Rebound Review (Jdrama)

Fun Fact: I watched most of the drama with Spanish subtitles. Yeah. Seriously. It’s still easy enough to understand though… since I have a limited Japanese vocabulary and took Spanish in high school. Luckily, for viewers who actually aren’t lazy, there are English subtitles for the Jdrama available online. It isn’t on Youtube, but the show can be viewed on other sites.

Rebound reunites Jdrama OTP, Aibu Saki and Hayami Mokomichi, in a light-hearted story about loving oneself regardless of size.

For fans of the Japanese idol drama, Absolute Boyfriend, comes this  slapstick rom-com that sets the main leads, Aibu Saki and Hayami Mocomichi, back together again to find love in the confines of a patisserie. After being jilted by an ex-boyfriend, our female lead, Oba Nobuko, decides to lose weight in order to gain success as a writer for a fashion magazine. Just as she is experiencing luck with work, she is assigned to write a story about a bakery and interview a very handsome patissier, Imai Taichi. Soon, her struggle with weight and love hang in the balance.

The chemistry this time is often times off-centered by the on-again-off-again relationship between the leads, but their zany antics are too funny to pass up. Saki  is still lovable as the optimistic and outspoken Nobuko, just as Mokomichi is genuinely hilarious as the handsome, lovesick bakery owner. At times, the dialog seemed to jab and holler, “please laugh!” without offering much to the plot of the story, which makes the characters one dimensional. This is what happens when the story focuses on being funny. The real scene-stealers of the show, however, are Kuriyama Chiaki who plays Nobuko’s seemingly nonchalant best friend, Hitomi, and Wakamura Mayumi who plays Nobuko’s hostile, yet oh-so-likable boss, Morinaka Ran.

Overall, Rebound is focused mainly on how many chuckles  the audience can  get out of each episode. By the end, the laughs somewhat die out and the drama hopes that there is a character that the audience will still like. The show is 10 episodes long and is very easy to watch. If you loved Absolute Boyfriend, check this drama out. You won’t get the same sentimental feelings but it hits the spot just enough to satisfy that OTP craving.

7.5/10