Nana Seino Shines in "Hapimari"

Dean Fujioka and Nana Seino in HAPIMARI

Hapimari~Happy Marriage?! is about as basic and generic as a Japanese Drama can be, with all the usual tropes and cliches…but Nana Seino is so DARN cute in it that I just HAVE to watch every episode! 

Nana Seino as Chiwa

Dean Fujioka as Mamiya

 Nana stars as Chiwa, a good-hearted and hard-working girl who is struggling financially because of her good for nothing father’s gambling problems, and when we meet her, she is in the middle of juggling two jobs, a day job at an electronics store....

..and working as a hostess at a cabaclub in the evenings...

One night at the host club she is met by a stiff young man who insults her for working as a hostess, causing her to get fired when she throws a glass of water in his face.

The next day at her Electronics job, the strange man is back, and she finds that he is a wealthy businessman about town named Hokuto Mamiya (Dean Fujioka), and has come looking for Chiwa with a mystifying offer...

He will take care of all her financial woes if she will do one thing: MARRY HIM! Chiwa is an old fashioned girl who believes in marrying for love, to marry for money seems wrong, and even if she WERE to marry for cash, why marry such a stiff, unfriendly and scolding person??? She adamantly refuses.

She tries to get back on with her life, but her father’s gambling debts are coming back to haunt him, and even though they struggle with meager meals each evening to stretch out their pennies, they simply can’t get ahead.

It all comes crashing down when thug debt collectors come looking for Chiwa’s

father and decide to take her instead to “work for them to pay off the amount”. Just at that moment, Mamiya returns, and once realizing the situation, with his checkbook, instantly pays off the debt. 

Chiwa has no choice but to reluctantly marry this strange person. But what is this deal all about? Why did he choose HER of all people? Is the marriage for real? And, of course, the real question that everyone can already guess: Will Chiwa end up actually falling in love with Hokuto??

This drama seemed like a LOT of other recent dramas and movies, especially the Emi Takei movie “Clover” (where she is proposed to by her stiff supervisor), and  the Kyoko Fukada drama “Please Love The Useless Me” where Kyoko’s superior takes care of the addled girl’s problems (and Dean Fujioka starred in both and seems to be playing pretty much the same guy here, LOL) There’s even bit of  Sekai Ichi Muzukashi Koi” in it with Norika Fujiwara trying to advise her boss about how to better woo a girl.

So yeah, very predictable and basic plot, but BOY, Nana is sooo adorable in this, I’m already in love!!!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com