Koi to dangan

Where do I even begin? Yakuza Lover tries so hard to be intense and steamy, but ends up delivering something that's more cringeworthy than captivating.

Seriously, I almost fell off the couch from secondhand embarrassment in a few scenes. It's like someone took all the classic clichés and tossed them into a blender, turning it into a cheesy, over-the-top love story wrapped in yakuza drama.

The plot? Predictable as heck. The characters? Either overly dramatic or so cardboard-thin you can practically see through them. And let's not even get started on the dialogue-if you're looking for deep conversations, you won't find them here. Instead, you'll be cringing at the over-the-top romance and wondering why you even started watching.

The chemistry they were trying to sell? Yeah, I wasn't buying it.

The acting? Way too dramatic. And those scenes that were supposed to be hot? Well, let's just say I was too busy cringing to even try to take them seriously.

I get it, some people may find it guilty-pleasure material, but personally, the whole thing felt more like a soap opera with a lot of very forced passion.

A real good manga gone bad.

This was such a disappointment and it had so much potential.

A good story that unfortunately lacked so much. I'm not sure if it was the actors or the waybit was filmed, but I was expecting so much better.

The story: a young student that happens to get herself into trouble as she has a night out with her friend at a local club. In comes the boss of a yakuza syndicate and saves her form getting in deeper.

Just when she thought she would never see him again face had other plans.

They start a dangerous romance that has them breathless and wanting more. The danger, the love, the séduction.

"He scares me, and his love is burdening. [...] But still, he makes me want to sleep in his arms.

That's how I feel."

First thing to notice is how visually stunning this short series is.

However, the protagonists' immediate attraction is not made as obvious and pausible as it could have been. That is a bit disappointing despite it being a very fast paced story.

I like the female protagonist's fire, passion, and strenght. Nevertheless, she seems rather cliché in some ways.

Our yakuza is also rather cliché with his dark clothes, evil twists, and unbending manner.

Their personalities fit each other mostly, however, I am not a fan of her being afraid of him half the time. Especially as that is a bit unrealistic since she does confront him about things very confidently at times.

Additionally, there are a lot of different drama angles used here which keep it exciting and kind of divert the attention from the protagonists' rather simple-minded love story.

In total, this is short, well acted, yet not very emotionally deep series which is ideal for binge watching.

I have not read the manga but the main anime this season us Yakuza's Fiance so I thought I would give this a try too because I seemed to like the genre as liked Yakuza's Babysitter too. The story itself I can kinda follow but the male lead is just... well not a yakuza. He doesn't feel scary nor charismatic and that is what makes or breaks this type of serie. Also, I feel like having glasses as a yakuza just does work either. I looked it up and apparently it's also in the manga but if he has bad eye-sight thats just seems dangerous in that line of work...

The female lead has a few misses for sure but she does the damsel in distress falls in love reasonably decent. I found her less of a problem.

I noticed someone commenting cheesy in one of the reviews. I always considered cheesy to be something that is not very original but still works, like an over-used trope. This one just seems to not work.

Overal I cannot really recommend, unfortunately.

This series does have a few holes in it. And missing a few characters from the manga (I read the manga after watching this, because the show made me want to get to know the characters a bit more. Knowing its a kdrama a lot of info is going to be missing). But for me, this series had me on the edge of my seat. There was so many times where I was cheering Yuri to take a stand for herself. Never got let down! If you HAVENT read the Manga and are not like "It has to be by the book" Def watch this lol. If you like cheesy sex scenes and cheesy boss lords falling for cute girl flicks. Then jump on in. And welcome aboard, because now I'm hooked onto the manga lol. And I am not disappointed.