"Love or Not" drama from 2017: Episode ten(final) recap

 

 Air Dates: March 20 until May 22, 2017 on dTV/FOD at 2:10 am,  then from July 20 to September 28, 2017 on Fuji. Total of ten episodes and subs were done by neutrinoxs.

 Main Cast: Just these characters but we see the boss of Kosuka and Wataru on occasion.

Yuika Motokariya as Mako Hirosawa.... Interior designer who is 29 in age and it appears she's never had a boyfriend. That's because Mako's heart still pines for a boy she met when she was nine and he saved her from some bullies who were trying to steal her rabbit doll. She finally met the man in the first show and he didn't live up to her expectations at all. But a person who did was Kosuke's best friend Wataru and they began dating in the third show.

Kenjiro Yamashita as Kosuke Usami.... Also 29 in age and the boy that helped out Mako all those years ago. He's currently a Salaryman with the Sanba Shoji company and is not that efficient of a worker. When Mako finally met Kosuke after twenty years she was extremely disappointed, in the first show he moved into the apartment below hers. 

Keita Machida as Wataru Sano.... Kosuke's junior at the company but he knows much more than his senpai and is often bailing him out at work. Wataru's father is extremely wealthy and the women flock to him but early on Wataru fell hard for Mako.

Reina Asami as Shiho Hojo.... Mako's friend since high school and she works as a free lance photographer. Like her friend Shiho is quite timid around men but does have a boyfriend who is a doctor though that may not be a lasting relationship. It wasn't as Shiho broke up with the creep in the fifth show and then began dating Kosuke.

Erena Mizusawa as Misuzu Mori.... Met Mako in high school, she's two years younger, and currently works as a web writer. She is just so darn attractive and also very outgoing, the next man has been trying to woo her but she's set her sights on Wataru. In the fifth episode we learned that Misuzu is the mother of an eight year old boy named Shin!!!! But Misuzu has hooked back up with her ex-husband in the eighth show, will another marriage happen?

Masayasu Yagi as Sota Yabuki.... Owner of the Itsomuno bar/cafe where Kosuke and Wataru often eat lunch or dinner. Sota has been dumped too many times to count by women, after meeting Misuzu in the first show he's fallen head over heels for her but the feeling wasn't mutual until the sixth episode.

Links to the previous recaps:

Episode one .... Episode two .... Episode three .... Episode four

Episode five .... Episode six .... Episode seven .... Episode eight

 Another drama is now added to the finished list and one day I will complete the spreadsheet I began with all of the dramas I've viewed. Began that last October and was 90% done with it, listed the title, year, my rating and star of of the show but for some reason abandoned the project, think after this post is done is a good time to work on it again. So this series ended off as we thought it would but won't give that spoiler away yet, wish more of these dramas threw us a curveball at the end. The previous episode ended off with Kosuke finding the twenty year old stuffed bunny Mako had thrown away, details are in the above recap. But at that time her soon to be husband Wataru arrived on the scene and it appeared he would be having a confrontation with Kosuke which never happened. So let's get to the final show which started off on a happy note and also ended that way for some of our man characters though the middle was anything but happy for almost everyone.

 The owner of the Itsomuno cafe, Sota, where the action often took place ended up being the most stand up person out of anyone. He's still pining over losing Misuzu back to her ex-husband but was a man about it and wanted to see her have a happy future along with her son Shin. So Sota held the ceremony and reception at his cafe and it was a joyous celebration, least for a while. Sota gave a nice heart warming speech for the newleyweds and while most of the crowd knew how much he loved Misuzu he put that behind him. As mentioned two posts ago Sota really did like the husband Shogo which made losing her somewhat bearable. So while this celebration was going so well Sota did make an error and for some reason asked his buddy Kosuke to say a few words to the reunited couple.

 While Sota was orating his uplifting and humorous speech Kosuke had been sitting at the bar pounding back double shots of Sake. Kosuke wasn't all that close with Misuzu so don't know why Mako wasn't asked to say a few words instead. As you can see above Kosuke was smashed by the time he gave his mini speech which was so full of hatred, really not towards Misuzu and Shogo but to world in general. To Kosuke there was no such thing as truevlove and are the couple wasting their time getting married? Those words really put a damper on the atmosphere and the party soon moved to a new location but not before Kosuke's best friend Wataru decked him and he truly deserved it. Mako was the most livid of them all so you had to wonder at this point will this pair ever become a true couple as there was only fifteen minutes to go in the series.

 Don't know if that punch knocked any sense into Kosuke but his now ex-girlfriend Shiho was able to get through to him a bit. Say ex for as you can see above the pair have now officially split which may have actually happened in the last show. The two became good friends and should have left it at that, when Shiho moved in is when they began disliking each other. Shiho was very observant and was able to deduce why Kosuke made those mean comments at the wedding reception. That was to drive Mako and Wataru even further away from him and in that way none of the three would feel guilty about that upcoming marriage between Mako and Wataru. That scheme was effective and think only Shiho was able to pick up on what Kosuke's plan was. But as far as the soon to be married couple goes it's also the eve of them departing for Switzerland where Wataru will begin an internship at a prestigious hotel, his dream is to build and manage his own.

 During that evening before their departure Mako finally learned after 9 1/2 episodes(!) that Kosuke was her true first love who she had met at the age of nine which was twenty years ago. Everyone else came to know that about it and why did it take Mako so long? Wataru was the one who revealed the info and think it was because he truly wanted to know who Mako cared about more, sadly it wasn't the good guy Wataru. Mako frantically tried to get in touch with Kosuke but to no avail as he wasn't at his apartment that was below Mako's nor did he answer her 25 phone calls. Kosuke couldn't for he was passed out at Sota's bar after all that drinking but early the next morning was woken by his friend. Sota told Kosuke to act like a man and go for what he wanted more than anything else, Mako is leaving Japan in a few hours and is he going to take the chance of never confessing his true feelings?!

 We've hit the final final five minutes of this series and wish I had those 'cure-all pills' they have in Japanese dramas. That pill allows someone like an extremely hungover Kosuke to run at about three miles in less than five minutes and somehow never encounter a person on the streets of Tokyo!!!! Kosuke had to make that dash in record time before Mako left with his best friend Wataru to Switzerland which he did. Mako kind of helped out as she was taking her time in leaving her place which Wataru noticed and as you can see above that's what took place in the final two minutes, more screenshots of it at the bottom which brings us to the end of this enjoyable drama.

 Have been learning that I don't need to reveal every single detail and it's good to leave some things out in case you would want to view that drama. Won't give this a high recommendation but it was so much better than other shows in this genre and will give it a rating of 8.2/10 which to me is fairly solid. There was a second season that aired eighteen months later, the cast was the same but there was only six episodes and don't think it was ever subbed. So up next is a mystery, do have one current show I need to get back to but before I begin another show want to get some movies out of the way and will be doing reviews for a few of them. Would like that next drama or at least one soon to also star Yuika who is one of my all time faves but it's hard finding shows she's been in that are subbed.