Kono koi wa atatamesu ka? (2020)

Cute watch, but...

I loved the actors in this. Mori Nana as KiKi was just precious. Though often immature, which was slightly problematic for me if I was supposed to believe her with Asaba, she changed those around her. I liked her energy and how she wasn't the typical J-drama female that kept her head down and apologized for absolutely everything she did. Nakamura Tomoya as Asaba - he needs more romantic ML roles! He's very charismatic, and there were a couple of times where he would suck on his bottom lip slightly...my! Nakano Taiga was just lovely. It helped that, for the most part, I liked his character, but he did serious very well, and he's got good comedic timing. He portrayed Makoto's sweetness, but also his caring that he had for KiKi. I enjoyed watching him.

Which brings me to the problem that I had - the romance part of the story. My biggest complaint - if I'm supposed to believe a romance, part of that is convincing me that you are in love. If you are in love, you don't want to be with anyone else. 1) Asaba's relationship with his past girlfriend bothered me, not only because I didn't buy them as a couple, but they were basically living together. Call me old-fashioned, but one of the things I like about romance (though I know I'm living in a dream world, which is why I like watching these things!) is when the couple hasn't been with others. This one left an especially bad taste in my mouth, because the girlfriend had LITERALLY just broken up with him, and she had to tell him that he liked KiKi. - Get a clue, dude! 2) KiKi - she's pining after Asaba, but then suddenly decides to date Makoto. That, to me, was wishy washy, and unfair to Makoto. She's even ready to pick Makoto before Asaba shows up. 3) Which brings me to Asaba confessing to KiKi when he knows she's in a relationship with Makoto. Asaba and Makoto have been friends for years - not cool! You had your chance and you blew it. 4) Extremely short time for Asaba and KiKi being together - not only once they were actually together, but the lead up. There really wasn't anything to show us them beginning to like one another, not much of a build up. I felt like they ended up together because they were the leads and it was SUPPOSED to happen. I even cheated and watched part of the last episode when I was only halfway through the show, because I had no idea who I was supposed to be rooting for! The scene where Asaba and KiKi are running to one another and he is telling her that they have nothing in common and have no chemistry, was sadly true up to that point.

A couple of other minor points. The "villain" (corporate guy) did everything he did just because he didn't like Asaba - that's not a good businessman and you going back to doing things the way they used to be done (but weren't working) out of spite? Nope! Finally, in Japanese dramas, why is there always at least one person that is completely overacting? The older convenience store worker was too over the top.

So, my bottom line, it's a short, cute watch at 10 episodes, so you don't have to make too much of a time investment. It's enjoyable if you don't want to be too invested in the outcome.

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Warm, Holiday Feels - Least Weird J-Drama I've Watched

This was a surprisingly sweet, warm, comfortable, holidayish watch. It didn't feel like a jdrama - the characters didn't act like they were animated or had just jumped out of an anime. There were no "WTH DID I JUST WATCH?!" moments, though I kinda hate the way jdramas allow SMLs to make non-consensual moves on the FLs.

FL: Mori Nana reminded me of Park Bo Young's Do Bong Soon. A cutie who has been dealt an unfair hand in life, but with determination, seeks to find another passion.

ML: I loved the way this guy was written. I went in expecting another arrogant, emotionally stunted tsundere CEO, but he surprised me. This guy is sweet, listens well, can humble himself, and wears his goofy side on his sleeve.

Both leads had excellent comedic timing, and contrary to many commenters here, I thought they had chemistry from beginning to end. It was plain as day for anyone to see that they liked each other, but they took a long time to recognize it. I loved their back-and-forth banter, and the way they had the same dream and different skills to accomplish it.

Another thing that can act as both a pro and a con is that there are no bad characters. SFL and SML are both extremely nice people, with their own flaws, but sometimes so nice it was difficult to watch their hearts break.
The supporting cast was lovely, and it was so nice to watch the convenience store group be each others' best buddies. On a whole, i think this will be one of my holiday picks when that time of year comes around :)

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Me falaram tão bem desse Jdrama que criei expectativas demais.

