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.

Mr. Insomnia Waiting For Love
(香蕉先生不睡觉 / Xiang Jiao Xian Sheng Bu Shui Jiao / Mr. Banana Does Not Sleep)
MyDramaList rating: 7.0/10

Hi everyone! I thought I’d be back in the nick of time to share another review with you. Although this was quite a short drama which I could’ve probably finished much earlier if it wasn’t for work and other stuff getting in the way, I still really wanted to get this done before the end of the month, so here we are!
I went into this series thinking it’d be a typical Chinese romcom, but I ended up having a way better time with it than I expected. I liked the overall story and characters, and the way they wrapped up all the side plots to reach a wholesome ending. I’m excited to share my views.

Mr. Insomnia Waiting For Love is a Youku C-Drama with twenty-four episodes of about thirty minutes each, making it very suitable for binge-watching. I watched it with decent English subtitles on KissKH. The story is about Lu En Tong (played by Kong Xue Er/Snow Kong) and Song Yan Xu (played by Wu Yu Heng), who both suffer from severe insomnia.
Yan Xu is the CEO of Kerwin Group, a company ironically specialized in scientific sleep treatments. He is currently trying out their new product, Banana 3, but it doesn’t seem to have any effect. En Tong (or Tong Tong, as I’ll be calling her) is an aspiring cellist who decides to apply for Kerwin Group’s insomnia treatment program to get rid of her sleep-deprivation and fulfill her dream of becoming a professional classical musician.
The two initially meet when Tong Tong pulls Yan Xu away from the edge of a roof, thinking he’s about to jump off. When they fall on top of each other and touch skin, they immediately fall asleep. After a few more similar encounters, they deduct that, for some reason, they annul each other’s insomnia. They agree to undergo special treatment as part of a scientific research to cure their unique sleeping disorder. As their treatment requires them to stick closely together and even sleep next to each other a lot, it inevitably leads to them catching mutual feelings. However, this doesn’t seem ideal, since they keep falling asleep whenever they attempt any sort of intimacy. At some point, their problem tips over to the other extreme when the amount of sleep they get from each other becomes excessive, and there’s even a chance that one of them might not wake up again at some point. Whilst their treatment continues, there’s a couple of obstacles for them to overcome in their relationhip, from a jealous second lead to their shared past trauma that led them to develop insomnia in the first place.

I have to say I’m starting to like the trope of one or both of the main leads suffering from some sort of syndrome or condition and finding someone to annul that. I recently watched two shows – Love Me Like I Do and Romantics Anonymous – that played with this concept, and I liked what they did with it in this series as well. I specifically liked how they kept using the insomnia element as a crucial part of the plot, even when it got better towards the end. I remember LMLID already got rid of it after a couple of episodes and never brought it back, which I thought was a pity. I also thought the transition from the insomnia treatment to the revelation that it was actually linked to their shared trauma was really good, it kept me interested and excited until the end. While there were some random and annoying parts, I appreciated that these weren’t dragged out too much. Everything was wrapped up neatly so that the final couple of episodes could be devoted to the main leads making amends and getting back together. I liked the structure of the story. Even though they put in a typical dramatic twist here and there, they didn’t linger too much on the problematics and focussed more on getting through it towards a happy ending, which I appreciated a lot.

I’d like to discuss the main characters in a bit more detail, including the side characters around them, before commenting on some specific elements that left an impression on me.
Starting with my queen, Tong Tong. Lu En Tong grew up as an only child, raised by her loving parents (played by Li Bin and Li Tian Yu – again, I used this website to decypher the names from the ending credits since not everyone is credited on my source websites). While she is only aware of the fact that she suddenly developed insomnia a year earlier, it’s ultimately revealed that she’s also had severe insomnia episodes when she was a child. In fact, it used to be so bad that she underwent a lot of treatment in the past, and since this was such a stressful time for her parents as well, it’s no wonder that they’re extra protective of her now.
Tong Tong has one big passion in her life, and that’s playing the cello. However, as her insomnia keeps getting in the way of her practice and she keeps slipping up during auditions due to her lack of sleep, she’s determined to participate in the treatment program at Kerwin Group to make sure she gets the chance to partake in musical concours without worries.
There are a lot of things that I appreciated about Tong Tong. First of all, I loved that she wasn’t male-driven. She had her own life, her own friends and her own dream that inspired her to get rid of her insomnia. You could say that Yan Xu was just a bonus, because Tong Tong wasn’t even looking for romance. Even throughout their relationship, she stuck to her own values and never let herself be blindsided by her romantic feelings, even towards her friends. She demanded her own space without becoming disrespectful or arrogant, and Yan Xu had no choice but to abide by that. She never shrunk or became a lesser version of herself because of her attachment to a man, which was a huge improvement from the majority of female leads in Asian romcoms, lol.
Another thing I loved about her was that she was a real girl’s girl. At some point, she has to take a job interview at Kerwin Group to be hired as Yan Xu’s assistant (to create an opportunity for them to stick together). While she’s waiting to be called in for the interview, the girl next to her, Ye Zi, gets coffee spilled on her by someone, most likely out of spite. To this, Tong Tong responded immediately, without a second of hesitation, by giving Ye Zi her vest/cardigan, and she even stood up for her during that BS interview. That immediately made me stan her, what a queen. It was no surprise that she managed to become friends so quickly with literally every woman in the building except Man Su, lol. It was really refreshing to have such a naturally confident and unbothered female lead in a Chinese drama. She was just minding her own business, and when people talked smack about her, she just went: “I don’t let that bother me 🤷🏻‍♀️” and went on with her life. When she didn’t like someone, she didn’t act on it or retaliate – she stood above it, and that was really satisfying to see. I think she only ever made one snappy remark at Man Su, which I need to share because I loved it. I believe she and Yan Xu were having dinner together and Man Su came in (I believe with Chi Zuo?) and of course had to butt in on their date. At this point, Tong Tong said something like: “If you like pulling people apart so much, why don’t you go work at a noodle restaurant and start pulling noodles apart, I bet you’d be good at that.” LMAO. Other than that, she always just let other people’s nasty comments roll off her back like they were nothing.
I also really appreciated that she didn’t immediately get back together with Yan Xu at the end, when the issue of their past was resolved. I loved that she went: “actually you made me a cry a LOT, so let me sleep on it” and made Yan Xu work to win her back. She was so mature in the way she paced herself in everything she did, from her romantic experiences to her work and daily life.
Apart from all these badass characteristics, we can’t ignore the fact that she also looked like an actual goddess. I loved her style of hair and fashion and how she embraced it, bows and all. I couldn’t blame Yan Xu for literally shooting hearts out of his eyes whenever he looked at her. I loved that scene in the final episode where he was like: “You’re so beautiful” and she went: “I don’t need you to tell me that.” YASS QUEEN. Normalize natural confidence in Asian drama female leads, ’cause we love to see it. Literally the only thing that puzzled me about her was the way she was able to look so exquisite every single day while she allegedly only got two hours of sleep every night. I also noticed that she went to bed wearing regular clothes and full make-up at times, but I won’t dwindle too much on those details.

Let me move on to Yan Xu now. Song Yan Xu lost his mother Ye Ming Zhuo (Wang Shi Meng) when he was seven years old, and grew up with his father (Luo Meng) and his uncle Song Chen (Du Ya Fei), who’s an executive director at Kerwin Group. Since Chen is only three years older than Yan Xu, he’s always felt more like an older brother than an uncle to him, and they often banter about this. Despite his insomnia, Yan Xu has been doing a great job as CEO, although it has kept him tied to a close circle of people. In the final episode, he mentions that Tong Tong became ‘a beam of light in his life’, which I think is a very sweet way to put it. She broke him out of his stoic and regulated life and made him a warmer person.
By the way he fell for her so quickly – he first expresses his feelings for her in episode 5, which I thought was unexpectedly fast – it was clear that he hadn’t experienced this kind of connection with anyone before. I don’t mean to diminish his love for Tong Tong to a lack of experience – to me it felt like he may have clumsily stumbled into it at first and then solidified those feelings after spending more time with her, which wasn’t a bad thing. As a matter of fact, I was kind of surprised that he was the first one to fall, seeing the way his character was initially set up.
In contrast to what I said about Tong Tong, it actually seemed to me that Yan Xu was quite female-driven. As soon as he fell for Tong Tong, she became his whole world and he barely entertained himself with other things or people. In that regard, I can’t deny that his personality fell a bit flat to me, and there was at least one part where his lack of determination genuinely pissed me off. From the start, it had felt like he was the one who was head over heels with Tong Tong, so I found it hard to come to terms with the fact that he of all people would pull that awful move of pushing her away ‘in order to protect her’. I’ll talk in more detail about this particular arc later, but for now I’ll just say that the way he switched between trying to give her the cold shoulder and crawling back to her like a lost puppy didn’t really work in his favor for me. When Tong Tong found out about their past – or at least about what they’d been made to believe – she faced Yan Xu in person to tell him what had come between them to make her take a step back. If she hadn’t found out, Yan Xu would’ve just kept her in the dark about his ‘sudden change of heart’ that made him ghost her overnight, after freaking PROPOSING to her.
So yeah, in terms of personality, I was much more keen on Tong Tong than on Yan Xu. It sometimes felt like they were brushing over it a bit by making him pull all those grand gestures of putting up lights and setting off fireworks to create romantic sceneries for her. I’m not going to complain too much, though. They were still a cute couple and I loved the concept of them trying to find ways to be intimate without falling asleep, that was really funny and original. It was nice to have this kind of Barbie and Ken dynamic, since we’re used to seeing women run after men in Asian dramas a lot. I just wished that Yan Xu had been a bit more solid in his own feelings. Even though he never actually meant to break up with Tong Tong, the fact that he wouldn’t talk to her about the thing that formed the biggest obstacle between them and initially believed ghosting her was a better solution than working through it together still doesn’t sit right with me.

