To preface this, as you can already tell from the title, this is just going to be a complete series overview instead of the usual episode by episode recaps. The primary reason for that is because this currently isn’t subbed anywhere which means that I watched it raw. I have taken classes in Japanese and do have an understanding of the language to some extent but because I don’t want to convey any potentially incorrect information, I’d rather just generally speak about the series and my overall impressions of the show. If one day I could potentially either find subtitles for this show or perhaps even Japanese subtitles, I would probably readily do an episode by episode recap because I just loved this series so much.

But to give a description about this show, it’s based off of the 2013 Chinese series of the same name. Now, I’ve never actually watched the Chinese series so I don’t know what’s the same or different when comparing the series therefore I’ll give the basic premise about what the Japanese series is as a standalone. I also won’t do any comparisons because I haven’t seen the original and can’t speak for those characters or what happened. I do know that the Chinese series was much longer with 38 episodes whereas the Japanese series only had 12. Therefore, I can imagine that either there were other things thrown into the drama that weren’t included or some issues might’ve been prolonged or extended. But whatever it was that filled those 38 episodes, I don’t know because I haven’t seen it. So if any of you have actually seen the original series, feel free to tell me about it and I guess let me know whether you would recommend it or not!

So, without further ado, let’s get started!

Also, as a forewarning, this will contain spoilers about the series.

Series Overview

The series focuses on Matsura Natsuki (Nishino Nanase), a woman in her mid-late twenties who is focused on furthering her career to achieve her dream of being a fashion director. She works at Avril, a clothing company, and is assigned to their newly launched baby line which is run under Kijima Toko (Itaya Yuka). It just so happens that Toko is the whole reason she wanted to work at Avril so she’s happy at that opportunity but it’s not all fun and games under someone who is so career focused as Toko doesn’t want anyone who is married or even interested about having a baby on her team but actually, that’s no problem for Natsuki as she has no interest in those kinds of things. She only wants to further her career. However, life doesn’t have that kind of plan for her. Natsuki ends up going to an old college friend’s wedding and runs into Mimura Motoya (Chiba Yudai), a man who has had a one-sided crush on her for 7 years despite getting rejected back in college. The two catch up and end up drinking together, which then results in them sleeping together.

When Natsuki finds out she’s pregnant, she has no intention of keeping the baby. However, she needs Motoya’s signature and informs him of the pregnancy as well. He wants to keep the baby, though, and ends up begging her on his hands and knees promising to cherish the two of them forever. Eventually she does come around to keeping it and the two of them even decide to get married, which I thought happened in a cute way. Motoya had proposed to her earlier when she was in the hospital, she had fainted and fell down some stairs, but Natsuki didn’t respond until a later time. She had told him that she wanted him to be at home waiting for her when she returned from work and showed him the baby book, documenting the baby’s progress, and had both of their names written under the same surname, Mimura. But thus began their married life and preparing for their baby, which they had by the fourth episode. They have a daughter and name her Sumire but they do call her Su-chan.

Besides the usual trials and tribulations that the two have to go through as new parents, there’s also the challenges that they face in regards to their careers and dreams as well as the tension that they face with Natsuki’s ex-boyfriend, Seto Koujiro. It’s a series that, I think, covers a lot of ground. Most of the series is grounded in following Natsuki as she deals with an unplanned pregnancy and her way of getting back into the workplace after that, I guess demonstrating how difficult it is for women to return to professional careers after such events happen, like marriage and pregnancy. There’s also a little bit on the new parents side as there are some difficulties there but there’s also parts about changing dreams and priorities that show that sometimes you can achieve both what you want in both your personal and private life.

Additionally, I think the ending also gave a nice way to finish off the storylines while also remaining optimistic and leaving a kind of open-end to the characters. I know I didn’t mention the side characters, but I think that some of them even got nice send offs that would give way to an open-ended future for them where we hope they’ve learned from their past actions and continue pursuing their dreams.

Matsura Natsuki

If I were to explain the difference between Natsuki and Motoya, it would be that they come from completely different viewpoints. For Natsuki, she’s always been working towards her career so she’s very career-oriented, which is why it’s understandable that she didn’t want the baby in the first place. She only wanted to focus and become like her idol, Kijima Toko. But no matter how her change of heart came about, whether it was from Motoya’s sincerity and dedication for her to have the baby or his dedication in promising to always provide and protect her and the baby, she took it in stride vowing to do her best to raise her daughter and make her way to the top.

