My Long Awaited Love Story

After trying the movie version of Love020 (and it being a relative success), I thought another movie would be the way to go. Or I was being lazy. Who knows. So when I saw the Japanese movie, My Long Awaited Love Story, waiting in my follow list on Viki, I said why not? Yes, I haven't had a huge amount of success with Japanese stuff (other than Minami-kun), but I was willing to give it a try. Maybe I'd have more success with a movie vs. a drama.

So, Riko (played by Mikako Tabe) is an otome game designer (though weirdly, the word "otome" never comes up in the movie?). That might actually be the thing that drew me in initially. She's hired as a freelancer at a software/app company to help develop a new otome game. The boss, Soichiro (Takahashi Issei), is at first very dismissive of the whole game genre. He's a brusque guy and not at all good with the ladies (or, heck, probably people). Riko, even though she designs romance games, has also sworn off love after being bitterly disappointed during her school days.

Soichiro has had a crush on Momose, a lady working at his company, for a couple of years and through circumstances, winds up asking Riko for some help in becoming a "better man" and wooing Momose. So. Yes. This is totally a take off on Cyrano de Bergerac. And, as if it wasn't obvious enough, they even have Riko reading the book at about the 2/3rds point in the movie. Hit us over the head, why don't you?

Of course they spend a lot of time together and become friends. Then, as Momose is becoming more receptive to Soichiro after his tutoring, Riko realises she is falling for him herself. For his part, he hasn't yet realised that he's more in love with the idea of Momose rather than the real woman and that Riko is the one he's comfortable and happy with. It comes to a head when he (trope alert!) goes over to Riko's house to help her when she's sick and she just can't take his niceness anymore and tells him she can't bear to watch him together with Momose anymore and is cutting ties.

Then there's a bit of drama out of nowhere where a younger upstart guy at the company (who is also after Riko, though he'd never really shown any interest up until this point), gets the Board to kick Soichiro out of his own company and takes over. There were absolutely no hints about this at all, so it was a shocker but not so much in a good way but in a WTF is going on way. And Momose realises that Riko is actually who Soichiro is thinking of and bows out not altogether gracefully by telling him she doesn't want to be with non-CEO him. That was also weird, as the subtext was that she realised that he and Riko love each other. And there's the final big scene at the end where, even though they've never actually dated or kissed or anything, Soichiro proposes to Riko.

I know I just sounded like I didn't like it, though I actually did really enjoy it. It was very, very cliche and some of it made no sense BUT there were a lot of really good things as well. Riko was a joy as a woman who could stand up for herself and be honest. It was nice to see her overcome her past "trauma" (i.e. seeing the asshole guy again at her school reunion), though they stuck a bit of a saviour thing in there too as Soichiro shows up at the end to bail her out after she'd had her ass-kicking moment. I thought the actress was charming and fairly understated but believable. She also had a great moment after he proposed to her and she's, like, kind of yes but also kind of wtf are you doing, we haven't even kissed yet and makes the first move.

Soichiro as a character was actually great because he was a guy who could admit when he was wrong and was capable of asking for help and, perhaps most importantly, to take the lessons to heart and learn and grow. It's a nice character arc and the actor had a great, expressive face that captured the character well. Neither of the characters were perfect, but they were perfect for each other. The growing friendship between them was nice to watch. Plus, he's got a nice smile once he loosened up.

The upstart handsome guy wasn't really developed enough and him turning into the "big bad" didn't make a lot of sense, story-wise. Momose was okay. No one else had anything of significance other than the cafe owner, and I rather wish they'd used him more because he was an interesting character.

So...at only an hour and a half and packed full of cliches and tropes, this was still a nice movie. It succeeds in spite of all of those things, mostly on the strength of the two leads. I also personally really enjoyed all the bits about the making of an otome game. Am I glad I watched it? Yes. Would I watch it again? Er, possibly. It's short enough that I could see maybe doing that. Little dude might even want to watch it with me. It's about the right level of romance for him and there are a couple of funny scenes he would get a giggle out of (and the whole game/app development stuff). So...I'll call it a success!