Moving on the second leads, I’d like to talk about Chi Zuo and Man Su.
Chi Zuo (played by Pan Lu Yu) is initially introduced as Tong Tong’s childhood friend who works at a café and who is secretly in love with her. Later, he is revealed to actually be a shareholder of Kerwin Group. I admit I still don’t really know how, but he has also known Yan Xu and Man Su for a long time. Chi Zuo has stuck with Tong Tong through a lot of stuff during her life and is genuinely rooting for her to cure her insomnia.
Chi Zuo was such a stand-up guy. He never flaunted his wealthy background and preferred to work as a barista at his café. I was a bit scared that he’d become the typical jealous second male lead, and that he’d actually team up with Man Su to break Tong Tong and Yan Xu apart, so it came as a massive relief to me when he was the first to give up. It was so nice to have someone actually understand the concept of ‘loving someone means allowing them to be happy, even if it’s not with you’. In contrast to Man Su, who couldn’t seem to let go of Yan Xu for the life of her, it was really refreshing to have him as an ally to the main leads and a voice of reason to call Man Su out on her delusional behavior. In the end, he did more to help in the main leads’ relationship than he did to go against it, because why would he? He was a really good guy, I liked him a lot. Besides the fact that he kept supporting Tong Tong even when she didn’t reciprocate his feelings, I really appreciated the way he kept helping out Yan Xu with company issues as well. He always jumped in when he could to call people out for being unreasonable and setting things straight.
I think the fact that it didn’t sit right with him when Yan Xu told him to ‘take care of Tong Tong’ in his absence also said a lot about his character. He would never use such a backhanded way to claim Tong Tong for himself (take a note, second male lead from Lucky’s First Love!). Instead he ended up helping the two of them resolve things and get back together. I wish Asian dramas could normalize this level of maturity in second male lead characters. I loved how he tried to keep Man Su in line as well. He kept telling her that she was being delusional and that loving someone sometimes meant letting them go instead of clinging to them and getting in the way of their happiness, like she was. Despite my initial suspicions regarding his intentions, Chi Zuo turned out to be the best and most supportive friend Tong Tong and Yan Xu could have wished for. I really liked him.

Xu Man Su (played by Yu Cong), on the other hand, was a completely different story. I don’t remember the last time I was this annoyed by a character’s pettiness. I’m glad they decided to make her see the light in episode 18, but honestly, her insane behavior went on for way too long. Basically, Man Su is Yan Xu’s childhood friend, their fathers are close, and her dad is the main shareholder of Kerwin Group. I’m not sure if she and Yan Xu were actually promised to each other from birth, but the idea is definitely in the air on Man Su’s family’s side. Man Su herself also works as an executive director at Kerwin Group, and she’s always made it her business to keep every single woman away from Yan Xu, even though he never asked for that and clearly doesn’t have romantic feelings for her.
Man Su’s behavior is established very clearly from the start, even before she meets Tong Tong. We are introduced to her when she hijacks the job interviews for Yan Xu’s new assistant, to abuse the interviewees with nonsensical questions and bottles of alcohol, solely to send them all away for being unsuitable. Once she finds out about Yan Xu’s connection to Tong Tong, she doesn’t even try to understand what their relationship is based on, or why they need to undergo treatment together. It wouldn’t even have taken her that long to dig up the insomnia issue, since the co-sleeping contract was literally lying around the office. Instead, she spent all her time and energy on having Tong Tong investigated and thinking of the nastiest ways to bring her down. She literally took away Tong Tong’s last chance at a cello audition by having her lured away and locked up in a cold storage to make sure she couldn’t attend. The fact that this grown-ass woman would go so far as to take away another woman’s dream, purely because she couldn’t deal with the fact that a man didn’t like her back was unfathomable to me. I didn’t even believe her initial shocked reaction on hearing that Tong Tong had been taken to a hospital, because she’d literally just expressed the wish to ‘make her feel what it was like to suffer a big loss’. When they showed her be all: “wait, I never meant for that to happen, I’m not that evil”, I actually thought they were going to redeem her there and then, but no. She STILL kept going. When Tong Tong’s father came to Kerwin Group to talk to Yan Xu about his intentions with his daughter, she used the opportunity to step in and tell him that she was Yan Xu’s fiancée. She even took it upon herself to inform Tong Tong of her alleged contribution to Yan Xu’s mother’s death, as if she had any right to do that – she literally just found out about it herself a day earlier. She did so much nasty shit, purely out of spite.
I think what bothered me the most wasn’t even her jealousy or the fact that she couldn’t cope with the fact that Yan Xu didn’t like her back. It was the fact that she kept trying to sabotage their relationship even when it was clear that it wouldn’t bring her anything. Even after being rejected multiple times by both Yan Xu and his father, she STILL kept trying to bring Tong Tong down. Like, if you’re going to create a malicious character, at least give her actions a purpose, don’t just make her evil for the sake of having an evil second female lead. At some point she was just plain delusional without an end goal or anything to back her up, and it got kind of tiring to watch.
The way Chi Zuo kept pointing out her deluded behavior to her reminded me of that ferris wheel scene from Lucky’s First Love, where the second female lead told the second male lead that, if the person she loved loved someone else, she’d only wish him happiness. That was the main difference between them. Chi Zuo was mature enough to realise he couldn’t force Tong Tong to be with him, and he was content seeing her be happy, even if it wasn’t with him. It really seemed impossible for Man Su to get this through her skull, and it got pretty annoying at some point.
Having said that, I am happy that they didn’t wait until the very last episode to redeem her. When she finally realized she couldn’t stand between Tong Tong and Yan Xu, and even admitted that it was Tong Tong who’d been taking care of him while he was in the hospital, it was like a wave of relief came over me. Turns out, Man Su was actually a really cool person all along. I still feel robbed that we couldn’t have more of the person she was in the last six episodes, because she and Tong Tong got along so well.
I even liked that she and Chi Zuo ended up together. I initially felt bad for Song Chen when he expressed interest in her in the beginning. Although my opinion of Chen changed considerably towards the end and I’m now happy they didn’t end up together, I thought Man Su was being really disrespectful towards his advances. Of course she didn’t need to accept affection from someone she didn’t have feelings for, but the fact that she literally threw away his birthday bouquet, just because it wasn’t from Yan Xu, seemed excessive. Chen was the only one who remembered her birthday and offered to celebrate it with her, and she literally trashed his good intentions without even a ‘thank you’. At least her affectionate side came out naturally with Chi Zuo from the start, so it didn’t come too out of the blue that they ended up together. By the way, that drunk hook-up they had at the end ??? That makeout session was wilder than all of the main couple’s kisses combined, lol, I was surprised!

Before I move on to discuss Song Chen, it seems apt to talk about the issue that forms the main obstacle in Tong Tong and Yan Xu’s relationship. Of course, this issue presents itself when everything finally seems to work out and their parents finally agree to meet. As soon as their parents lay eyes on each other, though, it’s back to square one: Yan Xu and Tong Tong are not allowed to see each other ever again. The reason for this stretches back to a tragic incident from when they were children.
As it turns out, Yan Xu’s mother Ye Ming Zhuo used to be a cellist player and teacher, and she also taught Tong Tong in the past. One day, when Tong Tong, Yan Xu and Chen were playing together as kids, Tong Tong and Yan Xu somehow ended up rowing a boat on an artificial lake, which was highly discouraged for safety reasons. In the end, Yan Xu’s mother rescued the both of them, but drowned before she could save herself. The shared trauma of holding on to the capsized boat together and trying not to fall asleep ultimately turns out to be what binds Tong Tong and Yan Xu, and what causes them to annul each other’s insomnia. However, after this went down, both Chen and Yan Xu’s father started pointing fingers at Tong Tong for being the one to insist on rowing that boat and indirectly causing Ming Zhuo’s death.
At this point, I was already at a loss for words. Even if this was what happened, the fact that they actually blamed it on a five year old girl, who would go on to become literally traumatized to the point of developing a sleeping disorder due to the constant nightmares of what happened, was insane to me. Like, I get that they needed someone to blame in the heat of the moment. Even if it was just a tragic accident, I could get behind the fact that it felt too cruel and unfair to the Songs to immediately lay it beside them. But this was just outrageous. They might just as well have blamed Yan Xu for going along with rowing the boat then! At this point, as I saw it, no one was to blame. It was Ming Zhuo’s own choice to go into the water despite knowing she couldn’t swim well, and what happened was nothing more than a very tragic accident.
What initially bothered me the most about this was that Tong Tong was the only one being kept in the dark about it. At least Yan Xu’s dad told him about what happened right after the disastrous parent meeting, but Tong Tong wasn’t told shit. While I could understand that her parents were hesitant to make her remember everything after going through such a rough time with her as a child, at some point they really should’ve trusted their daughter to be able to cope with it herself. Instead, her mom literally went: “it’s something we can’t really explain in words, just go to bed”. Still, I could get behind them trying to protect her, knowing what the event did to her in the past.
From Yan Xu’s side though, I could not even begin to fathom what happened. Since he’d literally proposed to her the day before, I expected him to immediately check in with her and work through it together. I understand that he was shocked and needed some time to compose himself, but since he kept saying he never intended to break up with her, it made no sense to me that he chose to distance himself from her like that. Even when Tong Tong made it clear to him that she had no idea what happened, sending him messages like: “what’s going on, did I do something wrong, why aren’t you answering to my calls?”, he STILL chose to keep her in the dark just as much as her parents did. Instead of talking to her, or at least letting her know that he needed some time or something, he just went ahead and staged a fake dating scandal between himself and some random other woman. He couldn’t even bring himself to look Tong Tong in the eye when he gave her the cold shoulder and told her they couldn’t see each other anymore. Like, how on earth could he think that this was the right way to go about it? He should’ve at least realized that his behavior didn’t make any sense, that he couldn’t just ghost someone he literally proposed to the day before. The way he acted like that and then went on to play the martyr by binge-drinking and being miserable by himself at home was so typical. And then, as soon as Tong Tong found out about it from Man Su, he immediately crawled back to her being all: “forgive me, I never blamed you and I never wanted to break up”. Bro, what? So as long as she didn’t know, it was okay to ghost her without any explanation, but now that she knows it’s okay to express your real feelings? Make it make sense.
Even though it was clear that they both loved and didn’t blame each other, it just became some sort of self-blame-game in which both of them took turns stepping back because they both thought the other would continue to get hurt if they stayed in each other’s lives. First Yan Xu pulled the wrong move to step back, allegedly because he didn’t want to keep reminding Tong Tong of the incident (which was BS because she didn’t even know it yet at that point), and then when he finally got over it, it was Tong Tong’s turn to step back because she couldn’t bring herself to cause Yan Xu any more pain. This was definitely my least favorite part of the series. Their reason for not being allowed to be together was just so nonsensical to me. Of course, it would be awkward for the parents, but the fact that Yan Xu’s father still, after fifteen years, acted like Tong Tong was a murderer, even when he knew the truth about what happened, was so stupid.