I can understand her hesitance to have the baby in the beginning because, at least to her understanding, what typically happens to women once they decide to get married and have families is that they resign from their jobs and end up becoming housewives. Initially, Natsuki probably thought that a baby would be the end to everything that she’s ever worked towards thus far, plus she was finally working with Toko so that would definitely burst through that dream. Yet I liked her determination in wanting to make everything work. I liked how she kept going forward with work, even when she was presented with setbacks and had the struggles of motherhood. I did appreciate that the show actually showcased some of the struggles of having a newborn. Sometimes I think shows kind of gloss over that aspect about the late nights and the constant crying and feeding, or at least they have in the shows that I’ve seen that involve a newborn. There’s one part where Natsuki accidentally drops the baby out of exhaustion and I think that in that moment you just totally feel for her. You can feel how exhausted she’s been in trying to sort everything out regarding a daycare for Sumire and trying to get back to work, on top of taking care of her, that the moment surrounding when she drops her, you can see that she’s just mentally checked out of everything by that point. It was a touch that I appreciated because I think that similar scares sometimes do happen in real life with newborns, especially when exhaustion has reached its limit. There are also other scares throughout the duration of the series, too, such as sudden health scares with Sumire, things that would worry any parent.

Another thing that I liked was that they definitely didn’t overexaggerate a pregnant Natsuki. In fact, I’d probably argue that her stomach was a little too small to be pregnant but I know that sometimes, especially if the pregnant individual is on the skinny side, that the stomach can be on the smaller side. I like that they kept that part realistic and that it wasn’t distractingly large. In fact, as they moved through some of the pregnancy stages, it actually looked pretty natural underneath her clothes at some points. I’ve seen some series have the stomach of a pregnant individual so big or so exaggerated that it sometimes just draws all of the attention and takes away from what’s actually happening in the scene so I’m thankful that it didn’t happen here. Actually, there wasn’t a very long time even spent during her pregnancy period.

Throughout the series, though, I think we were able to see Natsuki’s growth go from someone with a purely career-oriented mind to someone who began to value her family. I mentioned previously how Motoya gave up his dream job in Osaka for his family but Natsuki actually does the same closer to the end of the series. Koujiro actually comes to her with a job offer to his company to travel abroad and research fashion to create their own brand but she turns it down as she wants to stay with Avril Baby and stay with her family.

I guess for me, Natsuki’s memorable scenes are the ones where she becomes vulnerable or lets herself enjoy the times that she’s experiencing rather than when she’s always focused or concerned about work. It’s probably because there’s a lot of times she is at work, and obviously she remains professional, but I think I liked just seeing her be able to relax around Motoya and rely on the people around her to give her inspiration and strength when she needed it the most.

Overall I did like Natsuki as a character as I liked how she grew and came to a better appreciation about family and I guess sort of what the word actually meant. She still remained who she was throughout the series, knowing what she wanted and knowing what she wanted to work towards, so I’m glad that that part of her wasn’t sacrificed. Even if she didn’t take her initial dream job of traveling abroad to study fashion, she understood that that wouldn’t be the only opportunity she would be given since she wouldn’t give up and would continue to move forward by working harder. She also ended up having a new appreciation for those taking care of their families and working at the same time.

Mimura Motoya

Unlike Natsuki, for Motoya, it always seemed like family was everything. Perhaps the difference was even made clear when we saw that Natsuki always thought of her parents coming over as a bother whereas Motoya lived at home and ate dinner every night with his mother. So from the moment that he finds out he’s about to be a father, Motoya is fully prepared to take responsibility for that role and wants to fill it with the best of his abilities. It’s just a plus that he just so happens to be having a baby with the person that he’s been crushing on for 7-years, which, honestly, kind of weirded me out a little? I get that he still could’ve had a crush on her if nothing ever happened to them back in college and he never had the courage to confess, however, he did. He confessed to Natsuki in college and she turned him down under the premise that he wasn’t her type so I’m not entirely sure why he was still holding on to some sort of hope that if or when he ever saw her again it’d somehow be different? Also, based on what we saw from the flashbacks of the night that Natsuki and Motoya spent together, he clearly wasn’t drunk and didn’t refute her drunken advances.

