30 Kin Sore wa 30-sai miman okotowari no koi (2020)

This is the best, it gave me butterflies ?

So I always like unconditional romances. I am tired of billionaire romances on BookTube and K drama land, where women just like the guy because he is a rich dude. It’s just I don’t know gives me a negative feeling. I don’t like to see “gold digging” ladies. Conversely I am also tired of tropes where the men are only in because the only female lead is a billion years younger and super good looking. Again it shows the shallowness of the guy.
Here the guy appeared poor and the girl was older. They both have amazing chemistry and the scenes are too cute. It was also a more passionate drama with more skinship than I have seen with JDramas. The female lead was so precious and cute… the male lead was more assertive and “cool” than I have seen in JDramas. It made for very interesting dynamic. Also each episode was only about 15 minutes so essentially it’s a short watch.
The coolest thing was that the guy turns out to be quite rich and this is a favourite trope of mine where the guy is a closet rich guy and the female lead did not know this. A lot of things makes sense when we realise that the male lead was rich for example his carelessness with money, his confidence and his faith (that he was a good match for the girl even when he was so much younger).
This drama felt like my most favourite romance book. I have rewatched it 5 times and it’s easily one of my favourites for this year.

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An okay watch for a Suzuki Jin or Noona-romance fan.

Suzuki Jin is what got me through this. He is a good actor and charasmatic enough to keep me watching and to make me want a good ending for his character even if the screenplay is written simplistically.

While the screenplay does bring up various concerns one might have with an age gap romance, and social and familial navigation, it doesn't explore them well or deeply. It's not very insightful or thoughtful. A couple things come up repeatedly though they feel only partially discussed (like they're being used as a writing crutch), while others are resolved with unrealistic ease. There's way too much going on with the plot and side people so there's no time to explore things with more meaning. Character psychology and development stays simplistic as a result.

The set up is insanely fast. There wasn't adequate time for me to get invested in the characters before they started doing things that strained their likability. The first Ep of 20 min has Mayuki confess to Shino and them starting a relationship of sorts and growing some feelings, then it's all angsty struggles from then on. Shino's character was bland and I couldn't get invested in her.

There is a good amount of sweetness, skinship, and hugs, and a couple of kisses. The hottest scene is in the first episode (shows a bit of the lead up to the two main characters sleeping together).

Some suspension of disbelief is required for various things throughout the story.
General Spoiler below.
(Ex: who would start living with the person they are in love with and *immediately* leave their home in that state of disarray every day? Especially when it's a usually thoughtful character who is still trying to secure the other person's affection! That really came across as a forced plot point because the writer needed it to happen early on to prompt the "kid" arguments.)

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