During the revelation of the shared past trauma between Yan Xu and Tong Tong, Song Chen visibly started acting different as well. He started out as a really friendly guy who even aided in arranging their insomnia treatment. However, as soon as he found out who Tong Tong was, he firmly started persuading Yan Xu to break up with her. After the initial flashback of the event, we’re led to assume that he and his brother just remained adamant in their accusation of Tong Tong, and that they couldn’t bind themselves to the family ‘responsible’ for Ming Zhuo’s death. I initially thought that Chen just wanted to cover up his own guilt for leaving the two kids by themselves when he was supposed to be watching them.
However, Tong Tong and Yan Xu’s final hypnosis therapy session reveals the missing piece of the puzzle: the piece that makes them remember that it was not Tong Tong, but Chen who forced them on that boat.
Not gonna lie, I thought the way they revealed this plot twist was really good. I actually didn’t see that coming. It explained so much as well, from Chen’s sudden antsiness to the reason why Yan Xu’s father had joined him in his accusation of Tong Tong. It must have been easier to blame an outsider than his own younger brother, especially seeing how the accident impacted both Chen and Yan Xu’s mental health in the direct aftermath. For Chen, his guilt towards his sister-in-law far outweighed his guilt towards Tong Tong, and he just became obsessed with making sure Yan Xu was taken care of.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in any way condoning what they did, blaming an innocent five year old who couldn’t even assess the danger of rowing a boat over an open lake for actively murdering her cello teacher. But I do think that this show did a really good job at showing all the different sides of the story. They actually made me see reason in the wrongdoers’ actions, as despicable as they were. Chen was only ten years old at the time. He was just as incapable of assessing the situation as Yan Xu and Tong Tong. He just wanted to show that he was the oldest and the bravest. He just wanted to tease his nephew and his friend a little. He never meant for it to spiral out of control like that. His fear, grief and guilt got the better of him and made him point fingers at another person, even though this would never relieve him from his own guilt, which he would continue to push down for fifteen years. I’m just saying that, throughout this whole revelation, I found myself both loathing Chen for his cowardice and forgiving him for being a scared child. I still stand by the statement I made earlier: this was a very tragic accident that no one was to blame for. The only thing Chen was to blame for, was lying about it for fifteen years and putting Tong Tong through hell as a child. Yan Xu’s father was to blame for covering up the truth. Although I don’t blame Tong Tong’s parents for wanting to protect their daughter from the family that traumatized her as a child, I still think they should’ve told her about what happened, at least after that parent meeting. It was just too unfair for Tong Tong to be the only one who didn’t know about it, even though she had every right to.

While I could find it in me to redeem Chen for his past actions, what followed was probably the most nonsensical thing ever. Basically, Chen suddenly decided to go against Yan Xu and take his CEO position away from him, with the help of some of the shareholders. I still have no idea what this was about. Yan Xu and Tong Tong had already found out about his lie at this point, and they had both expressed that they were able to forgive him for it. I don’t know if it had to do with the fact that Chen only overheard the part of their conversation where Yan Xu said he hated him (at first), but even so I don’t see why he suddenly had to create his own villain arc for one single episode. It just seemed kind of pointless, and I also didn’t like how he laid it on so thick, maniacally laughing to himself with crazy psycho eyes and smirking maliciously during meetings, not even trying to hide it. I’m just glad Yan Xu and the others didn’t even give him the chance to take one step ahead of him, because this was really random. In the end, his application was revoked since Man Su’s father suddenly pulled out of their deal and Yan Xu managed to convince everyone that his insomnia wasn’t bad enough to cost him his position (because that was literally the card that Chen tried to use).
I get that they were aiming for a dramatic redemption moment for Chen, but this in-between segment felt very weird to me. It just didn’t make sense for Chen to suddenly kick Yan Xu out, when HE was the one who had something to repent for and everyone knew it. I have to admit I didn’t fully forgive him, mostly because he never even apologized to Tong Tong in person, he asked Yan Xu to do it for him. While the main leads were forgiving enough not to hold any grudges, I still thought the least Chen and Yan Xu’s father could’ve done was acknowledge their faults and sincerely apologize to Tong Tong and her parents for putting them through that unnecessary torment.

I’d like to move on to some of my favorite side characters in this series now, because there were a lot.
First of all, Li Che (played by Zhang Chen), Yan Xu’s secretary. I loved this guy. Despite being an incredibly loyal secretary who was always on Yan Xu and Tong Tong’s side, I liked that he got his own quirk of being an alleged playboy. We didn’t really get a side story from him or anything, but he was just a very fun supporting character. I loved the parts where he froze when Yan Xu called him by his full name, as this had previously resulted in some very tedious and personal errands. It was nice how little details like this contributed to their relationship and history together.
Another person I really liked was Huang Lin (played by Chen Yun Xi). She was initially very present as Yan Xu’s assistant and met Tong Tong as early as during the treatment program in the first couple of episodes. She kind of disappeared during the dramatic middle section, but it was good to see her reemerge towards the end. I just loved how she immediately acknowledged Tong Tong for the cool person that she was and actively started rooting for her and Yan Xu from the start. I think she was one of the first friends Tong Tong made at Kerwin Group. Her loyalty towards the main leads was really satisfying, I’m glad they brought her back in the end, also for the wedding, where it was suggested she may actually have feelings for Li Che.
I’ve briefly mentioned her before, but I also really liked Ye Zi (played by Li Zhi Xin). After meeting Tong Tong during that dreadful job interview, she actually got hired. She remained a bit in the background, but I loved her effortless friendship with Tong Tong and her attempts to help her whenever she could. It was just so nice to see Tong Tong make friends wherever she went, it also really contributed to how cool and friendly she was.
Another good one was Tang Rao (played by Yao Ning Jia, if I decypered the actress’ name correctly). I feel like she was mentioned a couple times before she actually made an appearance, but she was clearly a long-term friend of Tong Tong. At least her dad knew her well enough to distinguish her way of addressing him, so they must’ve known each other for a while. Despite the fact that she kind of appeared out of nowhere, she immediately claimed her place as Tong Tong’s bestie, and I liked the scene where she gave her advice on whether or not to get back together with Yan Xu.
The final character I’d like to discuss is Dr. Li Bo Si (played by Lin Jia Yi), the scientist in charge of Yan Xu and Tong Tong’s experiment. She was so cool. I loved how she managed to remain professional while also clearly rooting for the couple. When the two of them were at odds with each other, she was like: “I’m still gonna keep calling you in for therapy sessions together, so you best resolve whatever’s up between you two by yourselves”. It was cool to see her make progress on the research in-between the love story, connecting the dots between their shared nightmares and suggesting the hypnosis therapy that would ultimately reveal the cause of thei disorder. I liked her a lot.
All in all I really loved the number of girl’s girls in this show. It was so refreshing to see so many confident women standing up for each other and what they believed in.

Now that I’ve covered all the characters I wanted to discuss, I’d like to make some general remarks regarding specific aspects that I appreciated about this show. First of all, where this series may have lacked in terms of quality or budget, it made up for it in its narrative cohesion and explanation. I always love it when shows refer back to previous details, because it shows how well thought-through everything is. For example, I loved how they kept in the element of Tong Tong’s cello aspirations until the end, when she finally gets the chance to work with a cellist she really admires. I have to admit I don’t usually expect much consistency in Chinese romcoms, but this one was very satisfying in that regard. Even though I was initially taken aback by how quickly they became a couple, it actually made sense to establish their relationship early on so they could get that out of the way and start building on it immediately.
It was also really nice to see how they came up with an explanation for everything, from the reason they were able to fall asleep together to why they didn’t remember anything. The part where the whole truth of the incident around Yan Xu’s mother’s death was explained solved a lot of question marks that I had. I thought it was very clever how they gradually introduced the shared nightmares through the insomnia experiment and then had it transition into a kind of trauma therapy, which neither of them knew they needed. It was very subtle and well-written, and the revelation of Chen’s involvement led to a loud and comprehensive: “Ohhhhhhhh” on my side. Everything just fell into place and I loved that, especially after the previous arcs, which were a bit tedious and annoying.
I also really liked the humor. I often find Chinese romcoms kind of typical, and the dubbing often ruins the effect of the actors’ timing, but I actually found myself cackling a lot while watching it. I also thought the music was very well chosen, and I liked the aesthetic of the song lyrics being depicted on the right side of the screen. The songs complemented the story very well, and I often found myself bobbing my head along with the catchy tunes.