Besides that point, though, Motoya is someone who is prepared to give everything up for his family, which is what Natsuki can’t understand in the beginning. His greatest strength has become wanting to provide for his family and wanting wife to achieve her dream. I think it’s because his dream has shifted. He once aspired to get the higher position in Osaka but once he had his own family, his dreams shifted to that his to support his family. At some points he may seem foolish because of his blind trust and forgiving ways for Natsuki, but at the same time I think it’s more like his longtime dream of having a family is coming true and he doesn’t want that to slip away, no matter what. I think that’s why he even goes to Koujiro to personally ask him to help make Natsuki’s dream come true. I think he’s the type of person who, as long as his family is happy, he’s happy.

I really felt for him, though, when he kept blindly trusting Natsuki even when he had rising doubts about Koujiro. I get that from Natsuki’s perspective, they were keeping things strictly work based, but in Motoya’s eyes, they were meeting up outside of work hours and he found a gift she was given that seemed to say otherwise. Plus, they didn’t talk about any of it, so the misunderstanding kept growing due to a lack of communication. However, Motoya continually believed in Natsuki even if he felt like things weren’t strictly work based with Koujiro, which we could kind of see as he began to tell Natsuki that she could come to him if she weren’t happy. But the conversation that they had in that moment when they argued about the gift was a scene that I really think spoke and was a scene where I think Motoya’s trust and blind faith in Natsuki broke down for the first time. I mean, he even said it himself, in episode eight. The moment when he told Natsuki that he trusts her, it’s just his confidence to continue believing in her has faded and disappeared, it was like for the first time he realized that maybe everything he’s been doing has been for naught and that he’ll never be the one that Natsuki truly wants.

Another memorable scene, at least for me, of Motoya’s was in the second episode when he begged for Natsuki to have the baby. I just felt his desperation in wanting to have the child and promising to do everything to let her focus on work and have the baby worry free. We find out later from his mother that he’s someone who, even when he was younger, was never able to say what he truly wanted in the moment, always waiting until later. That’s why his mother was thankful to Natsuki because she never thought that he’d be able to marry someone he truly loved. So looking back on the scene of him begging her, it was out of his personality to do something like that but that just showed how desperate he was in the moment and how serious he was about the whole thing for him to be able to say exactly what he wanted in that moment.

So while it took a little longer, I do think that we got some growth from Motoya’s side, although it might not have been as much or as drastic as Natsuki. I mean, he doesn’t go from not wanting a baby to suddenly appreciating the family that he had or created. Maybe he grew in the way that he found out that he doesn’t have to endure everything alone, like vowing alone to protect his family and perhaps he learned that he can pursue his dreams and be there for his family at the same time. After all, in the end, thanks to the suggestion of two other mothers he is in contact with throughout the series, he becomes a blogger writing about electrical appliances and ways to fix them or if he has recommendations, similar to kind of what his job was before only he’s not selling them in a store, he’s talking about them online.

But even if his growth were a subtle understanding, I think his constant faith and love in Natsuki allowed for her to appreciate her family and come to the conclusion that she just couldn’t possibly do any of it without Motoya, he’s like her strength that’s always there for her and who always believes in her no matter what. I guess even though he may have always said it since the beginning, it was probably something that she never truly understood until he had the breakdown and they were more communicative with one another. But towards the end episodes we did see her do some things for him, kind of reciprocating those feelings, which I thought was nice and something that Motoya really deserved. Furthermore, he did settle down a little bit from the beginning, where he was constantly vowing to protect Natsuki and the baby. Maybe that was from him finally knowing Natsuki’s feelings for him.

Side Characters

Honestly, I wasn’t left dying to know anything about our side characters. It wasn’t like they were given short storylines or only used for plot purposes. I guess most of their purpose was just being part of the basis that created our story. All of them, besides one side character that I’ll get into a bit later, really was only there as a motivation factor, but I don’t really see them as being there only for convenient plot purposes sakes as none of the conflicts really surrounded them. If they did, like with the other girl in Avril Baby, I think her name is Tokugawa Yumi, that was also aiming to be a top fashion director and with the other sort of director, Obayashi, I believe his name was, they were given their rightful short story arcs and were taken down, well he was. She resigned but is still working towards her dream of becoming a fashion director, too, or at least a high executive or something.

