Ashita, Watashi wa Dareka no Kanojo (2022)

Need to love and feel loved - A bitter reality

Honestly, I was not sure if I should watch this drama or not, as the provided summary doesn't appropriately describe the true plot of this series.

CHARACTERS

In the drama we are following the story of 5 woman that seem to be related in a way. Yuki (portrayed by Yoshikawa Ai) is a 19 year old university student who is working as a Rental Girlfriend in order to make ends meet. When she is working and meeting with clients, she seems like a sweet, cheerful, and kind girlfriend; however, we get to know that in reality she has been through a lot and she carries a secret from her childhood that holds her back. Rina (played by Yokota Mayuu), who is Yuki's university friend, is a colourful, smiley, and cheerful girl that everyone likes and wants to be with her. In addition to her cheerful outside looks, Rina is a rather lonely girl that seeks attention and confirmation from people around her.

Ayano (played by Ugaki Misato) is working with Yuki at the same agency as a Rental Girlfriend and is mainly focusing on the outside looks of the people around her. This obsession with looks came from her bitter past when the people around her made fun of her due to her outside looks. The fourth protagonist is Moe Maya (played by Yanai Yumena) who is classmate with Rina, with low self-esteem and self-confidence. People around her call her ugly and she can't seem to belong anywhere, even though she is trying. Lastly, Yua (played by Saito Nagisa) is a cute girl that is a regular in a host club and is only visiting a specific host. Later on, Yua takes Moe to the host club that she is regularly going.

PLOT

The main plot of this series is to show how every person needs to feel loved and appreciated, in any way, from their peers. However, for me, the plot focuses not only the need to feel loved by others and love other people, but how important it is to love themselves. It is a rather bitter series which shows how shallow our society is, what are the expectations for women, and how easily women can be manipulated into doing things they don't want in order to fulfil the needs of their partners.

For example, in order Yua to help her favourite host (Haruki) in the host club, she is working in the adult world and she is meeting with clients that she can't refuse. She does that in order to help her favourite to rise through the rank and keep his sales high. Moe follows a similar story. Moe was a full time university student who after she started talking with a host she decided to drop out from her university, and in order to request for the host (Kaede) during her visits, she decides to also enter the adult world and do things that she doesn't want to.

MY OPINION

Honestly, this is a drama that is worth watching. Just a heads up: this is not a typical Romance series. Don't expect to find cute and colourful moments among the couples. This is a close to reality type of series. Unfortunately, there are many people who belittle other people's feelings and take advantage of them, and there are other people that are trying to survive in this world with noone beside them. I don't understand why the rating is relatively low. The rating here is not representative of how good the drama is (in my opinion!).

As an individual, I related mostly with Moe, as she and I share some common things. Since the moment that she answered Kaede's phone call, I knew that this is not going to have a happy ending. I was really routing for Kaede's feelings to be true towards her, but as we show in the end Moe was just a client to him. Even though, seeing her being depressed over him was sad, I was clad that in the end she was able to overcome her obsession and she took her life back to her hands.

Anyway, this is a good drama to watch, SO WATCH IT! BYE!

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An interesting dive into adult entertainment in Japan

At first I was critical but I wanted to watch it because Itsuki is in it. After the first episode I was hooked because of the lead character. This drama gives a very complex insight into not only the adult entertainment in Japan and how women fall into it, but also an overall oversight of society's expectations of women along with rather complex takes on different emotions. Each woman is flawed in their own way in this show, at first you might not like them at all but as it goes on you are shown more and more why they act as they do. I don't love all the characters but I somewhat came to understand them.

To my understanding the acting is really great, everyone seems authentic and they manage to explore complex emotions of their character pretty well. Some character seem totally one dimensional at first but the actors manage to bring out the inner turbulence during each story. So far my only issue with the drama is that nothing seems to be really resolved. Issues you think have been taken care of are suddenly undone off screen and a character returns back to 0.

This drama had me really involved, I cursed and felt with them, I judged and then understood somewhat. It was a journey for sure and I am sad that it only has 12 episodes. It is deeply entertaining and I recommend it to anyone who is open to learn more about the topic of adult entertainment.

