Kareshi wo Loan de Kaimashita (2018)

This show was so crazy I don’t even know where to start.

The story was very bad, and not even in a fun way. Often it feels like the writer was using the characters as puppets to rant about how the feminists are evil and that working women are ugly and being a good waifu is the best thing a woman could ever do. What is particularly frustrating is that for about the first four-ish episodes it seems like the show is doing a satirical take on the stance of "all women should be housewives" and in my opinion, those are the best episodes, though that's not saying much considering what comes after. These episodes actually have funny jokes and the best character moments in the show and until the end of the episode, you can trick yourself into thinking that the show is going to get good and have something to say. The moment the show's writing falls from mediocre to just plain unredeemable can be pinpointed at the end of episode four: After a touching scene in which Jun ( Ryusei Yokohama) confronts Tae (Mano Erina) as to why she stays with her boyfriend Shunpei (Yasushi Fuchikami) even after he repeatedly cheats on her and makes her feel like she's not good enough for him, which ultimately leads him to the conclusion that everything Shunpei does to Tae all adds up to psychological abuse (it is) and the two of them have a very sincere and touching conversation. This is the shows high point, it all feels like it's been leading up to this point where we pull away the curtain and reveal that the problem is not women who want to work or be housewives but rather men who use the system they have created to their advantage while also policing and demeaning women for even thinking of doing the same. But then it all falls apart when you get to the end of the episode and Tae out of nowhere punches Jun and essentially say "fuck everything we were talking about, I'm going to be Shunpei's housewife no matter what" as if all the emotional build-up hadn't even mattered the entire time. After this punch to the gut, the show really starts to go for it with amazing lines such as "When humans start mixing the roles together things become very strange." (a line from Shunpei, who is not transphobic but is misogynistic - yes this is a plot point in the show and I nearly lost my mind) and "There are those ugly feminists who are unable to get married and just talk crap and are jealous. They will try to brainwash the housewives." (just like this show tries to brainwash you into thinking that that's a normal way of looking at the world - remember how I mentioned rants about the feminists). I don't think it's hard to see how the story isn't good.

The issues of this show mainly fall upon the writing - the show was edited as best as it could have been and the actors are doing such an amazing job with the garbage they were given. Mano Erina as Tae, a woman obsessed with becoming a housewife, can balance cuteness and slapstick very well and is such an amazing actress, it makes me mad that they made her do this. Ryusei Yokohama as Jun, Tae's "rented boyfriend," was extremely charismatic, balancing being insightful and a total dumbass very well, and had amazing chemistry with Mano Erina. Even Yasushi Fuchikami as Tae's shitty boyfriend was great and he too deserved a better project than this. All of the actors tried to add as much nuance to their characters as possible (especially Kyoko Hasegawa, thank you for your service queen), but there was nothing of substance to hold up their characters. I can see, from the first few episodes, what drew the actors in - at first glace the show can appear to be a satirical slapstick romance that seems like it's going to say a lot about gender dynamics and Japan's falling birth rate, and that, in theory, can be amazing career-making stuff, if not an easy paycheck. However, once you see the show for what it truly is, the acting too falls flat and all of the actors' hard work is cheapened by a bad script and story.

The music in the show flopped between "okay but ultimately forgettable" and "who the fuck choose this? Who thought this was a good idea?" People often underestimate the use of music in drama's (mainly cause dramas tend to be viewed as a form of "low art" but that's a completely different conversation for another time), often just adding whatever pop or easily acquired song to the soundtrack. But music sets the tone and can easily make or break a scene the same way editing or acting can. This show has a lot of flaws, from its clumsy dialogue, awkward editing, harmful message, and so on, but what encapsulates how disappointing and depressing this show is can be found in its soundtrack. From how many of the songs sound like they belong in a Marvel soundtrack with their blandness and unimportance, to how strange and off-putting some of the songs sound - a strangeness that is only intensified by how out of place they are within the scene. The soundtrack has a few okay tracks which are ultimately buried under the blandness and badness of the rest, just how the show has some good things that are just drowned out by the overall badness of it.

The show feels like it's teetering between complete sincerity and no effort whatsoever and ultimately fails. The whole show was just anti-feminist propaganda made by men who don’t understand the reason for the birth decline in Japan and think it's due to women wanting equality and being evil cause they criticize men or whatever, rather than it being due to men (to an extent). Like I stated previously, men controlling, policing, and demeaning women, creating a system that is set to fail women no matter what (these things still happen to this day - look at how women in Japan get pushed out of the workforce once they marry or are pregnant or the medical school scandal of last year) , these are things that cause women to think twice about settling down. Not the feminist "brainwashing" them or them naturally being "corrupt" or "evil," but just the simple fact that men treat them or are willing to view them as such. Women don't need men the way they used to, to rely on income or basic necessities, and can work for themselves and live for themselves (a thing that men have historically been able to do without question) and this for some reason frightens men.