As I usually do with Chinese dramas, I’d like to briefly look at the difference between the Chinese and English titles of this show. First of all, I find it interesting that both titles seem to refer to Yan Xu, as it says ‘Mr. Insomnia’ and ‘Mr. Banana’. I assume the ‘Banana’ in the Chinese title refers to the medicine Yan Xu’s using in the beginning, Banana 3. I agree it would be redundant to say ‘Mr. Insomnia Does Not Sleep’, so I guess they decided to change the second part of the sentence a little for the English translation. Which is funny, actually, because it’s not as if Yan Xu is actively ‘waiting for love’. Anyways, it’s nice to see that the titles are a bit more similar this time around. They normally differ a lot more.

It’s time for the cast comments! As is common with Chinese shows, I didn’t know a lot of the actors, but I still wish to comment on a couple, since I really liked the acting overall.

I’d never seen anything with Kong Xue Er/Snow Kong before, but she is an absolute doll. I loved how naturally Tong Tong’s vibe came to her. She looked gorgeous throughout the show, in each and every look that she rocked. There were a couple of times where I wondered if the actress felt comfortable in her costumes, since there were a lot of mini-skirts involved, but she did look confident in all of them. Apart from her appearance, I thought she brought a really sweet yet strong energy to Tong Tong. She may have looked super girly and vulnerable, but she was a force to be reckoned with when it came to standing up for injustice. She just exuded this natural confidence, and also didn’t hold back during the romantic and intimate scenes. I thought she did a really good job, and it would be cool to see her in something else!

It took me a while to place who Wu Yu Heng reminded me of, and the closest I came to was Nam Da Reum, lol. I see on MDL that there’s one other show with him on my watchlist, so that should be interesting. As I mentioned in my review, I felt like his character fell a bit flat compared to his divine co-star, but that doesn’t mean that I didn’t like his performance. It was cool to see him switch between the initial, sleep-deprived and grumpy CEO to an absolute puppy as he opened up to Tong Tong. He put in a lot of effort to treat his queen as she deserved, grand romantic gestures and all. I thought his chemistry with Snow Kong was really good. I liked that all of their kisses were framed as being really tender and romantic, in contrast to that one makeout session between Man Su and Chi Zuo, lol.

This was also the first show I’ve seen from Pan Lu Yu. I really welcomed the way Chi Zuo’s initial introduction as a love interest made way for his development into such a great and supportive friend to both main leads. This is honestly the best way for it to go, and I truly wish more Chinese dramas made their second male leads this mature (I can never get over the guy from Lucky’s First Love T^T). To have someone like him, a freaking shareholder who chooses to spend his time brewing coffee in his own café, be as humble and honest as this, was a true blessing. I actually also liked the subtle way his relationship with Man Su grew, how he never stopped being her friend even while trying to snap her out of her delusion, and how naturally that turned into affection. I also loved how he immediately took responsibility as her boyfriend after their drunk one-night stand, that was so good of him. So yeah, I didn’t actually expect to like his character this much at first, but he was a real one.

As much as I loathed Man Su in the majority of this show, again this had nothing to do with her acting. In fact, I’d say she did a really good job to make me dislike her so much, lol. Yu Cong was another actress I hadn’t seen before, although she reminded me a bit of Kim Ji Won in her face. According to MDL there’s one more show on my watchlist that she appears in, so I wonder what kind of character she portrays in that. All in all, I liked her a lot when she wasn’t obsessing over how to bring Tong Tong down. Random comparison, but I remember feeling this with Bona’s character in Twenty-Five Twenty-One as well, like: “she seems like such a cool person to others, why does she have to be so mean to the female lead?” T^T I would’ve liked her to come round way earlier than episode 18, honestly, but I’m still making peace with the fact that it happened at all. It was also nice seeing her in a little romantic endeavor with Chi Zuo herself at the end, that also completely changed her vibe. All in all, I think she did really well.

The only part where I didn’t like Du Ya Fei’s acting was during his impromptu one-episode villain arc. Not only did his character completely change – again, I still don’t know where this particular maliciousness came from – but his way of acting also became really typical and on-the-nose, which I didn’t really like. Other than that, I had no issues with his performance. I still wonder how he could be Yan Xu’s uncle when he was only three years older than him, although I liked their dynamic enough not to dwell on it. I definitely did not expect that sudden switch in his character, or that he was involved in a much deeper layer of the story, so that was cool.

Lastly, I just want to give a shoutout to Zhang Chen, who played Li Che. He looked SO familiar to me, and I just discovered that’s because he also plays the male lead’s secretary in Love Me Like I Do, lol. These are the only two drama acting roles he’s done so far, so I hope he’ll get more, and not just secretary parts. He’s genuinely funny, his expressions are great and he deserves to be acknowledged! Just wanted to put that out there.

And with that, I will conclude my review of Mr. Insomnia Waiting For Love. As I said, I enjoyed watching this a lot. I think it was paced just right, with all the necessary elements of a typical romcom – including the annoying love rival bits. I really appreciated that it didn’t linger on the problematic parts but instead wrapped them up in just a couple of episodes and left enough space for a wholesome ending that wasn’t rushed. In some dramas, the annoying parts become so annoying that they take over the entire story, so I’m really glad that didn’t happen and I actually feel myself not even caring that much about them now, because of the way they were resolved.
All in all, I thought it was a nice combination of everything: it had a love story, a medical condition, a shared trauma, good friendships, rivalry, etc. It was well-written and the characters were interesting. Even though I sometimes don’t need redemption for every single character, I actually welcomed it in this show. I think they might have ended it with everyone being on good terms with each other because it was meant as a light-hearted romcom, and I honestly wouldn’t have wanted it to end any other way. It’s just not the type of show that should leave you hanging with lingering resentments, so I also won’t question the little details.

I’m glad I got to watch another unexpected gem which also didn’t take me longer than a day to review. I still feel like I have to get back into it, but I’ll keep taking my time to watch and write as I please. I will now eagerly check out what my next watch will be, and I will be back with a new review in due time. Thank you so much for reading up to this point!

Until next time! Bye-bee! x

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.

Gibo to Musume no Blues
(義母と娘のブルース / Gibo to Musume no Buruusu / Stepmother and Daughter’s Blues)
MyDramaList rating: 7.0/10

It seems like I’m starting the new year off with a couple of Japanese dramas, which is nice. I remember putting this show on my list after seeing an ad of it in a different drama. Besides being a big fan of Ayase Haruka, I thought it looked interesting and I was in the mood for a light yet wholesome show. Honestly, watching this series made me realize what I like about Japanese dramas and I was able to clarify for myself what this drama did that I missed in for example Yuugure ni, Te wo Tsunagu. It managed to surprise me on different levels and I’m excited to share my thoughts on it, so let’s get started.

Gibo to Musume no Blues is a TBS Japanese drama with ten episodes of about one hour each. It’s based on a manga series of the same name, created by Sakurazawa Suzu. Besides the main series, which came out in 2018, there are three specials that were released in 2020, 2022 and 2024, respectively. I was able to watch the drama itself on this Bilibili channel, but the specials were a bit harder to find – I actually had to download them from a torrent website, which I’ll link here (mind you, these are without English subtitles).
The story focusses on the stepmother-daughter bond between Iwaki Akiko (Ayase Haruka) and Miyamoto Miyuki (as a child played by Yokomizo Naho). After losing her mother at a very young age, Miyuki was raised by her single father Miyamoto Ryoichi (Takenouchi Yutaka), believing it would be the two of them together forever. However, when Miyuki is eight years old, her father suddenly introduces her to ‘her new mother’, an incredibly rigid career woman named Iwaki Akiko. Miyuki immediately refuses to accept her, and it’s up to Akiko to work her way into her new stepdaughter’s heart. Throughout the story, we follow both Miyuki and Akiko in their journey of getting used to their new family dynamic, with the easygoing Ryoichi as the glue that binds them – that is, until the sad truth about his sudden re-marriage to Akiko is revealed.

Before I start on my review, I just want to give a quick update on my personal circumstances during the time I watched this drama, and the reason it took me so long to finish it despite its short length. I started watching this show right after finishing my review for Yuugure, but because of an unexpectedly stressful subtitling job that came in-between, I only got to finish and review this a whole month later. Although I am gladly done with this job now, it took quite a toll on my (mental) energy, and therefore I decided to keep things as concise as possible with this review, starting with the intro and summary. I usually tend to go on all sorts of tangents and go into a lot of details in my reviews, and while I do have plenty to discuss about this show, I will try to keep it succinct, also to save my own energy.
Fun side note: when I started watching this, I was just finishing up a book translation that included a chapter on a stepmother-daughter relationship that was very similar to how the one depicted in this drama starts out. It was a nice coincidence that helped me relate to the premise of the story and made it a very accessible watch from the get-go. I personally really liked the small yet consistent cast and the depiction of the day-to-day challenges that Akiko and Miyuki went through whilst familiarizing themselves with each other. I thought the dynamic of a stepmother and daughter was very original, and it brought as many heartwarming and wholesome moments as sad and emotional ones.

