Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
‘Life in Smokey Blue’ is the kind of slice-of-life romance, where some of the most uplifting moments include the lead protagonists simply sipping a cup of tea over cookies with a lovely older woman, after she offers to help share the chore of cleaning the yard. So if you’re up for a leisurely paced drama, where the characters are mostly just getting on with their everyday lives, this Japanese show will prove to be a good pick.
Directed by Takahashi Meigetsu (‘When It Rains’, ‘Jack O’Frost’), ‘Life in Smokey Blue’ (Sumokuburu no ame nochi hare) is based on a manga series by Hamada Kamome. Takeda Kouhei plays protagonist Azuma Sakutaro, a former medical sales representative, who quits his job due to burnout. When he crosses path with old office rival Kuji Shizuka (Shibuya Kento), now a busy translator, Shizuka surprisingly offers him a part time job to work alongside him, and the two reconnect and start to depend on each other beyond work.
If you really think about it, not much happens in ‘Life in Smokey Blue’ in terms of action, both Sakutaro and Shizuka are lonely gay men, nearing 40s, and the story focuses on them building a professional and personal relationship, while navigating a few other every day challenges. While Sakutaro battles an existential crisis, living with his kind sister (Sakuma Mayu) and teen nephew (Yamamoto Ryuto) until he can figure out what to do next, Shizuka is quite content with his reclusive life as a translator, working in his sprawling childhood home.
It’s at Shizuka’s house where most of the story unfolds in the first half, with Sakutaro working in the hall, while Shizuka chooses to hole himself up in a study that’s off limits to everybody else. It’s a house filled with books, Japanese and English, and Sakutaro is quickly drawn to this world of words, stories, which remind him of how his father used to read to him. He even starts to consider translation as a career, while also exploring a work opportunity that comes his way through an old friend.
Shizuka’s house becomes a sort of character in itself in ‘Life in Smokey Blue’, especially as Sakutaro gets attached to both the property and the other owner. Although Shizuka intends to move out and hand over the keys to his elder brother Kuji Minoru (Tanaka Kotaro). What’s refreshing here is that the creators do not stuff in a melodramatic family feud between the siblings, and keep things surprisingly mellow, even though the brothers do share a mildly strained bond. They lose their mother young, and their father continues to make no concessions for his sons after her demise, remaining a distant, authoritative, and emotionally closed-off man. And one can see shades of it in Shizuka’s personality.
‘Life in Smokey Blue’ is a show that thrives in small, understated moments. One particularly memorable scene sees Sakutaro visit his mother (Asaka Mayumi) and notice a stain on a teacup. It’s a minor detail, but one that prompts him to realize that age has begun to catch up with her, and that she is no longer as attentive or agile as she once was. That is why a later scene in the show’s second half feels quite. After his mother experiences a health scare, Sakutaro readily agrees not to take her to a hospital for a check-up simply because she assures him that a home remedy has helped her.
Takeda Kouhei as Azuma Sakutaro carries ‘Life in Smokey Blue’ with an easy charm of a man navigating burnout, new career paths, and a deepening connection with the restrained Shizuka. Despite his confusion over career, he is confidently flirty when he wants to be, never shying away from approaching Shizuka when he craves intimacy. The onscreen chemistry between the actors is comfortable, easy, as they share a charming domesticity in their daily routine of reading, translating, and editing books together.
On the other hand, Shibuya Kento is a very manga-coded romantic lead as the aloof Shizuka in ‘Life in Smokey Blue’. Not in a conventionally youthful, heartthrob sort of way, but in the manner of a man who has aged well, with his ruffled hair, rugged features, and piercing gaze lending him an undeniable magnetism. So it’s not very suprising when Sakutaro is hilariously vocal about how handsome and attractive he finds Shizuka.
I really enjoyed the leisurely pace of ‘Life in Smokey Blue’ and its commitment to telling a grounded, everyday story. Although it feels as though the show’s most emotionally charged moments are carried by its supporting characters rather than its leads. It’s a student who is left devastated when a friend of Sakutaro’s is hospitalized, Shizuka’s older brother who finally voices his resentment toward their distant father, or a nervous new acquaintance who suffers a panic attack in the middle of the street.
In many ways, life seems to happen around the characters of Sakutaro and Shizuka, with the pair often serving as observers rather than participants. Then again, a story that finds meaning in a life largely free of major upheavals has its own appeal.
Life in Smokey Blue is on TVer or GagaOolala.
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