Ōkami-kun / Ōkami-chan ni wa Damasarenai
オオカミくんには騙されない
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
Among the daters hides a 'wolf' who will never fall in love — the suspicion is the drama.
Ōkami-kun ni wa Damasarenai, known in English as Who Is a Wolf?, has been ABEMA's dating show since February 2017, a group courtship with a game of deception built into it. Among the young men and women looking for love hides at least one 'wolf', who has agreed never to fall in love and to lie to everyone. The others must judge who means what they say while persuading the rest that they are not the wolf; the producers took the idea from the party game Werewolf. Depending on the season, the wolf hides among the men, among the women, or on both sides. The first five seasons cast high-school girls; from the sixth, women of any age took part. The comedian Natsuko Yokosawa has hosted the studio almost throughout.
The fourteenth season, made for Netflix and streamed from June to August 2023, brought together ten men and women in their twenties and thirties, with the wolves among the five women. Viewers were told in the first episode that the singer-songwriter Juri was a wolf, and in the second that there was another. The ten worked on shared missions; the women made interim confessions, and the men made the final ones. For the finale each woman wore a wolf costume and held a red balloon. She could hand it to the man confessing to her, but a wolf had to let it go. Tomoki, the youngest, told Sakurako he loved everything about her; her hands shook, and the balloon rose away. She was the hidden second wolf, and afterwards she sobbed that she had come to love him too much to turn back. Taiju, a fighter, confessed to Honoka, and she accepted. Masaki and Who-ya both confessed to Mikako, and she gave her balloon to Masaki. When Robin confessed to Juri, she let her balloon go, trembling; he wept, then held her from behind and told her that right now he loved her completely. The season ended with two couples, and two wolves who had fallen in love.
Starring
Natsuko YokosawaHost
The comedian who has hosted the studio since the first season, apart from breaks for maternity leave.
Sakurako OkuboParticipant
Sakurako, an actress and the season's hidden second wolf, who cannot accept Tomoki at the finale and weeps for him afterwards.
Tomoki YonemuraParticipant
Tomoki, the youngest member, an aspiring actor drawn to Sakurako from the start, who confesses to her at the finale.
JU!iEParticipant
Juri, a singer-songwriter revealed to viewers as a wolf in the first episode, who falls for Robin all the same.
Robin FuruyaParticipant
Robin, an actor and photographer, who falls for Juri and confesses to her at the finale.
Masaki NakaoParticipant
Masaki, an actor who competes with Who-ya for Mikako and is the one she chooses at the finale.
Why it matters
Most dating shows ask whether a feeling is real. This one writes the doubt into the rules. Somewhere in the group is a person who has agreed to lie about love, so every confession must also be read as a possible move in a game, and suspicion becomes a form of attention. In a 2018 Mynavi Teens survey, teenage girls named its first season their favourite dating show, and it became a route into acting, with several former cast members going on to lead Kamen Rider and Super Sentai series. The Netflix season, with adults and a wolf revealed to viewers from the start, turned the question around and showed the liar's side. Two women bound by a rule not to love loved anyway. What remains is an old question in a new frame: whether a promise can survive the feeling it was made to prevent.