The story of the main series is divided into two parts. The first five episodes build up to Akiko gradually establishing her relationship with little Miyuki while Ryoichi’s health slowly deteriorates, and the second half jumps to ten years later, with Akiko as a single mother trying to help Miyuki, now a teenager (played by Kamishiraishi Moka), navigate through matters such as future ambitions and college choices. In the specials, this stretches further to matters of job hunting and even marriage.
My initial expectation was that the entire series would focus on the gradual development between child Miyuki and Akiko, and that it would end with Akiko and Ryoichi becoming a loving couple and Miyuki ultimately calling Akiko “mom” in the final episode. However, this development was basically already concluded in the first five episodes. As I was initially not aware that there would be a time jump halfway through, the way some things were wrapped up in the first half of the series came as a very unexpected surprise to me, although it does make sense now, of course. I will elaborate on my exact feelings regarding this after first analyzing the main characters and their dynamics.

I’d like to start off by analyzing Miyuki, Akiko and Ryoichi. After that I’ll give my thoughts on the first part of the series as a whole and then do the same thing for part two and the new characters that are introduced there.

Let’s start with Miyuki. After losing her mother Ai (Okuyama Yoshie) to an illness early on, Miyuki has never wanted for more than a life with her loving single father. She doesn’t even care that she’s bullied at school and doesn’t have friends – it’s her and her dad against the rest of the world. When Ryoichi first introduces Akiko to her, Miyuki starts acting almost like a wife to her father: she welcomes him home and offers to either make dinner or draw a bath for him. This was something that strongly reminded me of the beforementioned book I was translating at the time. In that book, the daughter had also lost her mother (who was ironically called Miyuki) and she basically took over the household until her father recovered from grieving. She was prepared to take on her mother’s chores and live her life while supporting her dad forever, even if that meant losing the time to be a kid herself. When a stepmother arrived, she started rebelling against her because she felt like the work she’d put in to support her father was taken away from her; being told “you don’t need to fill in the spot your mom left behind” actually upset her. I felt like this was also what happened with Miyuki in this series. She started taking on more household chores in an attempt to prove to her dad that they didn’t need anyone else, and that they could make things work with just the two of them. The continued display of Ai’s picture also seemed to symbolize how Miyuki wasn’t able to accept a new mother figure. To her, it must have felt as if her biological mother would be replaced, and she just wasn’t ready for that. From an adult’s perspective it’s clear to understand that it’s not about ‘taking someone’s place’ or ‘betraying someone’s memory’, but to a child this feeling is inevitable.
I honestly really loved Miyuki. She was such a spunky yet fragile little girl, and I thought the way she was written was incredibly realistic. Even though she initially put up a wall with Akiko, it was clear to see that she was very pure-hearted and just wanted to have a normal life where she could have fun with friends and come home to loving parents. Despite being only eight years old, she was already so mature for her age. At some point, Ryoichi purposefully doesn’t pick Miyuki up from daycare in an attempt to make her realize she needs a new mother figure in her life. Miyuki immediately sees through his plan and takes it upon herself to call Mrs. Shimoyama to pick her up instead. Kazuko Shimoyama (played by Aso Yumi) is the owner of a local real estate company that lives close to the Miyamotos and often steps in to take care of Miyuki when Ryoichi has to work late. She’s like a neighborhood auntie that Miyuki feels very safe and comfortable with. She appears as a regular character throughout the series and the specials.
Of course, it was very sad seeing Miyuki having to grow up so fast. When Ryoichi passes away, she initially doesn’t even cry, she just says: “I’m used to it”, which is a heartbreaking thing to hear from a girl who just lost a second parent. I found it very touching to see the surprisingly deep layers behind her young age, and the way she gradually opened herself up to Akiko more and more was very natural. I also really liked her budding friendship with Hiroki Kuroda (as a child played by Daichi), who started out bullying her, but who turned out to actually be looking out for her. I think they built up her character a lot even in just the first five episodes, and I genuinely found myself caring about her, so that’s definitely a sign of good writing.

Since we meet Akiko at the same time as Miyuki does, we are initially led to go along with the feeling that she is a really strange creature. Her typical appearance and metronomical way of walking are only complemented by her extremely formal and business-like behavior and way of speaking. She addresses everything and everyone as if in a corporal setting – she even introduces herself to Miyuki with her business card. We only get more insight into her past and upbringing later on in the series and the specials, but in the beginning Akiko is basically depicted as an anime-esque character; her way of dealing with things and people is almost comically unrealistic, as if she’s doing a bit where she treats everything like it’s a business plan.
Needless to say, she’s extremely competent at her work. At the start of the story, she is a very successful company manager who is constantly headhunted by other companies because of her stellar professional reputation. For someone like her, who has spent her life studying and working, taking on the responsibility of a mother is completely unchartered territory, one that no one expected her to ever take on. However, she seems to be determined to make it work and starts putting in a lot of effort to grow closer to Miyuki.
To be completely honest, at the beginning of the series I was expecting Akiko to be very cold with Miyuki, to the point where she didn’t even know how to treat her or if she even wanted to deal with her. As such, it came as a surprise to see her immediately be so determined to win her over and learn how to be a real mother to her. It surprised me every time a warm and empathizing side came out of her, because it was just so unexpected. It’s later revealed that she basically buried her heart under years and years of studying, working and climbing the corporal ladder, which made the fact that Ryoichi and Miyuki were able to bring out her warmth again even more special. I loved how, despite having probably the clearest character development out of everyone, Akiko never completely lost her unique mannerisms. Even when she became more able to smile and express her emotions to the people around her, her pokerface and metronomic way of walking and speaking never fully went away, and that was great. I wouldn’t have wanted her to lose that side to her completely, as it made her such an interesting character. It was nice to see how they gradually started loosening her up bit by bit. Again, a great example of good character writing.

As opposed to his new wife, Ryoichi seemed to be the complete opposite. Despite the fact that he is also a devoted company employee, he is bright and easygoing and has the habit of spotting ‘miracles’ wherever he goes. To quote Akiko’s later description of him: he is like a ray of sunshine, always smiling and seeing the good and special in his surroundings. I really loved how his habit of spotting ‘miracles’ was passed onto Miyuki and even Akiko in the end, and how it remained an ongoing theme throughout the story. Despite the difference in their personalities, Ryoichi is always able to laugh about and appreciate Akiko’s eccentric behavior, and he keeps urging Miyuki to acknowledge her efforts and give her a chance.
I really loved Ryoichi. I thought his dynamic with Akiko was one of the most interesting and heartfelt ones I’ve seen in a drama so far. He was so loving, cheerful and open-minded towards everyone and everything around him, I couldn’t help but love him. The fact that he’d been raising Miyuki as a single father whilst maintaining a full-time job and still maintaining such a loving and warm home and livelihood for the both of them was incredible. He was probably one of my favorite characters in the show, even if he didn’t make it past episode five.

Despite the fact that there are no scenes of Ryoichi and Ai together, not even flashbacks, I could just imagine what a happy and loving couple they must have been. It was clear that he never stopped loving his first wife, and he really cared about giving Miyuki a happy future, even if he wouldn’t be able to see it for himself. Imagining how he and Ai were as Miyuki’s parents, it seemed even more strange that he would suddenly fall for someone like Akiko, who did not even seem the slightest bit interested in matters of the heart. So how on earth did Ryoichi and Akiko, of all pairings, decide to get married?
Admittedly, I didn’t really question their reason for getting married at first. I just accepted that they had somehow met, and that maybe they had some unrevealed history together that caused them to notice the other’s qualities and made them develop an interest in one another. But as time went by, I couldn’t help but notice that there didn’t actually seem to be any romantic tension between them. It seemed like they kept things purely professional and agreed to a registered partnership for some practical reason.
Just when Akiko and Miyuki finally start warming up to each other and everything seems to be working out, Ryoichi is shown getting ‘lightheaded’ and fainting at work, which immediately made all the alarm bells go off in my drama-brain. Not much later, it’s revealed that there’s indeed something very wrong with him: he has advanced stomach cancer. Despite his doctor’s urging to try chemo-therapy, Ryoichi refuses to spend his last moments as a patient, also because Miyuki had developed a dislike for hospitals after what happened to her mother. Instead, he decided to find someone to look after Miyuki after he’d pass, in order to give his daughter a happy and stable future. I believe he encountered Akiko during a work event – was it a joint event of their companies or something? – and seeing her at work convinced him of the fact that she was a very capable and trustworthy woman. I have to admit I don’t exactly remember Akiko’s reasoning for going along with his proposal, but she was able to empathize with his situation and willingly took on the responsibility of becoming a stepmother: the one job she’d never imagine herself doing.
As I mentioned before, I really loved the dynamic between Ryoichi and Akiko. Considering the fact that they were complete strangers who didn’t owe each other anything, it was heartwarming to see how they genuinely empathized with one another. Even though there may not have been romantic feelings between them, they were determined to make Miyuki believe that their relationship was real. It even seemed like actual feelings started blooming between them towards the end. The fact that they were such an unusual pairing only made me appreciate them more. I loved how, even ten years later, Akiko was never fully able to move on from Ryoichi, and she’d always look back on him with such a loving smile on her face. I’d like to think he was her first and only true love, even if she never got the chance to convey that. For me, the scene where they slept next to Miyuki confirmed that there was something special between them and that they were willing to fully commit to their new relationship, even if it started off without romantic feelings.

