WHAT IS HATSUKOI ZARARI ABOUT?
Hatsukoi Zarari is a feel good boy meets girl jdorama except in this case the girl Arisa played by Ono Karin has mild intellectual disability and autism. In the beginning of the first episode, we see she works as a hostess and is easy manipulated by men for sex. It is also a workplace dorama since they are colleagues.
WHAT IS GOOD?
+ Ono Karin and Kazama Shunsuke are good actors and forever in my good books because of Suzuki sensei and Soredemo Ikite Yuku. They have decent chemistry.
+ Ono Karin is positively adorable and you will want to cheer her on.
+ Wayamura Mayumi as Arisa's mom.
+ It is an absolutely sweet romance dorama.
+ I like the workplace side of teaching people with autism how to work. I saw a news report recently about autistic people being trained to work and I think helping autistic people being able to work is an interest topic. I would like to think you can teach anyone how to do a job as long as they have work hard.
+ Shows the struggle people with autism have in their day to day life and that autism exists on a spectrum.
WHAT IS NOT SO GOOD?
- The main characters have an age gap and with Arisa's low IQ and autism, there is this feeling of is he manipulating Arisa behind the sweet romantic facade that this show has? It doesn't help Ono Karin plays her Arisa like a child. There is a bit too much of a power/mental imbalance that it made me slightly uncomfortable. On the other hand, autism exists on a spectrum and Arisa exists at the top of it and who am I as the audience able to deny a character's feelings just because she has low IQ?
SUMMARY
Really love the casting. Not so sure about the power imbalance in the relationship. Maybe I would have enjoyed it more as a workplace dorama with a bit of romance. If you like the two main actors might be worth checking out. Thanks to kayatoast subs for subbing.
4 comments:
This was very good, and I liked that the story went as far as showing her failure at the job rather than the usual ending where the disabled protagonist overcomes their challenges and wins everyone over. The one thing that bothered me was how childish Arisa was presented at times, as you mentioned, to the extent that sometimes it seemed like she would be incapable of doing anything on her own.
Boku no Daisuki na Tsuma! is another recent drama about a similar person dealing with the problems of working. It's slightly less realistic than this one but is decent and informative if you're interested in this topic.
The one that was hard to watch was Koi Desu: Yankee-kun to Hakujou Garu.
Nothing about that was well handled and in reality was nothing but dangerous for both the existing staff and Sugisaki Hana's character. This could have been so interesting if it explored what really needs to happen to introduce a significantly sight impaired staff into a potentially risky work environment (particularly from the employer's side) but instead the story went for 'gamabre will fix it in the end'.
In a fast-food kitchen where every process is controlled by procedures and is usually safe actually full of risk. The managers introduced a worker who couldn't comply with their procedures, didn't train or adjust working to the new risks, and expected the minimum wage staff to break procedures to mitigate the risks. The more pressure and less training in a kitchen the more something bad is likely to happen. Just look at the typical commercial kitchen injury list and think how likely Sugisaki Hana's character would either encounter or cause to others.
It was such a valuable story line but handled so poorly.
Ditto on that Yankee drama. Like the manga already did their research with the whole part time thing and executed it well enough, the drama ver just needed to adapt that 1:1 but they just kept making changes that are for the worst.
@Robert: Yes I like the fact that she failed at the dispatcher job because no amount of ganbare can make things work. Have downloaded Boku no Daisuki na Tsumi! but have not watched. Not sure I want to watch if it is less realistic.
@Anonymous: The problem is they are more shoujo doramas about love rather than workplace doramas.
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