Risou no Kekkon eps 1-4

90s doramas have something different that we can't find anymore. I'm not talking about the giant suits that salarymen wear or the fact that people in that era think someone using a laptop on a flight is showing off. There's this kind of innocence and simplicity in them. Koukou kyoushi wasn't an innocent dorama but I find I cannot be cynical about oldies. Its like the overacting is different, it doesn't grate me like the ones today.

Risou no Kekkon starst with Tsutomu (Takenouchi Yutaka) meeting Mari (Tokiwa Takako) on a plane and next thing you know, he randomly proposes to her and she says yes. At this point I'm thinking WTF and where is this dorama going. Gotta go along with the premise and see where the story goes.

Mari is this emotional 26 year old girl from Osaka and Tsutomu is this smart salaryman who is dumb in other matters. Girls speaking kansai-ben is sexy though harder to understand. Mari's age and background is important because it touches on ideas from the 90s such as an OL's job is to get married by a certain age and the importance of wives to salarymen's careers.

Nowadays instead of romantisicing about an OL from the country finding her prince, its about uni girl dying from rare disease playing married couple with boyfriend because girls like projecting themselves onto sick beautiful creatures. There's a sort of chemistry going on between Tsutomu as the emotionally detached guy who seems to be on Xanax all the time and Mari who does all the talking and crying.

Why have I not thought of using spoons before? Probably cause there were not any places with hot waitresses in short skirts where I grew up.

At the end of episode one, we find out that the reason the proposal was so fast in the first episode was that this is going to be about the family war, especially between the mothers. Normally this would cause me to stop watching but when the mothers are being played by Nakama Yukie's mom from Trick and the old lady from Akimahende! I'm happy to make an exception to my no more evil mother in law doramas rule.

If the stupid idiot had lowered his spoon more, we could have seen some colour.

Risou no Kekkon emits warm fuzzy feelings but at the same time it seems more like high school students falling in love for the first time dorama than adults. One thing this dorama has given me is a very good reason to go eat at Anna Miller's next time I go Japan. The way the uniform emphasizes certain parts of the body is genius and I'd rather be served by a regular sized waitress wearing an Anna Miller uniform than one huge Hooters girl anyday.

Back to the dorama, Risou no Kekkon is pretty much what one would expect from a 90s dorama about an innocent couple getting married and both families who are against it. It doesn't do anything bad and there are plenty of funny moments especially Andy in ep 4 but its not good enough to be called a must watch. For fans of oldies like me, its worth your time though. Do check it out because they don't make doramas like they used to.