In hindsight, it makes perfect sense that they had to wrap up Ryoichi’s death and Miyuki’s full acceptance within the first five episodes to enable the time jump to part two. However, since I wasn’t aware that there would be a time jump, Ryoichi’s death came as a complete surprise to me and I can’t deny that I’m still dissatisfied with how they dealt with it. Plotwise, it was of course devastating that he died after finally deciding that he was going to undergo treatment and try to get better, and just when he and Akiko started to show feelings for each other. The sequence where Miyuki, Akiko and Ryoichi all put in work to contribute to the situation in their own way (Akiko as the breadwinner, Ryoichi in his treatment and Miyuki in putting together a book filled with ‘miracles’ to encourage her dad) was very wholesome and touching. Ryoichi even seemed to recover a bit at some point, which made it even more painful when he relapsed.
Apart from that, I was really displeased with how his death literally happened off-screen and in-between episodes. Episode four ends with him watching Akiko set off to fit a wedding dress for their planned family picture, and episode five starts with Miyuki being informed at school that something bad happened to her father. In the next scene, Akiko and Miyuki are shown sitting beside Ryoichi’s laid out body in their apartment. Even at that point, it still didn’t click with me that he was dead: I figured he just passed out and was recovering at home. But then they suddenly switched to the funeral hall and I was like: “Wait what?! He’s ACTUALLY dead?! Just like that?!” It just felt to rushed and even random to me. I’d been really enjoying the series so far, but that was the first time I actually went: “what the fuck? I don’t like that?” What’s more, right after dropping the bomb that he suddenly died and was getting buried, they just went on casually joking about whether or not you could wear loafers inside the funeral hall. It was too soon for jokes! I still wasn’t able to grasp the fact that Ryoichi had actually just died and was gone for real. The transition felt really unnatural and rushed, and that was something I genuinely disliked. Because of this, I wasn’t able to take in the full impact of that whole funeral episode, even to the point where Miyuki finally called Akiko “mom” for the first time, which was supposed to be the pinnacle moment of the first half. Even now, I feel like they could’ve dealt with his death better than this. They shouldn’t have let him die off-screen in-between episodes like that. We didn’t even get to see Akiko’s reaction in the actual moment. They kind of reenacted the scene in the second special, but then turned that into a dream, so I’m not sure if that’s what actually happened (the scene of her fitting a dress and being informed that her husband had ‘fallen asleep’ in the lobby). So yeah, I didn’t appreciate that Ryoichi was just killed off like that. His picture is put next to Ai’s and both Akiko and Miyuki keep seeking comfort and answers from him through that. He is frequently reminisced about and even reappears in the specials as a narrator and spirit talking through his picture, but it just wasn’t the same. As I said earlier, I really expected (and wanted) the story to be about their little family of three, building on the relationships between both Akiko and Miyuki and Akiko and Ryoichi.

I definitely don’t want to diminish the second part of the series, as I still enjoyed the story as a whole, but I can’t deny that the first half was definitely my favorite. I really enjoyed the period in which Akiko and Miyuki were gradually warming up to each other. One of my favorite episodes was the one where Akiko had to deal with that group of childish mothers. Honestly, if there was ever a case where adults acted more like children than their kids, it was this one. Basically, just when Miyuki finally makes some friends in her class, those friends are prohibited from playing with her by their mothers because they are butthurt after a confrontation with Akiko during a parent meeting. It was so satisfying to see Akiko (who seemingly had very little social awareness) realize what those mothers were playing at and the way she stood up for Miyuki was so incredibly wholesome. She actually went as far as to organize the entire Sport’s Day by herself to go against these mothers. I’m glad their pettiness only lasted for one episode and they actually became friends after that, but seeing the level of effort that Akiko was willing to put in to ensure that Miyuki could have a good time with friends at school was so powerful. There were a lot of situations in the first half that were so heartfelt and significant to the blooming bond between them, like when Miyuki gave Akiko that flower, or how they made a game of trying to find the ingredients for Ai’s famous hamburger steak in the supermarket. Part one definitely had all of my favorite moments.

Before I move on with my discussion of part two and the specials, I just want to elaborate on what I already briefly mentioned in my intro, namely that this series alerted me to something I missed in my previous watch.
I’ve come to the realization that shows that are presented from the start as deep and meaningful often fail to impress me as much as shows that start out light but then reveal an unexpected emotional depth to them. While I was watching this show, I was reminded of dramas like Juuhan Shuttai! and Koi wa Tsuzuku yo Dokomademo, series that incorporate a lot of lightness and humor in their stories and characters whilst still conveying very important and heartfelt messages. The graduality in which Akiko grew into a loving and caring mother despite never losing her riduculous quirks made a much bigger impact on me than for example Soramame in Yuugure, who despite her quirks remained stuck in her insecurities and didn’t actually have that much character development at all. Sometimes the most meaningful stories lie in the most unexpected corners. This kind of ties in with my often-made point about how I find characters that take themselves seriously more funny than characters that purely exist to be funny. I’m devoting an entire passage to Ayase Haruka in the cast comments, because she absolutely NAILED Akiko in that aspect. I guess what I’m trying to say is just that something that introduces itself as being deep and mature often impresses me less than something that starts off light and comical but then gradually reveals its depth and maturity in unexpected ways. Gibo to Musume no Blues is definitely a show that I will remember for surprising me with its subtle emotional depth without ever losing its quirky charm. I love it when a show makes me tear up and yell: “I didn’t know this show was going to be sad?!”😭😭😭

Having said that, I’ll now move on to my lesser favorite parts of the show: part two and the specials. Again, I’m not saying I didn’t enjoy them at all, but the way the story continued after the time jump just hit me less hard than the first half.
After Ryoichi passes away and Miyuki finally fully embraces Akiko as her new mother, part two picks up ten years later. Miyuki is now a high school student and she and Akiko have become thick as thieves. Miyuki has even started picking up some of her habits. Rather than being embarrassed of her, as she used to be, she now takes pride in the incredible force of nature that Akiko is and occasionally even feels pressured by the thought that she might not live up to her expectations. Akiko, who has long since forsaken the corporal workforce, can’t help but find herself yearning for the thing she used to excel at, and she decides to take on a new project: improving a doomed-to-fail bakery, Bakery Mugita. This new plan is also meant to instill some ambition into Miyuki, who seems to be completely oblivious to what she wants to make of her life.
To be completely honest, I found the change in Miyuki’s character as a teenager a bit odd. They did explain it to some extent, but I found it kind of hard to understand how someone like her, who was so mature as a kid and who should’ve been taught not to take things for granted, turned out to be so carefree and lax when it came to thinking about her future. Considering the fact that her father brought Akiko into her life to ensure her a solid upbringing and future, I couldn’t help but find it a bit weird how Miyuki somehow came to take Akiko’s efforts as a single mother for granted like that. Sure, some people aren’t made for studying and climbing the corporal ladder – I did feel like Akiko sometimes wished her daughter would take a similar path as her. But Miyuki’s casual attitude was definitely different than what she’d been like as a kid. Because of this sudden transition from eight to eighteen year old Miyuki, this was something I had to get used to at first. Nevertheless, I liked how teenage Miyuki evidently became a mix of Ryoichi and Akiko. While picking up some of her stepmother’s habits like occasionally speaking in keigo and apologizing on her knees, she also became very much like her father in her light and cheerful demeanor and the ongoing search for miracles in her everyday life. She had no trouble making friends anymore and was even open to the possibility of her stepmother finding new love, for example. Despite the fact that Miyuki has now grown up more and the bond between her and Akiko has already become unshakeable, I did like to see how there were still things for them to conquer and talk about. They definitely didn’t run out of things to bring up between them, from assumed new relationships to career aspirations. One of the most memorable heart-to-hearts for me was the scene at the end of the final episode, when Miyuki gave up her chance to study to allow Akiko to pursue a new job opportunity in Osaka, and Akiko ended up telling Miyuki her entire life story. As much as we’d already seen of the bond between these two, these types of scenes always made the show for me because in my opinion, their relationship was what it was all about. Be that as it may, the entirety of part two didn’t feel the same to me as it used to when Miyuki was little and they were still getting used to each other: in part two they were just a typical mother and daughter having arguments about the future, and the focus wasn’t even really on the stepfamily aspect anymore, which to me felt like the main point of the show (I mean, it’s in the title).
Luckily, Miyuki manages to find her own path eventually, even if it doesn’t lead to her going to college. She is reunited with her childhood friend Hiroki (now played by Inowaki Kai) and while romantic feelings bloom between them, Hiroki also inspires and supports Miyuki to follow her heart.

The main stage for the second half of the series is the bakery that Akiko decides to help improve. Bakery Mugita is run by Mugita Akira (played by Sato Takeru) the good-for-nothing son of the original owner Mugita Makoto (Ukaji Takashi). While Makoto used to run a very successful business, Akira is cutting corners wherever he goes, completely dismissing the real work that goes into maintaining and running a bakery.
As a matter of fact, Akira has appeared on several occasions throughout the first half of the series as well, although we never learned his name before. In-between the events of the main storyline, we keep seeing him take on different part-time jobs that continuously bring him close to the main characters, but never close enough. As a courier, he’s gotten involved with Akiko’s company, as a florist he’s sold flowers to Ryoichi, and as a funeral chauffeur he’s seen Akiko and Miyuki mourn for Ryoichi, although of course he didn’t know them at the time. In the second half, he has taken over his father’s bakery, even though he’s completely ruined the business’ reputation with his lack of effort in keeping it afloat. As Akiko starts helping him, he finds the ambition to work hard at being a baker, and he also develops a crush on her, which in itself becomes kind of a running gag throughout the show; he keeps mishearing things and misreading signs that only strengthen him in being hopeful for a relationship with Akiko.
I honestly had mixed feelings about Akira. While there’s nothing wrong with a bit of humor, it ultimately did feel as if his main contribution to the story was comic relief, and I couldn’t help but find myself getting a bit annoyed with him at times. I’d hoped that his proposal to Akiko and the discovery that he and the Miyamotos had actually crossed paths several times before would give him some more depth and maturity; I really liked how they wrote off his prior appearances as being another ‘miracle’. Still, I think he was the only character that stayed the same, even though he did become more serious in his work as a baker. The only running gag that remained funny to me until the end was how he and Akiko kept messing up their high fives. Other than that, I thought his constant mixing up of words, getting excited about misunderstandings and butting in to make things about him and his desired relationship with Akiko got a bit tiring at some point.

