Koi n' Toss
恋んトス
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
Strangers live together while working a temporary job, and a tossed coin rules them: the face that lands decides the order — a date, a night away, an elimination.
Koi n' Toss has followed small groups of strangers looking for love since TBS began it as a late-night series in July 2014; later seasons moved to the streaming services Paravi and U-NEXT. The members live together for a set period, usually working a temporary job somewhere new, and a single coin rules them. At set moments someone tosses it, and the order attached to the face that lands must be carried out, whether a date, a night away or a threat of elimination. The comedian Shigeo Takahashi of the duo Savanna has hosted the studio from the start.
The sixth season, broadcast from July to September 2017, sent seven members to work at a guesthouse on Miyakojima for the summer. Among them was the gravure model Airi Arimura, the elder sister of the actress Kasumi Arimura. Mayu, the house favourite, drew three men and fell out with Monika. Kenichi, a university student, and Ryunosuke, who worked in a bookshop, both turned to Airi. At the end of the island stay a coin order ruled that a woman who tossed heads would leave unless the man she named carried her twenty kilometres on his back within six hours. Monika tossed heads and named Yu. He fell three and a half kilometres short, and as she left he told her he had loved her. The group moved to Awashima in Shizuoka to work at an aquarium, and Yuka, from the previous season, joined. Kenichi confessed to Airi without winning her, and began an exchange diary with her. Ryunosuke left before the end.
On the last day Mayu told Yu she loved him; he answered that the one on his mind was Monika, and they shook hands. Kenichi, who had been working with the dolphins, performed in the final dolphin show with Airi as his only guest, then confessed again. She said she wanted him beside her after the summer ended. A month later they were still together. In November 2017 both announced that they had separated.
Starring
Shigeo TakahashiHost
Of the comedy duo Savanna, the studio host from the first season, commenting on every toss of the coin.
Anne NakamuraPanel
A model and television personality on the studio panel for the first seven seasons.
Airi ArimuraParticipant
A gravure model and Kasumi Arimura's elder sister, courted by two men, who accepts Kenichi at the final dolphin show.
Kenichi KitanakaParticipant
A university student who works with the dolphins, keeps an exchange diary with Airi and wins her at his second confession.
Yu MiyazawaParticipant
Yu, a personal trainer who tries to carry Monika twenty kilometres to keep her in the house, and later turns Mayu down gently.
Why it matters
Koi n' Toss hands its participants' choices to a coin. Whether two people spend a night away, or whether someone stays at all, can depend on which face lands, and the show is open about the fact that chance, not chemistry, often sets the scene in which chemistry has to happen. It is a frank picture of how many young people meet: in borrowed places, on temporary jobs, against a deadline. The sixth season's piggyback challenge made the cruelty of the device plain, and its truest line of feeling was spoken only once the game was lost. The season also raised a question the genre seldom stays for: what a relationship begun on camera owes the people who watched it. Less than two months after the finale, Airi Arimura apologised to viewers that it had ended so soon. The coin sets the scene. It cannot decide what happens once the season is over.