365 Days to the Wedding

Takuya Ohara and Rika Honjoji work at a travel agency branch, where it's been announced that one of the unmarried associates will be sent to Alaska to open the new branch in a year. Both are awkward, they each have reasons for not wanting to go to Alaska. Rika proposes that they let the manager know that they are engaged, figuring they can keep it low-key and then call it off once the Alaska-bound co-worker has been announced. The manager throws them an engagement party, and word spreads like wildfire about their engagement. Their slow-burn romance is super cute, and they are interesting characters on their own. The antics are slightly predictable, with family finding out, having to apologize for misleading family and friends, jealousy over their fake lover spending time with someone else, etc. But even then, the emotions seem really genuine and easy to relate to. This is an easy-to-binge rom-com, with conversation starters like assuming change will be bad and tangled webs of lies. There is very little physical romance depicted. There is some profanity, and adults drink alcohol, including an amusing scene where Rika powers up video-game-style by drinking wine in order to bust karaoke tunes. There is some sibling-jostling style violence only.

-AnimeGuide4Moms.