As for everyone else, though, I thought they were appropriately used and didn’t give in to unnecessary drama, which I guess is what I meant when I say that they weren’t used strictly for plot purposes. Okay, maybe Koujiro maybe, a little, but it wasn’t even that bad the drama that he was stirring up. In his case, it was probably because he was gone for so long and because Natsuki didn’t keep it hidden for long that she was married and pregnant. There were moments when you thought that things were going to go farther than they did but they always amounted to nothing. Most of the drama involving him just spurred from Natsuki and Motoya’s lack of communication with each other, which I guess can be a problem in any relationship, really. But there was no question, really, that Natsuki would sway from Motoya, more just like the cliffhangers of some episodes seemed to make it that way. None of her actual actions if shown all the way through would make someone question that.

The one side character that had a bigger story arc than everyone else would be that of Kijima Toko. In a way she had a similar arc and growth that Natsuki experienced. She was a career woman dedicated to her work and just so happened to have a secret marriage. Her husband knew that she didn’t speak about him and I think it might be because of the way people would view her if they saw her as a married working woman. We later find out that she is pregnant and expecting her own child and after having her own difficulties, she also wants to have the child and decides to quit her job. The quitting her job mostly comes from Obayashi trying to find a way to get her out of the company, which is a move he pays for by being forced to resign his position. Natsuki and Toko, who were then looking to start their own clothing brand, are asked to come back to Avril Baby once he leaves.

Natsuki & Motoya’s Relationship

Now if there’s one burning thing I have negatively to say about the series at this moment would be about Natsuki and Motoya’s relationship. It wasn’t that their relationship was shown in a bad way, more like it was just seemingly lacking something? I don’t really know how to describe it. Maybe it was from the way that Motoya kept saying that he’d protect Natsuki and the baby and how he’d pretty much devote himself to the two of them the entire time, but he’s not the one that I felt was lacking. I put that more into Natsuki’s territory. Somehow, when I was watching the whole thing, I didn’t really feel like she was actually wholeheartedly into the relationship. I get that it’s a relationship that she never wanted and that she never saw Motoya as being the one for her, by the way that her definition went and I understand that her vision of that changed by the end, but I just kind of wished that we saw it earlier. I know that by the end she was more appreciative of everything that he’s done for her and she was showing more of her affection for him, but I guess throughout the rest of the series it just seemed like it was lacking even though supposedly some time had passed. For some parts it just kind of felt like they were just two people who decided to live together to raise a baby, which I guess technically they did. It didn’t feel like they were husband and wife, but maybe that was the point? Was that the point?

There were some small time jumps during this series but the entire time it just kind of felt like their relationship was kept at the same level. I mean, she finds out she’s pregnant at the end of the first episode and we have a baby by the fourth episode. By the fifth episode, though, they’re saying that Sumire is already a few months old so that means that since the first episode, at least over a year has passed, even from the time that the two decided to get married yet their relationship feels like they just began, or are in the beginning stages of a relationship. That’s not to say that I didn’t like the times they spent together, I really liked those, but I just think that they could’ve capitalized on some more of the moments that they shared.

The reason that I said that it was more in Natsuki’s territory is probably because some of the beginning affections didn’t come from her therefore I think I wanted more out of her. We could see that Motoya was basically dedicating his entire life to protect her and the baby and pretty much vowing to do whatever it takes to make them happy but there wasn’t passion like that coming from her. I know that that would be out of her character and maybe it was because she didn’t truly yet realize just how much he always did for her, but I just thought that maybe she would lighten up a little bit and show the boy a little affection since she decided to get married to him. But perhaps I could be the lone one in thinking that or maybe it could even be from Motoya’s overpouring emotion that Natsuki’s lacking of affection became more evident. At the same time, though, it wasn’t like that affection was directed towards Koujiro either.

I guess the bottom line is that I just wanted more signs that showed Natsuki was as dedicated to the relationship as Motoya was. I know that it was probably impossible in the very beginning for her to show that but I think she’d at least have been able to show something even after spending that much time together and living together even if she wasn’t entirely into it yet. But yes, she did admit that she wanted him to stay by her side and didn’t want him to transfer to Osaka anymore and that does I guess give him the confidence in himself as her husband since he didn’t believe he’d be able to help her in any way. So when he finally knows that she thinks that she’d be unable to do it without him, it’s like they’ve entered a new stage in their relationship. Only that happened in episode nine of twelve. I guess I just wanted more actions from Natsuki, leading up to her confessing to him those things, that showed that there wasn’t any doubt that she was fully committed to Motoya and I guess that’s what he probably wanted as well.