Overall, the inclusion of many more ‘running gags’ in the second half kind of brought the level of the series down for me, as I personally felt that it was trying too hard to be funny. I really liked the balance between humor and depth in the first half, but since the main goal of the series (Akiko and Miyuki’s bond) was already wrapped up in episode five, it felt like all that was left was just dragging out more potential misunderstandings and jokes, which didn’t really do much for me. Of course, some things worked really well, like the mismatched high fives, but there were also a couple of things that felt like they were purely included to be funny, even in moments where it wasn’t really necessary. One more example of this was the fact that Mrs. Shimoyama kept pleading with Miyuki to call her ‘Kazu-chan’ instead of ‘oba-chan’ (‘auntie’). There was a scene in which she hit her head really hard on a door and Miyuki cried out: ‘Oba-chan!!’ in alarm, and Mrs. Shimoyama went: ‘It’s Kazu-chan😭’. Of course, it’s not like it was a serious injury, but she literally said it EVERY time Miyuki called her ‘oba-chan’, so at some point it got a bit pointless to me, especially since Miyuki never actually ended up calling her ‘Kazu-chan’. It’s things like these that made me feel like they were just out to get more laughs from the second half, rather than coming up with more serious dilemmas and issues to cover between the titular stepmother and daughter.

I want to address a couple more characters in more detail before moving on to the specials and final general remarks. First of all, Hiroki. I’ve mentioned him briefly before as Miyuki’s childhood friend and new boyfriend, but I want to talk about him a bit more because I really appreciated him. Even as a kid, I thought Hiroki was a very well-established character. It was clear that he bullied Miyuki because he actually liked her (‘meisjes plagen kusjes vragen’), but I still thought the way he kept approaching her and trying to find ways to help her, even as a child, was really sweet. I also thought it was cute how, despite the fact that he was chubby and maybe not the most typical boy in class to be popular, one of Miyuki’s friends started developing an interest in him for being so considerate and helpful. It was nice to see how the kids actually judged each other on those kinds of characteristics instead of appearance; again, they occasionally seemed more mature than their parents.
When Hiroki makes his comeback in the second half, he’s lost his babyfat and is now a good-looking young man. As soon as he spots Miyuki, he starts helping her out without her even noticing and once she does, he immediately makes his long-cherished feelings for her crystal clear. Despite the fact that he has his own life in which he aspires to become a scientist and studies for that, he’s always there to support Miyuki and help her out with her plans. I thought he was the ultimate green flag and I loved how they built up his and Miyuki’s relationship from childhood to adulthood. They start officially dating (although this isn’t really made clear) throughout the specials, and in the last one they decide to get married. I really liked Hiroki and what he contributed to the story. I think he was the best friend-turned-lover that Miyuki could’ve wished for.

Finally, I want to give a special shoutout to two characters that also appearead throughout the series and were continuously brought back in funny and wholesome ways. First of all, Taguchi Tomomasa (Asari Yosuke). In the first half of the show, he is Akiko’s closest subordinate who’s even revealed to have romantic feelings for her. Even after Akiko quits being a manager, he helps her out on several occasions, like with the Sport’s Day. Later, he meets her again at the bakery, after getting married himself. I liked the scene where he and Akira coincidentally met at a bar and both started talking about their (former) feelings for Akiko, without knowing they were talking about the same person. I liked that kept bringing Taguchi back and allowed him to contribute to the story in different ways, even in the specials when he wasn’t tied to Akiko anymore in any way. I guess you could say that he would always stay loyal to her, and that was a nice characteristic of him.
Secondly, although he may be a bit underrated, I also really appreciated Mr. Kasahara (Asano Kazuyuki), Ryoichi’s former boss. When Ryoichi was still alive and working, Mr. Kasahara was a really cheerful and playful boss, who always called him ‘Miyamo-chan’ and genuinely empathized with his situation. Besides one occasion where Akiko stepped in for Ryoichi at his company, Mr. Kasahara kept making comebacks and was even present at Miyuki and Hiroki’s wedding, which was really wholesome. I think this show just did a really good job at making you feel familiar with its core characters. To me, it felt like I became part of this little family, and even when Taguchi or Mr. Kasahara showed up again, I was like: “Oh hey, it’s them!😃” When they showed the pictures of everyone’s future during the outro at the end of the final special, I actually got sad when they showed Mr. Kasahara’s picture in black and white at some point to signify that he’d passed away. I even got to care for the most minor side characters, which says a lot. It was solid supporting characters like him, Taguchi and Mrs. Shimoyama that really enabled that sense of familiarity and community for me, which I really liked.

Finally, let’s talk a bit about the specials. As I mentioned before, there are three specials, the 2020, 2022 and 2024 specials (even though the 2024 special also takes place in 2022🤔). I kind of wonder why they didn’t just make these three specials into a second season instead, because they pick up exactly after the end of the main series. While it was nice to get a continuation of the story and the characters, I have to admit that in hindsight, I don’t really see the additional value of the specials. While of course everything was in some way intrinsically linked to the core relationship between Akiko and Miyuki, it wasn’t always very clear to me what exactly the specials contributed to their bond. At some point, it started to feel like they were milking things out a bit without adding a lot of new and significant information, which was a pity. As much as I loved getting to see more content about the characters I’d gotten attached to, I don’t feel like I would’ve missed a lot if I hadn’t watched them, which is not a great thing seeing they specifically made three specials to add to the main story.

The first special takes place one year after the final episode of the main series, in which Akiko decides to go to Osaka to pursue another corporal job opportunity after helping Bakery Mugita thrive again. Miyuki has given up on studying and is now working at the bakery, where she can freely express her talent for drawing and coming up with new and exciting marketing solutions.
At some point, Akiko gets fired from her job in Osaka and comes back home to find Akira there with a baby in his arms. After clearing up the misunderstanding that Miyuki and Akira had a child together in Akiko’s absence, it turns out that this baby was found outside the bakery. Akiko develops an attachment to the baby: she dotingly calls him ‘Managing Director’ and even breastfeeds him at some point. Whilst they are figuring out who the parents may be – Akira even goes so far to take a DNA test to check if it’s his – the real father appears and shares his story of being a desperate and financially unstable single father before he takes back responsibility to take care of his child (whose real name remains unmentioned, so ‘Managing Director’ it is).
Don’t get me wrong, the story about the single father was really touching, but I just didn’t really see how this was in any way relevant to the main story of Akiko and Miyuki. Sure, it instilled a new type of motherly feeling in Akiko, but what did that really matter in the end? Even after this, she never wished to give birth to a child of her own, so I wonder what the additional value of that storyline was.

In the second special, which picks up right where the first one concludes, we meet the new owner of Akiko’s former job in Osaka, Iwaki Ryoji, who is the spitting image of Ryoichi (and also played by the same actor, Takenouchi Yutaka). Akiko, completely baffled by the similarity in both his name and appearance, keeps finding herself more attracted to this lookalike, even though he clearly has the opposite personality of her deceased husband. As a matter of fact, this doppelganger has very shady plans with both the company and Bakery Mugita and doesn’t shy away from pretending to get on his enemy’s good side.
I’m not gonna lie, I found this special really weird. Besides the fact that they had to make it someone who looked exactly like Ryoichi, the whole thing where he pretended to be a widow who lost his wife and unborn child to soften up Akiko and Miyuki, even going so far as to lie about wanting to meet up with them more often like a family was really twisted. The fact that they asked him to stand in for Ryoichi to still take that family picture together was also kind of icky to me. I don’t know, some people might have found it a nice story to give more closure regarding Ryoichi, but to me it actually felt like they needlessly brought up his death again after ten whole years. They didn’t even try to relativize it by making Ryoji Ryoichi’s twin or something, he was actually a completely different and unrelated person. I didn’t really get the point of this story.

The third and final special takes place another year after the previous special, and mainly focusses on how Miyuki decides to go with Hiroki to his new job opportunity in Paris. The main storyline is about how Hiroki’s mother Hiromi (Matsushita Yuki) refuses to let them marry because she senses a curse around the Miyamotos, although Akiko manages to pierce through the lie and deducts that she’s actually worried for Miyuki that Hiroki’s prior illness might come back. I appreciate that they came up with a new story that built further on Miyuki’s future which ended with her and Hiroki getting married and starting a family together. The whole in-between thing of Akiko allegedly being sick and ending up in the in-between where Ryoichi was now working as a ferryman to row deceased people to the afterlife, thought? Like, why did they suddenly start adding fictional elements to it? It would’ve been a wholesome enough episode if it was just about Miyuki getting married, without the additional misunderstanding of whether or not Akiko was going to die. I also could’ve done without that very last after-credits scene of Akiko and Akira with old people make-up and him still waiting for her to get back to his dating request – enough with the silly humor already.

All in all, even though the specials could basically be seen as a direct extension of the main story, as far as I’m concerned the series in itself would’ve been enough. Despite the touching topics and conversations that were had in the specials, I just didn’t feel like they provided anything new to the story. As I mentioned before, for me it was purely about the bond between Akiko and Miyuki and this was finalized halfway through the main series. Everything around that, all the old and new relationships that were maintained and formed, and the way Ryoichi’s memory would always bind them together was a nice bonus. The additional storylines that were added in the specials, as wholesome as they all turned out to be in their own way, just didn’t really add anything to what I thought was the most crucial to this story.

