Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
How do you ensure viewers know your show is something to do with both Japan and South Korea? You call it something too on the nose, like ‘Gimbap and Onigiri’. But that’s all right, because it looked like a cutesy cross-cultural romance with a promising lead pair.
Directed by Hirokawa Hayashida, Miyuki Hatanaka, and Ryota Koyama, Gimbap and Onigiri spans 10 episodes. Former K-pop singer Kang Hye-won (Friendly Rivalry, Spirit Fingers) plays primary protagonist Park Rin, a young Korean woman studying animation in Tokyo, whose frustrating house-hunting search leads her to chef Hase Taiga. Eiji Akaso, known for Kamen Rider, Cherry Magic, and Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead, plays the shy, introverted Taiga.
The two meet as strangers when a hungry Rin finds herself outside the restaurant Taiga works at, right after he’s closed for the day. Hearing her stomach growl, he makes an exception and whips up a meal just for her. For Rin, it’s an instant crush. So she starts trying to get Hase’s attention, but he is completely oblivious to her romantic interest at first.
Over the course of ten episodes, Gimbap and Onigiri explores the cultural, language, and familial barriers Rin and Taiga face as they begin dating. Making their relationship work, however, proves more taxing for Rin, largely because Taiga puts in minimal effort, often retreating into work or his own head. His lack of communication often creates lots of misunderstandings. While the writing occasionally frames this as a Japanese versus Korean cultural divide, it ultimately comes across as a reflection of Taiga’s individual personality quirks.
For instance, in one of the later episodes of Gimbap and Onigiri, the couple go on a short trip where Rin voices her frustration over what she calls “cultural differences.” This comes up when Taiga refuses to let her send a dish back after the restaurant messes up her order. Instead, he suggests they swap plates, he’ll eat hers, and she can have his pasta. But this isn’t a cultural issue. Taiga explicitly mentions earlier that he dislikes making a fuss at restaurants because he works in one himself. That’s a personal preference. It’s pretty reasonable, but the least he could have done is ask Rin if she was okay with the swap first.
Even though Kang Hye-won and Eiji Akaso look great together, and the chemistry is cute in some scenes, ultimately, it feels like Akaso’s Taiga is just not that into Rin. And if Taiga is actually supposed to be a representative of how most Japanese men are when it comes to dating, then no wonder more and more Japanese women are shunning marriage. Seriously, the situation is so bad that the Japanese government is stepping in to help with matchmaking, in order to improve the country’s worrying birth rate.
Rin’s relationship with pretty much everybody else in Gimbap and Onigiri is more entertaining than with Taiga. Her banter with long-distance bestie Lee Yoon-gyeol (Seo Hye-won) is comically fun. Even actor Moon Ji-hoo as Rin’s Korean senior Kang Jun-ho is more likable than Taiga. Jun-ho is clearly in love with Rin, yet the writers make their senior-junior dynamic supporting and don’t turn him into a jealous creep. Rin also develops a sweet friendship with Taiga’s colleague Noa (Rin Kataoka), who by the way is in a dysfunctional romantic relationship with a gambler boyfriend Oba Akinori (Shôdai Fukuyama).
Fukikoshi Mitsuru plays restaurant owner Taguchi Shigeo, a calm, relaxed professional, who quietly supports and mentors Taiga through Gimbap and Onigiri. Once we meet Taiga’s older brother, we see why the protagonist suffers from low self-esteem and crippling self-doubt. Flashbacks also reveal his friends and classmates weren’t quite nice when he was struggling an athlete.
Both Rin and Taiga’s individual professional journeys are more compelling than their floundering romance, with Rin striving to break into the animation industry while Taiga pursues a path that blends his passion for sports with his growing interest in food as a nutritionist for athletes.
Overall, Gimbap and Onigiri is a pleasant slice-of-life romance where the love story doesn’t land as strongly as some of its other elements. From Rin and Taiga bonding over food to their efforts to grow in their professional lives, there’s enough here for a decent one-time watch. While their relationship does touch on relatable challenges, it would have helped to see more lighter, easygoing moments between them, because more often than not, their conversations feel like pep talks rather than natural, everyday exchanges. The ending however is the most realistic thing about this show!
Watch Gimbap and Onigiri on Netflix.
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