JDorama Review: Omiai Kekkon

Title: Omiai Kekkon Also known as: Arranged Marriage Broadcast date: 1/11/00 to 3/21/00 Number of episodes: 11 Genre: Romantic comedy Cast: Matsu Takako, Yusuke Santamaria, Sato Tamao, Kubozuka Yosuke, Kawahara Ayako, Imai Masayuki Plot: Nakatani Setsuko (Matsu Takako) is terrible at choosing a man for herself. Shortly after she quits her job as a flight attendant to marry her boyfriend, she finds out that he has gotten another girl pregnant. Depressed, she reluctantly agrees to go to a marriage meeting arranged by her parents. Hirose Koutaro (Yusuke Santamaria), pressured by his boss, meets with Setsuko. Can love truly form from a marriage meeting? What is good: The love square between Tanuma (Imai Masayuki), Mika (Sato Tamao), Ohata (Kubozuka Yosuke) and Kyoko (Kawahara Ayako) is frustrating but interesting to watch. What is bad: Both Setsuko and Koutaro are extremely annoying. Letter rating: D+ Overall: Yet another show that I randomly picked from a list of titles. While Omiai Kekkon wasn't a terrible show, it wasn't particularly good either. I found myself more interested in the secondary characters than I did in the primary. After watching the first few episodes, you can pretty much guess how the show will end for them. However, the secondary characters leave you guessing for awhile. Even in the last couple of episodes, you weren't sure which couples you'd end up with. Sure, there are some good moments for Setsuko and Koutaro but there aren't a lot of them. As for the ending of the show, they should have stopped at the credits instead of doing the little bit after the names finished rolling.

I can't recommend this series to anyone and still stay honest with myself. Perhaps, if you are a fan of one of the actors, you might find a little bit of enjoyment in it but you'd probably do better with a different series.