Fight for Love

I think Japanese dramas are starting to grow on me, or I've just been lucky to find a few that are not all death, gloom, joyless existence etc. Fight Song is definitely the former, not the latter, and features an interesting and eclectic cast who all do a great job at playing their unique roles.

Most of the characters are residents at an orphanage, where they've grown up together. The main character, Kisara Hanae (Kiyohara Kaya), was abandoned by her father after the sudden death of her mother. She's very detached and self-controlled, which is probably why she becomes obsessed with karate, at which she becomes a star. She also can't seem to catch a break. Before she can compete on a national level, she's involved in a car accident. During rehab she then discovers she has a life-threatening condition which requires surgery, but will likely also leave her permanently disabled. At first she withdraws entirely, and then her friend at the orphanage Shingo (Kikuchi Fuma) hires her to work for his cleaning service.

While cleaning Hanae meets Ashida Haruki (Mamiya Shotaro), a songwriter who wrote the song Hanae listens to whenever life gets tough (so she listens to it daily, basically.) He's become a one-hit wonder on the verge of losing everything because he can't come up with a second hit. They decide for their own reasons to date and see if they can find love together in a kind of weird arranged relationship. Haruki is a bit strange, too, but so is Hanae, so they oddly work as a couple. When Haruki is with Hanae she accepts him without reservation, which allows him to finally open up to her. That they genuinely fall in love with each other seemed quite plausible.

The ten episodes of Fight Song chart the often-troubled waters of both Hanae and Haruki, their friends, and the pressures on them to deal with long-standing problems. It's interesting to see a non-traditional Japanese family and how they all end up at the end, which was as expected but still charmed me. There are no miracle saves in this series, but I didn't mind that. Dealing with romance in real life situations has always been more interesting to me anyway. There may be some triggering scenes for people with depression or who are coping with difficult medical conditions, but otherwise it's a sweet romance with an interesting story depicted by very good actors. Highly recommended.