This is all summarized in the character of Shunpei, who is never wrong in the eyes of the story. He is manipulative, often neglecting Tae and then trying to make it seem like he did nothing wrong even going as far as convincing her to lie about being his girlfriend when she runs into him while he's on dates with other women. He's a liar, telling Tae that all the women he's seeing are actually his relatives - this, by the way, is predicated on the fact that to him he's doing nothing wrong, yet he feels the need to lie to Tae which shows that on some level he knows what he's doing is wrong. He's just the worst of men. As I observed Shunpei all I could think was its men like you that cause the birth decline to plummet even more. Like the creators of the show created a man who perfectly encapsulated everything that causes women to refuse marriage or having kids. Men, I can assure you it is not the feminists causing the “deterioration of the home” or whatever you think they are causing. The annoying thing is that there could have been an interesting feminist look at the birth decline and being a housewife in current Japan, but apparently men can’t not hate women for long enough to write something nuanced. I can almost imagine the feminist version of this show exploring a woman wanting to be a housewife (despite what men apparently think, feminist aren't against women who want to be housewives being housewives) in modern Japan - it could have been good and nuanced, everything this show wanted to be so desperately. This show sucked, and not even in a fun way, 0/10, would not recommend

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This drama had a strong start, but the ending was really bad. Of course, the story was a bit messed up to begin with. The concept of buying a boyfriend and treating him like a slave was a bit fishy overall, but it served the story well and fired the progress. Though it was never explored properly. The characters were not properly explained either, though, they were fun. The romance, however, was odd. The pair that someone would have rooted for was the main one with the girl and her bought up boyfriend. But, there was also her real life boyfriend, the future husband character. So, overall, the romance neither had a good progress, nor a good ending.

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I watched all episodes with sub (non-English sub). It's so different from other dramas I have watched. Overall, this story is an analysis of gender roles (regarding work and marriage) and includes examples utilizing perspectives of all the characters, and I love it. It's so unique that this kind of story chooses a woman who wants to marry and be a housewife as a lead, unlike other dramas on this topic these days that usually tries to push strong women as a lead. I'm definitely the opposite of her. It's like we were given the same life question, but we chose the opposite solution. The drama still gets me to root for her despite this. I think the name Tae is 100% what this character is all about. I love this detail.
Some weaknesses are the sometimes unnatural acting and maybe the repetitive elements, but it can also be argued that the repetitiveness is the way to simplify and shorten the story.
It has some fluffy elements, but not as much as dramas that specialize in swoony moments. It's more realistic. I appreciate this kind of bickering chatter a lot more. A lot of the time I was like it would be great if there's somebody in my life who would say stuff straight to my face like this guy.
I think the tags attracted the wrong crowd for this drama. I don't think the point of this story is the age gap. According to ep1, their age gap is only 4 years (26 and 22). I assumed they are same age until I saw the tag and checked.
This story is also driven by the dialogues, like the references to the animal kingdom, historical facts (e.g. housewife started in Taisho era), and why the characters make such decision for each episode, so those watching raw will miss like 60-70% of the drama.
The ending is a bit ... (I guess no spoiler) but I think it is the ending this drama needs. It's very consistent with character development.
I already rewatched some of the episodes just to catch more details. Because it's different, I think I may occasionally rewatch parts of it.

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Strongly dislike the attitudes of the women in this drama. While it wants to come across as cute most of the characters' (both male and female) attitudes to gender roles are set in antiquated and backward thinking. If a woman wants to be a housewife managing her home and taking care of her family there is nothing wrong with that but the reasoning of the women in this drama are nonsensically and erroneously based on gender roles in the animal kingdom. It's so stupid the way they cross-talk about different species of animals, using how animals interact as mates and parents as metaphors for how human gendered, romantic, sexual and familiar relationship ought to be. Also, the lead and her mentor are both verbally and physically abusive to their loan boyfriends. Her mentor is a terrible person and mother for denying her son a relationship with his father in the manner and reasoning that she does. In many ways, the themes portrayed are unacceptable in the modern world.

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The drama is about a woman who is determined to become a "professional housewife," a woman dedicated to being a perfect stay at home wife. She has a "perfect" boyfriend (rich, with a well-paying job, handsome) but is a player. When she finds herself too stressed from playing the pure innocent cutey, she buys a boyfriend who essentially becomes her punching bag (literally) to relieve her stress. The drama touches interesting points on gender roles but instead of giving new insight, it instead gives excuses for why we should accept and maintain traditional views (the man works an brings home the food and the woman takes care of the children). While I have the complete opposite of the heroine, I don't necessarily mind the idea of a stay-at-home-wife/mom. However, this drama increasingly infuriated me as it went on. The guy she wanted to marry repeatedly cheated on her, got caught by her (FOUR times), made flimsy lies, and rationalized his behavior by saying that he wanted to be sure before marriage. Neither of them seemed to actually like each other much less love each other. This wasn't helped by the fact that they barely interacted or had a long honest conversation.

