I Want a Drama-Like Romance
恋愛ドラマな恋がしたい
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
Aspiring actors court each other while rehearsing romantic scenes; fiction and feeling blur.
I Want a Drama-Like Romance, devised by the writer Osamu Suzuki, follows eight young actors, four men and four women, as they make a romantic drama for ABEMA. Before each short instalment the actors audition in pairs, and their acting teacher chooses the leads, whose script always includes a kiss. Cameras follow the set and everything around it, asking whether actors who play love will fall into it. The comedian Naomi Watanabe hosted the studio for the first six seasons, with Shusuke Fukutoku of the duo Jarujaru and the model Maria Tani.
The first season streamed from May to July 2018. Hasshi and Ripopo win the first audition, Ryutaro and Umi-chan the second. Teju, who came to Japan to act, wins twice: first with Kome-chan, then with Hime-chan, who had failed two auditions in a row and whom he kept asking to partner. Agata, who is in love with Kome-chan, wins a lead opposite her, but her heart has gone to Ryutaro. Midway, at a summer camp, the women make interim confessions.
For the last episode the teacher hands out a blank script. The final drama will be a documentary: only the women may confess, and only couples whose feelings are mutual will play the last kiss scene. Ripopo tells Hasshi she never felt good enough to stand beside him, and he says yes; they film their kiss. Kome-chan and Umi-chan both confess to Ryutaro, and he turns them both down, saying he likes them as people and will not lie about his feelings, while Agata listens. Hime-chan confesses to Teju and he accepts, but in their scene he tells her he must give everything to his work, and that he will confess to her himself in a year or two, when he is satisfied with who he is. He kisses her forehead. They agree not to date until he has made it as an actor. The series ran to ten seasons on ABEMA, and in 2023 a Netflix edition shot in Seoul paired Japanese actresses with Korean actors.
Starring
Naomi WatanabeHost
The comedian who hosted the studio from the first season to the sixth, watching the auditions and kiss scenes with the panel.
Riho MiakiParticipant
Ripopo, who wins the first lead opposite Hasshi and, at the finale, confesses to him and is accepted.
Yuta HashimotoParticipant
Hasshi, who plays the first lead with Ripopo and says yes when she confesses to him in the last episode.
Ryutaro OkadaParticipant
Ryutaro, who wins a lead with Umi-chan; at the finale both Kome-chan and Umi-chan confess to him, and he turns them down.
TejuParticipant
An actor who came to Japan to work, twice chosen as lead, who returns Hime-chan's feelings but puts his career first.
Sawako HimenoParticipant
Hime-chan, who fails two auditions in a row, wins a lead with Teju and confesses to him in the last episode.
Why it matters
I Want a Drama-Like Romance is built on a question actors are usually asked to keep private: what happens to feeling when intimacy is part of the job. Here the kiss is the prize. Pairs audition for the lead roles and the winners kiss on camera, so every scene is at once work, competition and courtship, for young actors hoping to be noticed. The show never quite separates the three, and that is where its interest lies. The blank script of the finale admits as much, turning the last drama into a documentary in which the actors must say aloud what the kisses meant. Some answers are simple. Teju's is not. He returns Hime-chan's feelings and asks her to wait, because the work has to come first, and the season ends on a candid picture of how ambition and love compete at the start of a career.