Having said that, I do want to emphasize several things that I really appreciated, series and specials combined. I enjoyed the show as a whole and despite the fact that I felt like it started to drag on a bit at some point, I got attached to the characters and really liked the sense of being a part of the extended Miyamoto family for as long as I could.
Something that I found very satisfying throughout was the consistency of things. Not just in the way that every special followed up the previous one with little to no in-between time, but also in that they kept making references to previous events. This created a continuancy that I really appreciated. I loved the attention to detail from start to finish, even in how they showed the passing of time through the growing length of Miyuki’s hair.
One thing that jumped out to me which I thought was really clever was when they ended up doing a PreCure marketing promotion for Bakery Mugita. In the first half of the series, when Miyuki is still a child, she’s a big fan of this magical girl anime show called something-something PreCure (clearly derived from the popular Pretty Cure-franchise, if not the same thing). One time, Akiko joins her to watch an episode together and ends up ranting about the great marketable qualities of the show. Then, in part two, they actually end up using PreCure as a marketing strategy to promote the bakery, with Miyuki and two other friends cosplaying as the main characters to bring in more school kids. I thought that was such a clever yet subtle reference to part one. I think this show did a really great job at using little details and references to bind the whole story together from start to finish.

It’s time for the cast comments! I’ve been looking forward to this section, because all in all I really loved the cast and I think everyone did a really good job at creating this wholesome story together.
First of all, the GOAT, Ayase Haruka. I got to know her from Hotaru no Hikari and then also saw her in Watashi wo Hanasanaide and the movie Umimachi Diary. Although I haven’t even see that much of her, she managed to impress me in every role, and Gibo to Musume no Blues definitely takes the crown in that. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her portray such an eccentric character. I thought her character in Hotaru no Hikari was already peak, but seeing her in this only elevated her in my ranking of favorite Japanese actresses. The way she managed to keep a straight face and continued to be effortlessly funny in her speech and movements was immaculate. I loved everything about her performance and I think she did an amazing job at slowly but surely revealing a more caring and warm side of Akiko without every losing her business quirks. I loved that, even after growing to love her as she was, we still got more information about her upbringing that made us love her and relate to her and how she became like this even more. There wasn’t a second when I got fed up with her character, she was the one character that remained interesting and precious throughout the entire thing. I really, really loved seeing her in this.

I never actually saw Takenouchi Yutaka in anything before, but he looks really familiar. I guess he just has one of those faces. As I mentioned in my review, Ryoichi was probably one of my favorite characters. I just loved his disposition and quirky habits. The way he accepted and respected Akiko for exactly who she was and never even made a comment about how she was different from other people said enough about the kind of guy he was. I really loved his interactions with child Miyuki, as well. He was such a natural and loving father to her. I still don’t like that he had to die, and the way in which they killed him off. I will keep saying it: on my part, I would’ve loved to see the entire main series center on what was wrapped up in just the first five episodes. I was so excited to see the growing affection between him and Akiko, as well. At least they kept bringing him back, also as a narrator. I didn’t care much for that Iwaki Ryoji character, although I guess it was nice to just see the actor back on screen, and even his appearance as a ferryman wasn’t really the same but still, I was happy whenever he got to make another appearance.
I really liked the energy that the actor put into the role, he really did make Ryoichi like a ray of sunshine, and it was really touching that Akiko never even considered marrying someone else after him. That’s just the kind of person he was to her, and I lived for their unusual pairing. It was really nice getting to know this actor through this series, I hope I’ll get to see more of him!

I was absolutely blown away by the performance of Yokomizo Naho as young Miyuki. Apparently she also appeared in Shinigami-kun, Nobunaga Concerto and Watashi Kekkon Dekinainjanakute Shinain Desu, but it’s been too long for me to remember her from those. Here, she definitely made a lingering impression on me. She was ten years old when this show aired and is still doing dramas as a teenager at present, so it’d be really cool to see her in something where she’s older. I’m used to child actors being impressive, but her performance was actually amazing. I loved how mature she seemed in her expressions, no matter how much of a child she still was. She did a great job in portraying the layers of an eight year old going through the loss of one parent and then the introduction of a new one. Her chemistry with Ayase Haruka was really good, as well. She was so good!

I knew Kamishiraishi Moka from 3-nen A-gumi and as the younger sister of Kamishiraishi Mone. I couldn’t help but giggle during her scenes with Sato Takeru, considering he played her sister’s love interest in Koi wa Tsuzuku yo Dokomademo. Anyways, despite my beforementioned confusion about the change in Miyuki’s personality (then again, a lot can change in ten years), I really liked her portrayal of teen and adult Miyuki. I loved how she actually became Akiko’s daughter, even in some of her mannerisms. Seeing her go from being embarrassed of her stepmother to embracing all of her quirks was really touching and I also thought her chemistry with Ayase Haruka was really good. I didn’t know she was going to be in this show – again, I didn’t know there was going to be a time jump since the poster also just features the main characters of the first half – but I was pleasantly surprised by her appearance. I hope I’ll get to see more dramas with her and her sister, because they are definitely a golden duo.

It’s not a lie that I love Sato Takeru, from Mei-chan no Shitsuji, Koi ha Tsuzuku yo Dokomademo, First Love: Hatsukoi and the movies Kanojo wa Uso wo Aishisugiteiru and Nanimono, and I really can’t wait to get to the other dramas with him that are still on my watchlist. When I saw his name in the opening credits for this show, I got excited immediately, and I was intrigued by how his character kept getting teased in the beginning. Maybe it’s partially because I wasn’t used to seeing him in a comic relief role and that caused an initial cringe, but as I said I was a bit disappointed that that was ultimately all there was to his character. I’m not saying he did a poor job, I still loved him enough as an actor to sit through it, but I just wished there’d been a bit more depth to him. I was half expecting him to actually become Akiko’s new love interest, but with the way he kept acting I couldn’t really argue with the fact that Akiko never developed that kind of feeling towards him. Although I did like his consistent habit of mixing up words and the way he initially discovered a new ambition for baking, it just felt like he descended more and more into the typical comic relief character mold once his own bakery arc was finished, which was a shame. Still, it was really nice to see him in this and at least I got to see a new side of his acting!

I’ve seen Aso Yumi before in Yamato Nadeshiko Shichihenge, Watashi wo Hanasanaide, Orphan Black: Nanatsu no Idenshi (which I wrote my MA thesis about), Perfect World and the movie Koizora. I really liked her performance as Mrs. Shimoyama. She brought a very nice and familiar energy to the character that immediately made me sympathize with her. Since I mostly remember her for quite stern characters, it was very refreshing to see her be a bit more goofy and playful in this. She just has this very natural ‘auntie’ feel about her, which made her perfect for this role. I loved how she was just naturally taken with the Miyamotos and never hesitated to take care of Miyuki. She was even hesitant to accept Akiko at first, as well, but never in the sense that she feared her own position would be taken away. It was purely because she cared about what kind of person would be best for Ryoichi and Miyuki, which made her a really sympathetic person. It was nice that she got to stick around for the entirety of the story. I liked seeing her as a familiar face in this show.

For some reason I can’t find any source that states child actor Daichi’s full name, so I’ll just stick to Daichi. I saw that he also appeared in Hayako-sensei, Kekkon Surutte Honto Desuka? According to MDL he hasn’t done anything new since 2020, though. Anyways, just like with Yokomizo Naho, I really loved his performance of young Hiroki. He was such a natural kid, he didn’t even seem to be acting. He actually looked like the type of boy who’d bully you but then act all tsundere to cover up his actual feelings. I thought he brought a really refreshing energy as young Hiroki, and his chemistry with young Miyuki was really cute.
Just like with Takenouchi Yutaka, Inowaki Kai looks SO familiar to me, yet I haven’t actually seen him in anything before. I did see there was one more show with him on my watchlist, so that’s good. I thought he made such a lovely older Hiroki. He just exuded green flag energy, from his smile to his actions. I really liked his chemistry with Kamishiraishi Moka. I thought Hiroki was the best partner she could’ve wished for, and it was cool how they built up their relationship from childhood. He had such a chill and mature air about him, and I also appreciated that the third special dove into his family relations a bit more. You could see how serious he was about Miyuki from the start, almost as if he’d already accepted that they were meant to be, but never in an intrusive way. I really liked his character and the way he played him.

I’m going to leave it there for the cast comments! All in all, I thought the cast was very well put-together and the actors managed to create a sense of familiarity with each other really well. It actually made me feel like I was part of a small family while I was watching it, which is what you want to achieve with shows like this. Of course, the theme of ‘family’, whether actually blood-related or not, was key in this show and I think the writers managed to convey that very well, through the acting, the filming and even the music, which constantly had me bobbing my head.

All in all, I thought this was a very wholesome series and I’m glad that I got to watch it in an otherwise quite stressful period. Japanese dramas tend to have this kind of soothing and healing feel to them, which really came at the perfect timing. I wonder how many more I’ll get to watch this year.
Despite my comments about the story being dragged on and the plot kind of being lost on me throughout the second half and the specials, I still want to emphasize that I thought this show was very good. It managed to touch me emotionally in unexpected ways and I loved that they managed to make something so wholesome out of something that started out so typical. Ayase Haruka definitely nailed the role of Akiko for me, I loved the development of her character and how effortlessly funny she was without ever making it feel like ‘too much’. The specific concept of the relationship between a stepmother and daughter, and how this bond could even exceed one between blood-related relatives, was very original. Even though it didn’t come as a surprise to me that it was based on a manga series, it still didn’t feel too animated, it was just the right balance between comical and realistically heartfelt. I had a really good time watching this and getting kicked in the feels when I least expected it. I hope to encounter more Japanese shows like this in the near future!
For now, I’m excited to see what’s in store for me next. Excuse me as I make my way towards the next item on my watchlist.

Until then!
Bye-bee! x