Title:
- デート Dēto (Date)
- デート 恋とはどんなものかしら Dēto (Date): Koi to wa Donna Mono Kashira
- Date
- Date: What's It Like to Be In Love?
Language: Japanese
Year: 2015
Episode: 10
Cast:
- 渡辺杏 Watanabe An (杏 Anne)
- 長谷川博己 Hasegawa Hiroki
- 国仲涼子 Kuninaka Ryoko
- 中島裕翔 Nakajima Yuto
- 松尾諭 Matsuo Satoru
- 松重豊 Matsushige Yutaka
- 風吹ジュン Fubuki Jun
- 和久井映見 Wakui Emi
SYNOPSIS
Yabushita Yoriko has an extremely fastidious personality, and she's very particular about doing everything her own way. She graduated from the prestigious University of Tokyo, and she works as a researcher in a national government agency.
Because her father Yabushita Toshio wants her to experience married bliss, Yoriko joins a dating agency to ease her father's worries about her future. After reading Taniguchi Takumi's profile, she thinks she has fallen in love with the man at first sight.
Takumi lied on his profile about his qualifications, such as that he's working in a publishing company. He is actually unemployed, and he is relying on his mother for his daily expenses. His only remaining friend Shimada Sotaro enrolled Takumi in a dating agency because he wants Takumi to meet a woman so that his life will change, hopefully for the better.
After contacting each other through the dating agency, Yoriko and Takumi agreed to meet each other. On their first date, they both decide to formally date each other and to seriously consider each other as a marriage partner.
REVIEW
Date is about two socially awkward individuals who decide to date each other despite not liking each other when they found out on their first date that they have similar views on love and marriage.
I didn't think this drama would be fun, but it was surprisingly entertaining. I'm quite fascinated with Yabushita Yoriko as a character because she's very meticulous and organized, to the point that she has a fixed menu on different days of the month. I imagine it would be quite difficult to relate to her inflexible personality on a regular basis though.
I don't like Taniguchi Takumi though as it's hard to sympathize with someone who actively wants to use other people to make his life easier. I don't understand him as a character, and I don't get why I should root for him to succeed in finding someone who could take over his mother's unenviable task of providing for him even though he's already a full grown adult with a solid educational background and without any physical disability.
I imagine many people would want to do as they please everyday, and many people would probably do so if they didn't need some sort of income in order to survive. And so, there are a lot of people who are compromising with finding a job as close to fulfilling a personal dream as possible, or even choosing a lucrative profession in order to get any necessary funding to support their desired lifestyle. I don't understand why Takumi couldn't do the same, such as finding a job where he enjoys most of the responsibilities or maybe even taking on part-time work so he can at least manage to take care of himself.
Takumi certainly makes some valid points on his justifications for his chosen way of life, but I can't help feeling that there's something fundamentally wrong with his views. I'm probably influenced by the personal morals and societal ethics that has been established by societies over time.
Anyway, I think it would have made for a more engaging story if a socially inept person like Yuriko gets together with the complete opposite, such as popular and charming Washio Yutaka. They would probably have more interesting conflicts, but that's just my personal opinion.
Related:
デート Date (2015)
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デート Date
