Sometimes (not often) the Japanese do produce romantic dramas that I like, and falling squarely in that category is Cinderellas of Midsummer, which has a trio of interesting love stories that don't slither down the usual depressing/arty/everyone dies path that so many other J-dramas do.
The eleven episode series is lead by beach girl Natsumi Aoi (Nana Mori), who works hard to teach paddleboard surfing, run her family's tourist cafe and take care of her younger brother and her mostly useless father. Mom left seven years ago, so Natsumi has had to shoulder a lot of responsibility, and doesn't really have time for romance. The same could be said of her two childhood friends, fledgling hair stylist Airi Takigawa (Ai Yoshikawa) and single mom dry cleaner Risa Ogura (Sawa Nimura). Naturally three princely guys appear on the scene, led by Kento Mizushima (Shotaro Mamiya), a busy construction company executive who stands to inherit the business from his dad. Natsumi and Kento are complete opposites, so of course they have to fall in love.
The usual problems with Japanese dramas are pretty sparse in this series. Everyone is excessively polite, of course, and the romance is Victorian-era conservative, but the three intersecting storylines were interesting. I didn't quite buy the love story between the leads, especially considering the lethal attractiveness of both characters' competition. It was fun, and yet there were some real nail-biting moments with the leads (especially when Kento's co-worker decides to interfere.)
An interesting fact came up when I recognized one of the secondary characters (in the photo, the guy on the left end of the bottom row) as Kenshi Okada but was listed under a different name. I did a little research and he left his old agency and decided to work under his real name, Koshi Mizukami. He's excellent in his role and quite convincing as a pediatrician who falls for the single mother friend. The resolutions of all three romances were fairly satisfying, too, so I'll recommend this one. Available on Viki.com.
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