Só pra não dizer que é 100% garantido que irei gostar de todo drama que minha irma indica. As vezes aparece um drama que foge da curva e não me agrada da mesma forma que a agradou.

É bem verdade que nossos gostos são bem parecidos, por isso boa parte das vezes nossas opiniões sobre os dramas que assistimos caminham em mesma direção. No entanto, de tempos em tempos acabo não gostando de algum drama que ela achou maravilhoso e vice versa. Talvez esse seja o 1% de alguma coisa que difere nossas personalidades e Kono Koi wa Atatamesu ka representa justamente isso.

Por volta do mês de Novembro/ Dezembro de 2020 me lembro de vê-la super empolgada enquanto acompanhava o lançamento semanal dos episódios. Fiquei super empolgada ao ouvir as inúmeras qualidades do drama em questão, então resolvi assisti-lo no início desse ano.

Mas a verdade é que ao contrario dela, achei o desenvolvimento da trama super arrastado, e não tive vontade de ver o próximo episódio o quanto antes, e olha que o drama nem é grande, mas cheguei a demorar vários dias para chegar no final.

Talvez eu tenha criado expectativas demais sobre a história, mas acho que mesmo que não fosse o caso o mesmo resultado iria acabar acontecendo inevitavelmente porque não consegui me envolver com os personagens da história.

Asaba Takumi é justamente o tipo de personagem masculino que não gosto: um executivo competente no trabalho, mas quando o assunto é romance sua personalidade fria e indiferente me tira do sério.

O lado bom é que ao contrário do que geralmente acontece nos Jdramas a protagonista não é aquela tipica mulher boba que correrá como louca atrás do homem o tempo todo. Inoue Kiki é uma jovem que já teve suas desilusões amorosas e profissionais e por isso não age como uma menininha indefesa.

Suspeito que teria gostado mais do drama se focassem mais no desenvolvimento dos doces, e no crescimento profissional dos personagens dentro da empresa, e na relação de amizade entre eles.

Quando o romance entrou no jogo, Kono Koi wa Atatamesu ka acabou entregando aquela típica receita japonesa nada romântica que vivo fugindo porque nunca consegue me satisfazer.

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This drama was such a refreshing change of pace. It reminds me of the cutesy cooking manga I used to read like "Mixed Vegetables" and "Kitchen Princess," but not in a high school setting. I like the business atmosphere a lot. The lead actors Tomoya Nakamura (one of my newer favs) and Nana Mori have excellent chemistry despite the drama being decidedly non-skinship. It might be because Mori was so young, or just the route they decided to go, not sure, but it actually worked. Because it allowed the focus of the drama to be on the actual story, not on "ooh, they're touching." The one thing I don't usually care for are tsundere characters and Nakamura's character is definitely that. It took roughly 5 episodes for me to warm up to him. But once I did, I realized he was a pretty nice guy. It probably helped once, well, his plotline twisted unexpectedly and made him more accessible. The FL has a lot of emotional hangups from previous failures so it's interesting to see her work through those as the story progresses, learning that failing doesn't mean quitting, etc. Some really excellent messages. AND, this drama has the absolute nicest alternate love interests I've ever encountered. None of that backbiting and sniping we usually see, just genuinely nice people. That was such a breath of fresh air. And of course, rooting for the age-gap couple. Because they're darling, once you get to know them. This might be one of my most favorite age-gap stories, actually. It just took it's time in the telling. Overall, a sweet and clean drama for anyone who likes cooking, age-gap romances in a business setting, and sweet fluff.

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A Warmed Up Love had a promising start. We open episode one with our female lead, Kiki, sharing the difficult trajectory her life has taken, going from a popular J-pop idol to a nobody struggling with purpose and identity. It's very grounded and believable while still having touches of humor and lightheartedness (she's sharing her burdens with a customer service employee who doesn't know how to respond to a heartfelt confession seeing as her job is dealing with customer complaints, lol.) It's a really great opening on what sort of person Kiki is, the struggles she faces, and it immediately hooked me. Mori Nana is also fantastic at capturing what a young woman is really like, an ability she keeps going for at least the five episodes I watched.

