastic about it, lol. That whole spring performance piece about Cleopatra was random as heck, but I still found it funny as it was a way to deflect from her painful memory of being rejected by Nekota, lol. They sure came up with pretty bizarre scenarios! In any case, I liked her.
Hotta Mayu was one of the students from 3-nen A-gumi, so that’s where I recognize her from. I liked that, even though Kano didn’t appear as much as her fellow rookies, she was a really solid side character in that whenever she appeared she was really well established. She went for pediatrics, and that’s where she stayed and belonged. In the final episode she also mentioned her ambitions to grow in her occupation. She was just a very positive person to have around, even though she was the only rookie who didn’t really get her own storyline, she also didn’t exist purely as a supporting figure to her friends.
I don’t know Renbutsu Misako either, although in her case too I feel like she looks familiar. Why do all Japanese actors look so familiar?? In any case, as I mentioned, I was a bit weirded out by Minori and Miori being played by the same actress, and the fact that that was reason enough for Miori to approach Tendo and just expect him to fall for her next after her sister or something. I didn’t really see the necessity of making her, of all people, a new love rival for Sakura, because she really didn’t need to be threatened by anyone. It was good that this only proved that, even though he’d loved Minori first, it didn’t mean that someone who looked like his ex immediately made her ‘his type’. She was not Minori, and just because she looked like her and shared a past with her didn’t mean like she could just claim him in memory of her sister. It just seemed a bit weird to me. Luckily she didn’t turn out to be spiteful person or anything, and she had no other choice than to back off in the end, which she did gladly after being assured that Tendo would be left in good hands. She was a good person, although I still have mixed feelings about what her initial intentions were upon meeting Tendo and reminding him of Minori.
Takiuchi Kumi just completely made MadaMada for me. This woman is amazing. I don’t know her from anything else, but she really blew me away here. Just the energy and devotion of her acting, she really didn’t hold back, especially in the silly scenes, for example when she thought Kisugi had a crush on her. She was just so herself that she didn’t even care about looking stupid to anyone else, haha. She was a really fun character and I fell in love with the energy and fun that she brought in her character, especially in MadaMada, she really got to shine there. It was funny that she just went straight for Numazu’s brother too, haha. I loved her.
Miki Kousei was also a nice character to have in the nurse’s team as well. I am not surprised that he’s a comical duo with his brother, because he was funny without trying to be too funny, if you get what I mean. His comedy was never over the top, but really nicely dosed. What helps and makes a character funny is when their character is dead serious about it and he really got that down. I loved how every single character was just so unique and not afraid to be themselves and Numazu just took himself as seriously as everyone would, which made him effortlessly funny at times. He was the person who came up with the name ‘Yuusha’ for Sakura and he also supported her from the start. The scene where she made him promise not to tell anyone that Tendo had hugged her tightly and he was like ‘Okay. GUYS HE HUGGED HER TIGHTLY’, lol. I just loved how effortless his comedy was.
I loved how Hiraiwa Kami was such a collected motherly figure who was always on Sakura’s side, and that her request to get her removed from her son’s ablation was really nothing personal. I just liked that they managed to input a situation regarding one of the nurse’s family members and that this created a kind of tension regarding who got to treat him. I believe it’s a rule that doctors aren’t allowed to operate on their own family members because of their emotional attachment, and it was fine for her that she didn’t get to do it herself, but she still wanted to make there were no mistakes made whatsoever. In the end, Sakura’s observational skills regarding her son again solved a problem and she was allowed, with Negishi’s permission, to participate in the surgery and they were able to save him. Negishi was a very humane character, her request really didn’t make her affection towards Sakura any less genuine, and there was no tension between them whatsoever. She seemed to have a really nice bond with her son, as it became clear she’d told him about ‘The Hero and the Devil’ at home so he knew immediately who was supposed to be who. I liked her, she was a very sweet character and very fitting to play a nurse.
And then finally, Kuroba Mario aka Nekota! I just see on DramaWiki that he’s married to another actress who’s also 6 years older than me (this drama has all kinds of ties to age gaps in relationships, lol). Anyways, I cannot even begin to imagine how cringy it must have been for him to keep dancing all those cat dances and making all those ‘nyan nyan’ sounds, but he definitely pulled it off. Just like what I’ve been saying about other characters, I just really admired how seriously he took himself. I liked that they actually made a whole separate story about the Cat God and turned him into a mysterious supporting character that was secretly watching over everyone’s relationships. It was funny that they added to the final MadaMada episode that he was supposedly the one that made sure Sakura’s voice reached Tendo when she was shouting for help with that old woman. He had been watching over her ever since she bought the cat strap charm. He really cracked me up at some points, haha. When the flashback was shown of Ryuko and Nishi’s predecessors ending up together and the quote on the paper that he wrote turned out to be a pun of words, the way he was standing there in the back pointing at that piece of paper like ‘ 😀 😀 :D’ and when he witnessed Sakura and Tendo meet for the first time, like he was watching his life’s works come into bloom, haha. It was a very fun idea to make this special and add him as the quirky humanified Cat God. I particularly liked it when he did his cat dances in the bar because the whole crowd just went YASSS whenever the music started haha, he really got the other bar customers on his side.
It was also funny that his last cat dance in the final MadaMada episode turned into one big group dance in which all the characters joined him, lol. He was funny.
So with that I have finally reached the end of this review! I repeat, I really liked this drama. I can imagine myself watching it multiple times as a kind of comfort series because it’s so easily digestible and I feel like it will always continue to crack me up. Although the setup of the story is so simple, a story of a woman becoming a nurse while chasing her love-at-first-sight guy to the hospital he works at, it still sets itself apart from similar series like ItaKiss, as I mentioned. It was made very original by its characters and I won’t stop emphasizing how much I liked the fact that they created MadaMada besides this because it is so much more than just a spin-off, it really adds depth and story to the existing main show.
I found it funny because as someone who has watched Grey’s Anatomy, I couldn’t help but think how kind and calm everyone remained in all sorts of situations. When someone makes a mistake, their ‘scolding’ always includes a tap on the back and a smile with something along the lines of ,’everyone makes mistakes’, while in GA they would be reprimanded really harshly in some cases. There is just a really easygoing vibe at the hospital, even when there is an emergency it just feels like everyone is able to remain so composed, even when a person dies they manage to make it into something positive, something to learn from, without ever diminishing the fact that a person had died. It was really touching when the girl Kanda liked came to visit Sakura to give her that catalogue of rice cookers, as he’d promised he’d recommend one to her. Every story just has a deeper meaning, and all cases are equally important and valuable.
It’s been a while since I wholeheartedly laughed out loud while watching a Japanese series, it was a true joy to watch this. Despite several minor cringy or illogical moments, I don’t really have anything critical to say about it. It was really fun and sweet and I really lived for the scenes in which Sakura and Tendo shared intimate moments. Their actual kissing scenes (despite getting interrupted), the way he ran his fingers through her hair, his sneaky kisses, their staring contests (which also usually ended in a kiss), their (back) hugs, the way he sat behind her to dry her hair for her, the way she snuggled up behind him to sleep under the same blanket as him, the way he ate that cream bread out of her mouth…. Okay, I’ll stop now, haha.
I’m really looking forward to my next drama, and I will keep improving my review writing skills next year as well! I hope this was another worthwhile review to read. Who knows when I’ll be back! You will know when I do. ^^
Happy Holidays in advance, everyone!
Bye-bee!
