Love and Fortune

A thirty two year old woman who works in a movie theatre finds a high schooler asleep one day and finds herself attracted to him. She is stuck in a mundane relationship with a salary man who plays video games all night and seems uninterested in their future. She begins an affair with the young boy which raises the question that if two people love each other does it matter about the age difference. Even though the boy looks older then fifteen I still found it uncomfortable to watch, although it does show well the different outlooks on life each one has at their different ages.

A woman in her 30s going through life and relationship troubles finds answers in the form of an underaged(15-16) boy. The portrayal of the story is simple. No big twists. It's like they filmed a small section of somebody's lives.

The series is top-notch in terms of acting, cinematography, background music, direction and overall social messages perspective.

Wako is shown depressed, selfish, loving, logical, torn, determined, passionate. The journey of her emotional growth is amazing! She navigates through her unhappy relationship, to falling for a 15-year old, then giving up for moral reasons. She comes back strong with a clear mind and direction to achieving everything she wants.

Iko's character is also well written. Its wonderful how they have captured little nuances of the age, the nature of their relationship.

Futa is the underrated character. His basic personality also hides details of reality. How if you do not believe you are part of the problem, you will never improve and go back to same patterns.

The underaged part is morally problematic, but that is the whole point of the series! Most people questioning the plot would be horrified if they find out how casually the same thing in happening around them, and the globe! And there are so many other takeaways from the series too.

Problems of women (especially in Japan/Asian countries) entering their 30s without a partner.

Impact of breaking trust- how all 3 of them were differently affected.

The dirty and the helpless side of Love.

What adolescence feels like: not an adult, not a kid.

How its never too late to make things right, and it only takes the courage to do it.

If anything, what I like most is how human the story is. At no point do I find this story non-fictional. Congrats to the team on the final product.

First of all, if you're coming to this drama after Kdramas, like I did, be prepared to be a bit shocked and surprised. The love/sex scenes would never make it to Korean dramas.

Other than that, this drama deals with a fictional, out of the ordinary love story. All the actors did an amazing job. There are many issues presented, mostly about what's supposed to be the definition of a successful/adequate adult and about living life on auto mode versus being creative/out of the norm.

I'd just like to make a note after reading some of the reviews. There are still countries around the world that marry off their kids at 12 years old or maybe even younger. This fact is real. This drama is fiction. Choose what upsets you most. Personally I saw it as an allegory of how even though we grow up, some of us find adult living and expectations overwhelming. And even in cases where we do know what we want and don't want, these might be contradictory and require a different perspective/effort in order to fit in with the rest of the world.

Imagine the storyline where the sexes are flipped. In other words, the lead character is a 30-something male, bored with life with a steady girlfriend, who decides to have a fling with a female high schooler. I'm not sure which culture would find this premise acceptable.

But for some reason, as long as the lead character is female, then it's OK and we go into a fantasy storyline.

As depicted in the story, the female lead is just bored of the mundane life she's leading and so goes looking for a hot, underaged pickup. Again, imagine if this was a male lead--any sympathies then?

Then we get into the psychologies of the various characters. I cannot fathom how the 30-something female lead acts like a 30 year old. She's more like a stunted 20 year old. Unhappy with life, she is not able to talk with her boyfriend about their relationship issues and instead decides to have a fling. Doesn't this sound more like what a high schooler or college couple would do?

As with many J-dramas these days, the original story came from a manga series that's geared towards young female audiences. Hence the main female lead feels like a 20 year old.

One of the best dramas i seen in a very long time. The cinematography, music and the main leads makes this drama something really special and memorable. It makes you feel so many emotions and you feel for the characters. This was movie quality and the best Jdrama that has come out. I wish more jdramas looked and was written as good like this drama.