First thing first I want to say that I while I consider this to be good representation, aro and ace are both spectrums so the definition may differ from person to person. That's why sublabels exist. But it's worth watching.
Anyway this review will be long as it will be less about the drama and more about how much I relate it cus you know, I love watching romance dramas, I've actually finished recently Love between fairy and devil and Mr. Unlucky has no choice but to kiss, but while these two were making me giggle and kick my feet everytime the main couple would touch even a little, this gave me a sense of calmness. Like it feels so refreshing to be able to relate to the main characters as it's so hard to find dramas or books with aroace characters and especially good representation but anyway I'm gonna start talking the drama now :
I loved this. There were so many things I could relate to right from the start and this is actually one thing that I'll talk more about and that is the drama's take on amatonormativity. It's basically the assumption that everyone has to or will fall in love and be in a romantic relationship, actually a monogamous heterosexual relationship as amatonormativity is connected to heteronormativity. Basically everything that strands away from what is considered normal in our modern society. No one understanding what aroace means ( also because aroace is still unknown to many, while you can say you're gay and people would at least now what you're talking about, they won't know what aroace is ), but also not accepting it and still thinking that they could still be in a relationship * cough Sakuko's mom and Kazu-kun* because no matter how much you want to understand us, trying to connect absolutely everything to romance won't help you understand anything as being aroace in most cases means the complete opposite of romance. Also everyone being like oh you're gonna find the right one, you'll find your soulmate, you'll get married and have kids. This shows how affected society is and how it refuses to strand away from the norm and accept that sometimes not being "normal" isn't something bad and if everyone wants to, then that weird and unimaginable thing can be considered normal. Just that not everyone wants to. The drama shows also how gender roles and in a way, their family also goes against what's considered normal in a family and I'm not talking only about them having a family without romantic feelings involved but also about how the woman is supposed to cook and clean and things like that. Also that part when Takahashi said that " You can understand having sex without romantic feelings, but you cannot understand that you can be in love without having sex ?" I don't think this is exactly how he said it tho but I loved it. I loved every moment when he would get a little in his head about being aroace.
I could relate the most with Sakuko, just that she is way happier and positive than me and I haven't been in a relationship ever in my life. But not being able to understand what love is, not liking touching, being pissed off when someone tells us that this guy friend that we have is our boyfriend. Oh society how much I despise you sometimes for the amount of times I had to explain that this guy was my friend not my boyfriend. I would say this has something to do with heteronormativy more as in my country you could say you have a friend( feminine form) and everyone won't think otherwise, but if you say you have a friend ( masculine form), everyone starts to create little fantasies in their heads about how you to are together. Another thing that I could relate to was that I can't understand what flirting means either.
Yeah I think I talked way more about me rather than the drama. But I can talk a lot about the drama too.
First of all, I think I would've given it 10 stars even before watching it just based on the premise like two aroace people being the main characters ? It sounded good already. It had this vibe, like it was colourful and fresh in a way, I don't know how to explain it but it was visually pleasing. All of the actors were good and I think I talked enough about the aroace part of the drama. The rest of the things that I could talk about are things that aro and ace people had to deal with like them being considered weird or that they have some kind of problem. Anyway the drama was cute and funny at parts and it was a little angsty too, something I didn't predict. I cried a little at the end when it showed everyone being happy.
All in all I love this. I kinda want to learn how to make edits just so I can make some with this drama and share them with the world just so everyone will know about this and watch it. I'm hoping that more dramas like this will exist in the future.