It’s been a while since I’ve sat down and watched a Japanese drama, but I decided to watch the first episode of a drama that is pretty popular in Japan now. Not only does it star some actors that I like, but it involves a theme very dear to my heart – sweets.
This drama is about a guy (Jun Matsumoto) who has fallen in love with a girl (Satomi Ishihara) who he’s watched date a series of guys throughout high school. But just when he thinks things are going well, and they even kiss, she reveals that she doesn’t consider them as “dating”. As it turns out, sweet making runs in his family (his father runs a cake store), and he decides to devote himself to making perfect sweets that his love interest will completely adore, and fall in love with him. In the first episode, he runs off to Paris to train as a professional chocolatier.
One great part about this drama is that I get to see many professional made sweets, which look amazingly tasty and are on a completely different level than many american-made sweets. There’s also a lot of food-specific Japanese vocabulary used (some comes from French), like the word for chocolatier (チョコラティエ). Seeing the inside of elaborately decorated chocolate shops is another plus.
It’s clear there is huge amount of money put into making this series, with an all-star cast (both the lead actors and side role actors have been in several other hit TV shows), and high quality cinematography. The techno intro song is also quite good and really pulls you into the story. The ending song is sung by “Arashi”, a boy-band group headed by the male lead actor. His singing ability isn’t too great though, and this song isn’t one of Heartbroken Chocolatier’s strong points.
I’ve only seen one episode so far, but the story is… Well, let’s just say it starts out great, and by the end of the first episode it has started getting a bit cheesy ,with a series of plot twists that aren’t exactly unique. If you haven’t seen hundreds of Japanese TV shows this probably won’t bother you too much. Even if it does, you’ll probably want to watch a bit more and see how things evolve. I’m definitely planning on watching the next installment.
References
http://asianwiki.com/Heartbroken_Chocolatier_(Shitsuren_Chocolatier)
http://www.fujitv.co.jp/chocolatier/index.html
http://jdorama.com/artiste.1816.htm
http://jdorama.com/artiste.291.htm