Quick Review #138: Nami uraraka ni, Meoto biyori - Spring 2025

Title: Nami uraraka ni, Meoto biyori / playe　　　　　　　　　　　

Rating: 8 / 10

Recommended for: 

For those who want to watch a cute and sweet love story and don't mind the predictability of the plot and/or are fans of the lead actors

* Potential spoilers ahead!

* Disclaimer: I have not read the original manga.

Liked:

- While I never expected much from this drama right from the beginning, it turned out to be way better than I thought. To be honest, the plot wasn't anything new nor did it offer much surprises along the way. However, what made this a gem was really the way the story was presented. Amid the messy and dramatic furin and love triangle/multi-angled stories which are very common these days, there was really nothing much to derail the main couples from their journeys of falling in love with each other. Everything was straightforward yet it was so refreshing and relaxing to see how things were progressing. I guess bucking the trend and going back to the good old-fashioned basics of a love story, also thanks to the fact that this story was sent in the older days, really helped to make this a lot more palatable than expected.

- The cast was simply amazing in more ways than one. For a start, Yoshine Kyoko and Honda Kyoya played their characters so well and managed to convey the shyness, awkwardness and innocence of the lead couple as they "went backwards" by getting married first then falling in love with each other. Surprisingly, it didn't feel like acting because they were so natural in their performances and I have to say, I was really impressed. Likewise goes for Yamamoto Maika and Koseki Yuuta - at one point, I became a bigger fan of the Fumiko-Fukami pairing that I wanted to see more of them and their interesting interactions. Last but not least, Namase Katsuhisa's narration was so hillarious and provided much entertainment for this story which could be a tad predictable at times.

- The theme song by BE:FIRST was such a perfect fit for this drama and it's rare these days that I could remember a song pretty well and liked it enough to add it to my playlist just after watching the first episode.

Disliked: 

- Towards the end, I felt that the story was showing signs of losing steam and wondered if it could be more compact by shedding an episode or two. Much as I liked most parts of this drama, the finale came across to me as rather slipshod because I was expecting more to round things up nicely. However, that prolonged recap of Natsumi and Takimasa's love journey with those flashbacks got on my nerves. To make things worse, I wanted more of Fumiko-Fukami but there was no wedding scene! If not for the poorly-done finale, I think I would have rated this higher.