But while I loved Kiki and wanted to see her succeed, there's very little going on around her in the story that I found either compelling or believable.

For starters, I was completely uninterested in all the business drama. It boils down to people fighting for control of a company because of money and greed, but the drama paints it as some sort of emotionally resonate plotline about believing in the power of sweets and a fight to make quality products and doing what's best for the company. This was kind of hard to believe when no one on the board actually cares about any of these things, not even the male lead. Yes, part of his character trajectory was obviously going to be him 'overcoming' his sweets trauma and learning to care about creating delicious and comforting sweets, but this sort of storyline has already been done so often (and truthfully, better), that I didn't care.

Of course, it doesn't help that Takumi is essentially a cardboard cutout with no real personality. This is due to a combination of minimal acting on Nakamura Tomoya's part and a serious lack of characterization in the writing. Takumi is incredibly bland, his only real personality trait, aside from being stoic and determined in a boardroom, beings that he hates sweets, and for the majority of the five eps I watched, he either had little to no facial expression or a fake smile that screamed acting from a mile away.

I was also completely unmoved by the romance. With Takumi's lack of personality and how believably young and inexperienced Mori Nana's portrayal of Kiki is, I found the age-gap to be distracting and unnecessary. The writers also do little to no work creating compelling reasons for either of them to like each other. For Takumi, it's clearly the typical 'my love interest speaks her mind and is earnest' approach, and Kiki is certainly forthright and determined in her opinions and view of life. But while I don't inherently dislike this romance trope, it's also not interesting or fleshed out at all in this drama. As to what Kiki would find attractive about Takumi, I could never tell. To reiterate, he's as bland as a piece of toast.

Truthfully, her crush on him is a level of intense I found unbelievable. Near the beginning of the drama, Kiki discovers her boyfriend is cheating on her and then in the same moment, he dumps her, pinning the blame for his cheating on her. This would be devastating to most people, but Kiki's reaction is rather subdued. We don't know much about their relationship before that moment, so maybe there is a good reason for her to not be as devastated as you might expect, but then she immediately develops a crush on Takumi, and when she learns that he may still love his ex, she's distraught. She literally sobs in a stairwell. There is a serious discontent between these two responses. Her boyfriend cheating on her and then dumping her is no more thana small blip on her life timeline, but when her boss who's much older than her and whom she knows next to nothing about might love someone else, it's a tragedy?

My last real complaint for this drama is that while I get her interest in sweets and in reviewing them online, and I can totally see how that might transition into a legitimate job of taste-testing products to see which ones should be sold in a store, I could never get behind the idea of how reviewing sweets would give the female lead the requisite skills to actually make them herself. No one even bothers to find out if she knows how to cook. Now, I've been known to overlook details like this in other dramas, so this wasn't a make-or-break issue for me. But when all of the most important elements of a story don't work for you, even the smallest issues are a frustration.

It always leaves me frustrated when a drama starts out thoughtful and introspective before turning bland and uninspired, and that's exactly what happened with A Warmed Up Love. I can certainly see other viewers liking, or even loving, this drama, so I won't say no one should watch it. But man, if you're not going to carry that thoughtful heart all the way through a story's conclusion, then why even start?

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Mature characters - nice rom com

I wasn’t sure who was supposed to end up together and how the couples were going to end up together. I felt that Kiki and Shintani were more couple-like and as the series was progressing, I was thinking – ah maybe the second lead gets the girl here. Hoping against hope, of course, it wasn’t meant to be. Asaba’s feelings for Kiki was confusing – maybe he was confused as well, but really why did he have to realise almost right to the end of the show. All said, it was a good ending for Kiki and Asaba. I just wished we saw more of them as a couple to have a more fluffy feel.

I liked that the drama did not over complicate situations by misunderstandings. The characters all acted mature and realistic. You have supportive friends and colleagues. No scheming and revenge.

A nice light rom-com.

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