Sugar Baby’s Review Corner – I Bought My Boyfriend On A Loan

Kareshi wo Loan de Kaimashita

Genre: Drama
Origin: Japan
Episodes: 8
Air-date: Mar 9, 2018 – Apr 27, 2018
Starring: Mano Erina as Ukishima Tae, Yokohama Ryusei as Setsuna Jun, Hisamatsu Ikumi as Iyama Yume, Ono Yuriko as Ando Hiyori, Fuchikami Yasushi as Shiraishi Shunpei, Hasegawa Kyoko as Namba Reika

Tae Ukishima works at the front desk for a company. Her dream is to marry a competent man and live as a housewife. Her boyfriend is Shunpei Shiraishi and he works at the same company. They have dated for the past year. To marry him, Tae Ukishima pretends to act like a naive and shy person in front of him. Her real personality though is to speak frankly and making sharp remarks. Tae Ukishima wants to relieve her stress and she decides to purchase Jun Setsuna as her boyfriend. To pay off his debt, Jun Setsuna becomes an obedient boyfriend to Tae Ukishima
mydramalist

How does one manage to pick a drama that has a 5.9 rating on Viki and MDL to watch? There’s something wrong with me.. Hahaha… Like I willingly decided that I needed to see what this was about and I can safely say that curiosity did not kill this particular cat. I am very well aware of how this drama would’ve been quite a lot for many people to stomach as it was quite absurd. However, I do recognize the strong depiction of themes that the writer was going for, but it coming from a male writer brings an added amount of cringe to this.

The basis of this show is quite simple and there are some strong themes to explore. I think that if I interpret this as a satire show created in 2018 for this absurdness, then it doesn’t upset me much. I do not know if this was meant to be taken that way, but I really didn’t get the idea that this was something not meant to be serious. Two standout moments of this drama would be the conversation between Tae and Jun when she contemplated returning the ring to Shunpei; he explained to her that he was nice to her because he was indebted to her and that there is a difference between fake kindness and real kindness. The next moment was between Reika and her rented boyfriend, understanding that it is best to allow children to form their own opinions when it comes to the bonds of divorced parents.

Of course this show had many flaws from the constant abuse of the males, the idea that women need to be meek and submissive, and the whole slavery/selling people on the black market kind of thing. I think I wasn’t particularly upset about these things because I have become accustomed to Japanese dramas having this type of shit done all the time? It was kinda funny because this drama reminded me a lot of This Guy Is The Biggest Mistake of My Life in some aspects. The ending was absolutely what I expected it to be. I did have a few questions though, but we will let it rest.

Overall, if you go into this drama expecting nothing or it to be the worst drama ever, you probably won’t be disappointed. It was an easy watch and at times very hard to stomach. I really didn’t think it was horrible though.. Sorry guys.