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明日私は誰かのカノジョ

This drama is about a bitter love story depicting the realities of love between a female college students who earn money as a stand-in girlfriend, and men attracted to them.
4 girls are university students and they want to make money so they join this company where you can rent a girlfriend to make money, they go on dates with men. Yuki is very cold hearted and all she wants is the money to fix the scar on her face, she meets a guy who really falls in love with her but she is not into it.
Moe follows her friend into a host club bar where she meets a boy she likes, but he is a player all he wants is for her to keeep coming to the club and spend money for him. She becomes beautiful dresses more girly and quits her university for him.
Each woman in this show is different and unique, I really liked this drama

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finally a drama that doesn’t normalize men’s toxic behaviors

Usually jdramas tend to downplay the toxic behaviors of the male characters and their questionable actions are perceived as a way to show that, in reality, they really care about the FL and… I am so glad that this drama didn’t follow this pattern !! It’s quite common to see the FL forgiving every disrespectful thing the ML does but I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this drama doesn’t romanticize men.
I saw some people being upset at Yuki leaving Sota at the end but it was the right choice to make. Sota spent together with her barely 2 days yet he said he loved her and wanted her to leave her job. He knows nothing about her real personality and him saying he would love her regardless is dumb, he doesn’t really know her so how can he sincerely like her?
Also people don’t realize how bad is not being economically independent. If she accepted his offer she would have become dependent of him… and the entire point of her character is to be free and find her own path. Even Rina, the most submissive character, found her own dream in the end.
It was interesting to see how some female characters were at first introduced as “unlikeable” like Aya and Yua but as the episodes go by we find out their story and their valid perspectives. You can still dislike them but you can also understand their points. Personally Moe’s journey was the hardest to watch. It was pretty sad to see her character’s growth decline and sells her body for a man that clearly thought about her as a client.
The men in here are trash which is realistic. Both Sota and Yudai knew about the FLs jobs and realities yet they wanted to decide for them.
At first Yudai seemed cool about Rina’s situation and knew she never was a sugar baby just for money yet he excepted her to stop.
Sota is the typical loser that idolizes a woman and is obsessive over her but has no idea how she really feels. Also in the end we see Sota with another girl, his new girlfriend and… what if she was another rental girl. His obsession for Yuki might have just been related to her job.
Kaede might be a grey character for some people because you aren’t sure if he cared about Moe (as a client) or if he was just playing her since the start. I personally think he indeed manipulated and exploited her because he knew she didn’t have enough money yet he persuaded her to have a debt. Yua’s boyfriend is the worst man in the drama since he exploited and assaulted her.
My favorite relationship in the show is the friendship between Yuki and Aya, an unexpected pair that really worked out in the end for me. It was definitely sweet to see Aya understanding Yuki and making her feel at ease above all because this is a bit unexpected since Aya is, most of the time, portrayed as a blunt and cold (queen). Another friendship I liked was between Moe and the baristas. It was so sweet seeing them cheer and care for her.
All the stories were interesting and the female characters were amazing. I might watch the second season too and see what new topics and characters they introduced.

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Good Enough

Japanese Drama " Ashita, Watashi wa Dareka no Konojo " is a drama about relationships, friendship, and female struggles.

The drama presents the stories of five young women, each one very different from the rest, but all of them working as pretend girlfriends in exchange for money. The story does a great job binding all the stories smoothly together, while giving them all proper screentime to get a nice development and an appropriate ending.

The stories, moreover, were refreshing and original, but for those looking for romance, this drama doesn't offer much of a cute love story. Rather, it focuses on how women are viewed, forced to look cute and not show their true selves, or look beautiful by mainstream standards to prevent being isolated and pushed aside. There are even some toxic relationships that were handled with care by the plot.

As for the performances, everyone did great with their characters and the leading ladies truly shone.

So, overall, eight out of ten.

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Deceptively honest story about loneliness.

This drama took me by surprise, I had no real expectations going in outside of it just being a fairly light and fun romance drama. However, it turns into an incredibly relatable and deceptively complex story that does an incredible job tapping into emotions and feelings that I think most of us have experienced at one time or another.

The prevelant theme of this season is loneliness, manifesting itself in a variety of different ways across the main cast of characters, who find themselves experiencing and dealing with their loneliness in their own way. Some doing it more destructively than others.

Very strong performances from all the female leads (Yoshikawa Ai as Yuki is billed as MC, but scarcely has story for at least half of the shows episodes). I especially enjoyed the slightly unhinged performance by Saito Nagisa as Takahashi Yua, and Yanai Yumena as Maya Moe; who for me was the star of the show.

Very excited to being Season 2!

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