Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram) Click here for audio version
‘Soul Mate’ follows Ryu Narutaki (Hayato Isomura), an ice-hockey athlete as he runs away to Berlin, where he meets Korean boxer Johan Hwang (Taecyeon), who saves Ryu from a church fire, thus beginning a life-long connection. As Ryu and Johan go back to their own countries, they keep in touch, and start to live together in Japan, after Johan runs into serious trouble in South Korea, ruining his boxing career.
Visually, Soul Mate makes excellent use of its international setting, moving between Berlin, Seoul, and various parts of Japan to reflect the evolving emotional landscape of its characters. The series finds warmth in small spaces, cramped apartments, manga cafes, jazz bars, and gradually builds a believable domestic intimacy between Ryu and Johan once they begin living together. Their daily routine feels quietly couple-like, with Ryu exhausting himself in a care home job while Johan studies, works part-time, and cooks dinners.
Funny enough, some twists in ‘Soul Mate’ strongly reminded me of the 2022 Japanese mini-series ‘More Than Words’. I only later discovered that both shows were directed by Shunki Hashizume, which suddenly made a lot of sense. In some ways, ‘Soul Mate’ feels almost like a less emotionally complicated reworking of More Than Words, except this time the series seems oddly afraid of letting Ryu and Johan actually say they love each other out loud, as if the phrase is forbidden.
Interestingly, Soul Mate begins with Arata (Mizukami Koshi), one of Ryu’s handsome teammates, confessing his feelings for him. The moment is overheard, Arata is outed without consent, and the aftermath turns tragic. Ryu spends a lot of time haunted by guilt for failing to respond to Arata or stand by him, yet frustratingly remains unable to openly confront his own sexuality.
Johan, meanwhile, comes across as equally repressed. Though the show never explicitly frames him as ashamed of being gay, there are hints of him being religious, so his deeply restrained behavior and reluctance to express desire make it difficult not to read it that way. Ryu’s hesitation at least feels understandable given his guilt over abandoning hockey and disappointing his family. Johan, however is an orphan with a loving sister in Berlin and seemingly fewer social pressures, so it’s odd why he holds back, and the series never fully explores this aspect.
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Instead, in its second half, ‘Soul Mate’ shifts focus to Ryu and Johan helping Ryu’s childhood friend Sumiko (Hashimoto Ai) raise her baby after her husband dies in an accident, leaving her pregnant and alone. The trio move in together and slowly develop the rhythm of a makeshift family, functioning almost like co-parents to the adorable baby. Sumiko becoming more central to the narrative is not necessarily a problem, but the show begins drifting away from romance entirely, turning instead into a slice-of-life drama about roommates balancing childcare and personal struggles.
Ryu finds himself emotionally drained by a difficult patient at his caretaker job, Sumiko struggles to balance motherhood with her ambitions in fashion, and Johan, despite securing a teaching position, becomes increasingly withdrawn after finding himself in need of money, creating growing tension in his relationship with Ryu.
Hayato Isomura and Taecyeon deliver compelling performances as former athletes who abandon their dreams for painfully ordinary worker-bee lives, but their onscreen chemistry never truly catches fire. It is obvious that Ryu and Johan love each other, yet the sparks are strangely absent, with the pair often feeling more like close best friends than lovers. Much of that comes down to the script’s bizarre reluctance to give them genuinely romantic moments; honestly, heavily censored shows (think ‘The Untamed’) built around little more than lingering gazes have managed to generate more electricity than Soul Mate ever does. Its the themes of friendship and ‘found family’ that become the show’s strengths.
A thoroughly overused twist defines the climax of Soul Mate and, true to character, both Ryu and Johan once again choose the coward’s way out by running from their problems instead of confronting them. The series ultimately delivers a hopeful ending, but never quite becomes the sweeping romance its title promises. If you enjoy leisurely paced dramas and the idea of a slice-of-life story blended with restrained, almost forbidden romance appeals to you, this limited series is worth giving a chance.
Watch ‘Soul Mate’ on Netfllix.
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