Zenra Meshi (2023)

Plot set-piece driven rather than character-driven

Any story needs to be about characters, and the plot driven by the characters. What I mean by that is that a characters' nature or past trauma, etc. needs to drive how they behave and and react to things. For example, if a character was bitten by a dog as a child, he may have an irrational fear of dogs - and maybe falls in love with a vet. That's organic drama rather than artificial external crises or relying on very implausible misunderstandings, which is one of the laziest sins in writing.

The way characters behave in this series make no emotional sense, because the author wants to get from point A to point B, and so that determines how the characters behave. Points A & B were almost always just tired cliches that were not integrated into the plot and did nothing to advance it but were rather just there to be there. A couple of examples:

- The Past Connection. This appears to be irresistable to BL writers (actually a lot of Asian drama genres) - a past connection between Souta and Mahiro serves no plot purpose - it's just there to be there, and as a result it leads to Souta implausibly not remembering Mahiro, because if he did remember him, that would complicate the plot. And so he doesn't.

- The Restraining Hug Fom Behind. Mahiro thinks Souta is leaving, but it turns out that instead he's staying forever. Does that make him happy? No, he gets upset and tries to leave. Why? Why would that upset him? It wouldn't. But then Souta wouldn't need to grab him from behind to prevent him from leaving.

- The Implausible Misunderstanding. Souta drives four hours from Tokyo and arrives at just the precise moment - it couldn't be one second earlier or one second later or the misunderstanding wouldn't have happened - to see Souta hug his boss, who Souta assumes is Mahiro's boyfriend, despite the fact that he knows them both, the boss has actively encouraged Souta to be with Mahiro, there is zero evidence that they're dating, and it was clear Mahiro was upset, so it is clearly a comforting hug, not a romantic one. But the writer needed to insert the next cliche, and so Souta has to misunderstand, and for no apparent reason decides to become the boyfriend of...

- The Interfering Woman. Ugh. I don't even want to dwell on this, but it chews up an enormous amount of runtime.

The end result is two unrelatable and unpleasant characters who behave inconsistently and are annoying.

The acting is OK. The Souta actor is pretty good, Yutaro is one-note and has no presence or charisma. There is almost no chemistry whatsoever. Mahiro behaves like the wife of an alcoholic in an abusive relationship - he actually recoils from Souta every time they're near each other, and he just looks afraid all the time. Souta manages to express some repressed longing, but it's still not convincing. There is no romantic chemistry between them, and certainly no romance. They barely even touch each other, at least not on purpose.

A positive is it's well-filmed and the setting in the countryside is lovely. Well, Souta gets naked sometimes, and he has a nice body, so there's that, I guess.

Another positive is the Taiwanese store owner, who is an appealing character and causes a plausible (!) misunderstanding when he reads a note that contains kanji characters that mean "former coworker" in Japanese, but mean "ex-lover" in Mandarin, which leads to the series' best comic moment.

Overall this was a total waste of time, and a disappointing squandering of an interesting premise and a strong start. But it goes nowhere, is frustrating to watch, and is way too long for the amount of "plot" in it. I would skip it.

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started well, went downhill at ep 6

Overall: somehow an awesome slice of life/cooking/comedy series devolved into cliched plot points. My advice is to watch episodes 1-5 and then episodes 11 & 12. 12 episodes about 20 minutes each, aired on GagaOOLala.

Content Warnings: past death not shown, non con kiss, slap

What I Liked
- funny moments (the undressing, the van driving off, that look and the crow sounds at the end)
- realistic reaction to an accidental fall and catch
- cooking/the food looked delicious
- Mahiro's friend/coworker (wish we had seen more of that love story in the present)
- the villagers (much rather have had more screentime with them)
- Mahiro supportive of the naked dining
- managed to subvert something in ep 11 but it was due to (yet another) miscommunication

Room For Improvement
- they used cliched plot points including poor communication in order to drive the plot (and how in the final episode do they still have terrible communication skills)
- I ended up disliking Mahiro, wish they showed more in the flashbacks so we'd understand Mahiro better because he seemed very selfish and immature
- Souta was too dumb, at first I thought it was a bit endearing but they pushed it into the unbelievable area
- the pacing could have been better, I think 8 or 10 episodes instead of 12, plot went in circles, why on earth did episode 12 start 1 week after episode 11
- the non con kiss and slap both felt dated and not needed
- comedy mostly vanished
- odd things: why is the house just sitting there for 6 months? why did he have that band aid, they could have easily shown him find it as he went through those boxes, the boss and wife took a train how far for dinner? that potential buyer was oversharing to fit the plot, what was with that thing with the grandma? at the end
- based on the title, I expected a certain scene and I'm disappointed we didn't get to see it
- so she's all good now with dating the boss???

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