But I did love their relationship, don’t get me wrong. I thought they were cute together and I loved seeing the way that they just purely melted over their daughter and the way that they worried about her and were always there for everything. They were a cute little family. It’s just that they felt more like friends raising a baby than husband and wife. Could that actually be a good thing, though? But I guess that’s why they became a better couple once they became honest with themselves and their own feelings and conveyed those thoughts to each other.

Plot

I don’t really have too much to say about the plot. I thought it was fine. I mean, this opinion is coming from someone who understood most, but not every exact thing, that was happening at a given time. I liked that we were able to see Natsuki transition back to working and how it was shown to be a struggle for her to balance her two lives while those at the company, particularly that male director whose name I think is Obayashi or something like that. There was that other young woman working at Avril Baby, Yumi, who kind of replaced Natsuki once she was gone, and who was growing in the company that was in a kind of relationship with that guy, too. She was also responsible for attempting to make Natsuki’s life miserable by stealing opportunities and overall just trying to further her position in the company by using the other guy, who was doing the same thing to her. Eventually he ended up bringing another employee from China, who the other young woman had to train, and so her plan ended up not working out and she eventually quit.

I did like that the storylines with Koujiro weren’t too heavy. We didn’t have the guessing game or Natsuki going back and forth between the men. Even though she didn’t tell him straight away that she was married and pregnant, I think she was more shocked at seeing him for the first time, she does tell him when they see each other for a second time. But it wasn’t like other dramas where the ex-boyfriend attempts to convince the female lead to come back to him or anything. It would’ve probably been impossible anyway because she’s pregnant and married, but he also seemingly understood that in the beginning as, when she told him, he did back off a little bit for a while.

But rather than having a focused plot that weeds through the entire series, I’d classify this more as a slice-of-life drama. Of course the part about Natsuki working is woven through and the difficulties that she faced with working and returning to work, but there’s no underlying issue other than the fact that she wants to achieve her dream of becoming a world-renowned fashion director. That’s why I’m glad that they did tie some things up in the end but they left enough room for us to imagine what life would continue to be like since there was no direct kind of plotline that needed a direct answer by the end. We got to see Natsuki still fulfilling her dream of becoming a fashion director and Motoya was still doing what he loved by working with electronics and giving people advice on them, similar to what his actual job was before he quit and possibly even closer to his dream job in Osaka which was I believe in like the area of planning and organization. Toko also was making her career work after becoming a mother herself and working with Natsuki to further create the Avril Baby brand. Even with those kinds of small storylines coming to a close, we’re still left with hope for the future for the small family.

Overall Thoughts

I have to say, looking back on the series, I highly enjoyed it and I don’t think I can pinpoint that reason to just one exact thing. As a whole series, I liked watching Natsuki and Motoya grow into becoming a family and learning to rely on each other. I also liked the moments of humor that were sprinkled throughout in their rare moments. This drama never got too heavy with some subjects, although it did address some things that I did think were serious, such as when Natsuki accidentally dropped Sumire or when Sumire got really sick and had to be rushed to the emergency room, it never got too heavy and everything was resolved adequately to give peace of mind. While I do wish we had gotten more from Natsuki regarding her feelings for Motoya, I still enjoyed watching them together, especially when they joked around and were comfortable with one another.

I think this is just a series that one can just casually watch, even if there aren’t any subtitles to it and still be able to understand the basics of what’s happening. What initially drew me to this drama was, in fact, Chiba Yudai, who played Motoya, as I’m a fan of his and have seen various projects. I would say, though, that by the first episode I was fans of the entire cast and honestly wouldn’t mind watching them in other future projects.

Anyway, I’d highly recommend this drama to someone just kind of looking for something easy to watch that’s really not too heavy in any sort of subjects. The episodes are a little more than half an hour each, around thirty-five minutes, with I think the finale being around forty-five minutes, so it’s not too long of a drama either. Just something kind of simple and easy to watch that has a cute baby thrown in every once in a while. Sometimes there’s even more than one.

One thing that I can definitely say is that I’m definitely going to be keeping this one on my re-watch list even if just for the cute baby scenes.