Bullet Point Review: An Incurable Case of Love
Also translated as ‘Love Lasts Forever’ or in romaji ‘Koi wa Tsuzuku yo Dokomademo’.
Published in
3 min readMay 29, 2020
- As we can’t leave our houses, a change of scenery can be procured through our laptop screens, and after years of ‘should I, should I not’, I finally decided to watch a Japanese Drama.
Japanese Dramas follow the same finite runtime like Korean Dramas but are usually shorter with nine to ten-episodes each, making it perfect for a brisk indulgence. If you have read my recent reviews, you would be aware that I have been craving some fluff from the rom-com department for some time, and after the heavy Paatal Lok, it became a necessity to watch something light and comedic. Incurable Case of Love seemed to be the talk of the town, appearing as a must-watch show in many blog columns and so, here we are today. - Incurable Case of Love is adapted from a manga of the same name, and it falls into the genre of Shoujo manga, where the stories are targeted at young females teen readers (the more you know…). So it makes complete sense that it has a Tsundere male lead. (Haven’t we all fantasized about being the only woman who could crack open that cold exterior and witness the warmth hidden inside).
Sakura Nanase (a bubbly Mone Kamishiraishi, with an uncanny resemblance to Park Shin Hye) visits Tokyo as part of her high school graduation trip, and when there, she visits a shrine, famous for matching making, and lo behold! Right outside the temple, when an old woman faints, appears the handsome doctor, Tendo Kairi a.k.a Tendo Sensei (Takeru Satoh). Nanase falls for him hard and decides to become a nurse so that she can work with him and fast forward five years, Nanase is a trainee nurse at the same hospital as Kairi, and on the first day itself, she confesses her love for him, and he rejects her right there and then. Though this is played for a comedic effect, it was refreshing to see how open Nanase is about her affection for Kairi, to the point where she doesn’t shy from talking about it to her fellow hospital staff or her family and thankfully her consistent pursuit doesn’t come as off as annoying, but just heartwarming and cute. After all, he is the ace doctor and she is the clumsy rookie. That’s like a match made in heaven in dramaland.
- Generally, Tsundere male leads equate to a sulky grown male but Kairi here is given a well-grounded reason for his withdrawness. When he scolds Nanase too, it’s not teasing, but because she is bad at her job. His cold, composed temperament against her hyperactive imagination is used well for some amusing scenes, like when Kairi taunts Nanase for falling asleep in the ambulance when she hurts her head and or when she tearfully confesses to Kairi on how she isn’t a perfect match for him and he calmly replies, 'You realized this now?’. Ha!
- I quite enjoyed the fact that a nurse was the centre of this medical drama, as they rarely get the spotlight in a story centered in a hospital. I also quite liked the addition of the scene where Sakai (Ai Yoshikawa) tells Nanase to her face that she isn’t working hard enough to improve herself and often gets off because she is liked by everyone. It is a serious scene in an adorkable rom-com, but it makes sense coming from Sakai as her mother lost her job due to a medical error. But this doesn’t pit the two rookies against one and another. I guess in a shorter runtime, some (meaty) drama has to be excluded.
- The second half of the show is where I felt the plot went a bit haywire and rushed to incorporate a lot of things like a V.I.P patient with some very silly demands, a sudden trip to the hometown, an accident, coma, and studying aboard. I would have rather preferred to watch some more cute antics of the leads. Also, I didn’t understand Kisugi Koichi’s (Maiguma Katsuya) sudden feelings for Nanase, or why Kairi’s ex’s sister, Wakabayashi Minori (Renbutsu Misako) repeatedly asks him out, every well knowing that he is taken, and it also felt like an insult to Kairi’s ex’s memory, considering that they are played by the same actress.