This ended up feeling like a government-sponsored drama (since Japan's marriage and birth rate are decreasing while the divorce rate is increasing) to convince the ladies to get married, stay at home, turn a blind eye to infidelity, and suck it up, with a smile plastered on their face. And maybe if the woman is too stressed, she can fool around to destress, as long as her husband doesn't know (or at least that's what I got from the ending). None of the characters were remotely genuine, interesting, or likable (except maybe the secondary woman's loan boyfriend). I didn't mind the premises itself or the characters' believes, the problem was in the writing and execution.

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Powerful Story that makes you rethink gender roles

This is a satire. If you are not mature enough to get satire then you will miss out on this gem.
The screenwriter is famous for mocking society and this does a wonderful job.
The negative reviews just point out that they missed the point.
It's a powerful story that makes you rethink society.


It is very easy to hate on the characters at the start but at the end you find yourself accepting them for being human with flaws.
W no Higeki is a popular drama but I prefer M no Higeki with Hasegawa Kyoko and she delivers a powerful performance.

It was a very satisfying watch. It made me think

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The amount of absurdity in this drama is through the roof

I watched it because of Yokohama Ryusei but ended up getting my blood pressure boil.
As someone has commented that this drama is satire, alright.

The concept of buying a boyfriend is nothing new in Japan and in reality, it is happening. But in this drama, I feel bad how they treated poorly just because you have "saved" the poor guy from their debt. The kicking and hitting shouldn't be necessary, was it supposed to show as funny? Also, I couldn't bear to watch whenever the FL tells the BF like "you're trash" or "die".

This drama was done in poor taste, I have wasted my time completing this.

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★ 彼氏をローンで買いました ★

This drama is about Tae who works as a secretary front desk for a big company in Tokyo, she is doing her best to become a good housewife. Her boyfriend is in the same company as her named Shunpei who is always seen with a different woman everyday. Shunpei and Tae have dated 1 year. Tae wants to get married to him, but pretends to act like a naive and shy person in front of him. Her real personality though is to speak frankly and making sharp remarks.
One day she gets drunk and she buys off loan a new boyfriend online, who is actually close to her age and so handsome!!
After she meets the online boyfriend her personality is more aggresive and obedient, she always obeys the guy to do things to get Sunpei back.
Will she end up with Shunpei or the online boyfriend?

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In my opinion its little mest up to talk about human trafficking and slaveary like its a normal thing, as well as that we got to see alot of violence and abuse, in the way that girls just punch theyre foyfriends for no reson. But over all it was very different and not borinng to wach, just mest up.
Idont have anything else to add and it wont let me submit so im just gonna ad allot of oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

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"Good wife, wise mother"... A waste of time

I decided to watch this drama because it stars Yokohama Ryusei. As always, I really like his work, being as expressive as ever and with a very good performance. Although I dislike everyone's personality, I must say that the roles were well acted. From the first chapter the story seemed very cringy, because well, it's about human trafficking/slavery and the characters are very empty, without any development, with lines that sometimes seem interesting but then return to what they always were, ideas of a society in which men and women have quite fixed roles, in which LGBT people are perverts, in which thinking, expressing themselves and having healthy relationships are not important ... Well, I decided to continue watching the drama until the end since I thought there would be a plot twist that would make the story interesting and destroy so much prejudice that only gets stronger, but it never happened. Unfortunately, I wasted my time.

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A Satirical Drama to Show Stereotypes

I just made this account recently but I finished watching this series a year ago and I have mixed feelings for this drama. This drama felt like a fever dream to me during the time that I watched it. During the first episode, I thought that this will only be like a typical “rent-a-boyfriend” trope but I guess I'm wrong. When I reached the last two episodes I was really agitated about what is happening between the fl and the ml only to be disappointed that it was the last episode.

So anyways, I have a neutral eh response to this drama. But realizing what this drama shows to the viewers actually made me appreciate this a little more as this drama literally showed all the Asian (or maybe even Western) stereotypes when it comes to women. Like they showed it in EVERY episode. I don't want to list them all down since the other reviews probably showed them already and I'm a little bit late on reviewing this so yeah. And upon realizing those while watching, I was amazed. And guess what? They showed it in a somehow realistic way but still with a hint of Japanese culture or whatsoever.

This drama is full of cliches, cheesy lines and scenarios. Honestly speaking the only reason why I finished watching this is that I thought something will happen in the ending that will make it a happy ending (it somehow happened, but we all can agree that it's not a legal way) and because it's Ryusei Yokohama and I like him. It's my guilty pleasure to watch a drama where girls are being themselves in a realistic and harsh way.

This ends my review. I hope I was able to explain it properly. Is this a great drama? Not much. Should you watch this? Yeah maybe you should try it out.

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