A DRAMA REVIEW: "ZETTAI KARESHI"

Plot: (spoilers!)

Riiko Izawa has never had a boyfriend and she has been rejected by every boy she has ever had a crush on. When she returns a lost cell phone to an oddly dressed salesman, she mentions wanting a boyfriend so to thank her, he directs her to his company's website. When she visits the site, Riiko finds it's a site to create your own lover. Thinking its a game, she customizes and accidentally orders one. The next day, her new lover arrives. Following the instruction manual, she kisses him to wake him up and configure him to be in love with only her. She names him "Night." Three days later, she is shocked to learn that she only had him for a free trial. The salesman, Gaku Namikiri, tells her that she must now pay 100,000,000 yen for Night, or they will waive the fee if she helps them to collect data about how women think and feel to help perfect future models.

 

Riiko must keep Night's true nature of not being human a secret from everyone around her. She also finds herself in a love triangle between Night and her childhood friend Soushi, who declares his love for her out of fear he will lose her. As the series progresses, Night begins to develop real human emotions, enabling him to truly love Riiko but also resulting in system malfunctions. When Riiko almost loses Night due to the malfunctions, she realizes that he is the one she really loves. She apologizes to Soushi, who moves to Spain with his brother. As the series ends, Night begins to grow sleepier and sleepier. The problems developed by his exceeding his abilities eventually causes his machinery to stop working, resulting in his "dying." Before he died, he writes a letter to Soushi to tell him whats happeningand asking him to take care of Riiko. Soushi gives Rikko time to grieve, then returns to Japan to be at her side again.

I SAY:

How awesome could it be if you have a boyfriend who would fetch you right after work or school and gives you a big hug right before he heads home, who delivers you food during lunch time, who cheers for you whenever you feel helpless and vulnerable, whom you consider your handy-man, the one who knows how to cook your favorite dish not to mention being able to have an ideal lover with a model's body, cool attitude, charismatic face and has a brain  of the same size as Einstein's - whatever you ask him he sure knows the answer. The type of boyfriend who completely understands a woman's need, desires and dreams. The type of boyfriend who would want no one but you and just you alone - the sort of one woman man. The kind of boyfriend who lives not only to protect you but who lives only for you. The kind of man who values you and can be miserable without you. Someone who inspires you, who tells you that he cares, so you feel secured and don't have to try to read his mind (guy's heads are hard to crack you know!). A man who does not ask you to do things that will get you in trouble, someone who'll be proud of you no matter what, who'll say "iloveyou" and that you are beautiful every chance he could. Someone who'll never be uncertain of his feelings for you. Huh, without a doubt just fantasizing for a android manufactured boyfriend ups each girl's happiness I bet. 

Yet all those are just too good to be true. And I also doubt if there could still be men like that nowadays. If there are, maybe only a handful of them I suppose. Still, that does not mean there aren't any decent guys out there. If the guy you seem to like has enough traits that you've grown to like other that the larger-than-life characters such as Tamahome, Kenshin, Hotohori or Kakashi, then these ideal dudes won't need to stay onscreen anymore. That guy you happen to like just might be the underappreciated guy all this time. But c'mon, admit it! Most of the time we girls swoon over having that type of boyfriend who does not cheat, flirt or play over our emotions. I for one wished countless times of this already. After watching the Jdorama "Zettai Kareshi (Absolute Boyfriend)" originally written by my all time favorite anime manga writer Yuu Watase, I was amazed and had cried a river after watching the end of the story. (FYI: I don't usually cry over this kind of thing, but this ones an exception.)

Suddenly after watching it, a thought came across my mind. Wouldn't it be cool if it really happened in real life? Being able to purchase a life size machine manufactured perfect boyfriend and be programmed to do whatever you desire for a boyfriend?

Now that makes me a little bit desperate perhaps, don't you think? Haha.. But then again, we can't defy God's creations we just have to accept the fact that nothing is perfect - even if such a robot boyfriend existed such as that in the story. How can you live a normal life with a programmed lover if you can't have kids with him, grow old with him and die with him? He's only a machine Although I really longed for it to happen but it's just a product of Watase's imagination - a woman's desperation to find the perfect boyfriend. Despite that, I still adore most of Watase's master pieces such as Fushigi Yuugi and Ayashi No Ceres. I admire how she does the twists and turns of a story wherein you really get to have a roller-coaster ride that's worth it. I also like her drawings especially the leading men - when I stared at Night's picture, it reminded me of Tamahome of FY and Toya of Ayashi No Ceres. Here in "Zettai Kareshi", it only reflects every woman's wish but it shouldn't let it blind us to the fact that everything is platonic. To say that a perfect boyfriend is possible is an understatement. There can never be an ideal boyfriend in real life. If there is, it will seemingly be a never-ending quest for that perfect man. 

Come to think of it, it would be better that no one has yet invented a "manufactured life size perfect boyfriend." It's funny because it is just like saying men are for sale. Haha.. It is better off that it hasn't been invented because life would be boring and everything is fake, materialistic and superficial. It's better off this way that we live with imperfections for it makes life worth living. Such imperfections like feeling hurt when your boyfriend forgets your monthsary or feeling broken when he cheats on you and all other painful experiences we get from an imperfect boyfriend. It's all okay because from it we learn to be more cautious and stronger. We undergo pain, loss and resentment but each teardrop and heartache teaches us to move forward. As the famous saying goes "From every wound there is a scar, and from every scar there is a story. A story that says you survived." Although the truth is, it still is very tempting to purchase Nightly Series 01 though, that is if I have the money. Haha.. after all each machine has an expiration date, so just to have it temporarily would be okay with me. With only one condition though, to keep it as a secret so that no one will know he's a machine operated boyfriend. Bwahaha.. joke! :)

 Zettai Kareshi TRAILER

 Zettai Kareshi OST