365 Days to the Wedding

Episode 4

It's almost time to meet the parents! Rika sums up how wild the setup for this episode is as she picks out her clothing, because it is an unorthodox situation. We have two people pretending to be married to avoid a location transfer and now they need to explain all of this to a very old-fashioned and traditional family. The setup provides good opportunities for drama, and I look forward to next week when we get into the conversations properly. I will say that the setup for the situation felt a bit forced. I'm not a big fan of the hanging plot points of someone at their workplace who seems to be blackmailing them. I'm not sure how anyone else would've known, and it feels like an extra layer of unnecessary drama. The situation, and how our awkward leads try to deal with these hyper social situations, is already entertaining on its own, so adding a third party that forces our characters' hands feels a little too soap opera for me.

That being said, the highlight of this episode was when they were on the plane. I love getting insight into Rika's backstory and why she was interested in maps. I thought the show was setting it up as her awkward hobby, but it takes a step further and I think I know why. Both of our leads are very awkward recluses. They seem the happiest when they are on their own, indulging in their hobbies. Rika's backstory is interesting because it seems the catalyst for her interest was her loneliness.

Rika sees her backstory as something more embarrassing or off-putting rather than as something arguably kind of tragic. She didn't get a lot of chances to spend time with her mother, who was always away working, and her father wasn't in the picture. She was drawn to maps because her mother traveled everywhere and she liked to pretend that she was traveling with her. This shows that deep down, Rika does want to share these locations with somebody, whether it be her family or a potential future partner. This backstory doesn't contradict anything we've seen before, and like I said, only serves to set the stage for a more believable development in the relationship moving forward. However, now we have the inverse happening as Takuya wants nothing to do but get away from his family because he doesn't feel connected with them. Let's see how he confronts that head-on and what that might potentially reveal.

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