This short series attempts to put into perspective the trials and tribulations of people suffering from low self-esteem and tremendous insecurities. However, the series isn’t very effective in convincing the audience that it’s most important to love yourself first before you attempt to love another. The characters are people we should ultimately be sympathizing with, but we don’t because they don’t learn from their mistakes, nor do they evolve, even though the writer attempts to make it seem as though they have.

Katagiri is a college student involved in a long distance relationship with Osanai Sachi, a girl he’s been seeing for five years. There is little chemistry between the two, and it’s clear that the relationship isn’t balanced as Osanai clearly has deeper feelings for Katagiri than he has for her. He is rather distant and aloof around her, and it’s theorized that this might have something to do with being abandoned by all of the women in his life. However, the writers never take the step or time to explore this more deeply. Instead, it’s glazed over like a train flying by a station.

Osanai adores Katagiri and sends him letters regularly. However, the letters sit in Katagiri’s apartment unopened, and he never replies. Instead, he finds some kind of solace in his next door neighbor, Shino. She’s a married woman seemingly trapped in a loveless marriage. What’s interesting is that she is just as distant and aloof as Katagiri, but for them, the sexual relationship enables each to feel something. So many people in this world take to food, sex, drugs, alcohol, or anything else that either helps them to feel some sense of pleasure or to escape from their problems. The real problem is that all pleasure is short-lived and never lasts, and escaping from one’s problems is also only temporary as those problems are still there once the effect of the “drug” wears off. No wonder there is so much misery in the world!

Osanai is an innocent and rather naïve young girl. She’s nineteen but often acts like she’s thirteen. She simply has no idea how the world works, and she also believes that her love for Katagiri can overcome their distance and their problems, which she never realizes until it’s too late. Naturally, she finds out about Katagiri’s affair with Shino, but rather than getting upset, she tells him that it’s okay with her, as she feels responsible for initially turning him down during a past attempt at intimacy. Katagiri assures her that he feels nothing for Shino, which somehow, is okay with Osanai, at least, at first. Osanai is much like a leech who believes that a painful relationship is better than on relationship at all. She’s so incredibly insecure that she can’t bear to be without Katagiri, and she makes the popular mistake of making him the center of her universe.

After they finally make love, Katagiri starts to come out of his shell when it comes to Osanai, but Osanai begins to realize that she can no longer overlook his transgression, and she eventually breaks up with him instead.

The series takes a very strange turn toward the end when Shino’s husband, who has been wire-tapping his wife’s apartment, finally comes forward and confronts Katagiri, and blackmails him into paying damages for the affair. Shino’s husband, rather than talking things out with his wife, simply plays the voyeur as he sits and watches Shino and Katagiri. This made no sense at all. I don’t know many husbands who would do this unless they took pleasure from the voyeuristic act, which is never even brought up by Shino after she finds out.

What we ultimately have are four very cowardly and immature characters with virtually no appeal at all. Katagiri cuts himself off, using his past as an excuse for his lack of feelings for Osanai. Osanai makes Katagiri her whole world. Shino battles boredom and loneliness by seducing Katagiri (even though he’s just as responsible), and Shino’s husband sits back and watches while his wife carries on with an affair because he’s too obsessive and possessive for his own good. By the time the series ends, we end up rooting for absolutely no one. The only character who shows even an ounce of integrity is Osanai when she realizes her mistake and moves on from Katagiri but not before she condescends to make love with Katagiri, not because she loves him, but because she fears losing him, which is never a good reason for sex.

This isn’t a very enjoyable series to watch, and frankly, I’m not sure that it’s supposed to be. But, what we are hoping is that Katagiri, the main protagonist, might actually grow up and face his insecurities. Sure, he pays off Shino’s husband, but that has nothing to do with facing your insecurities and learning to love yourself. That’s simply making up for getting caught. The only thing that I was relieved about was that they didn’t try to put Katagiri and Osanai back together again. That would have been ridiculous, and so that aspect of the ending was at least believable.

This series played out like a bad soap opera, and I’m thankful that it was only twelve episodes at only 20 minutes for each one. It was barely tolerable at that.