‘Your Sky: Hare no Chi Koi ‘ is on Tver/WeTV/GagaOolala.
If you’re a character in the world of romantic fiction and don’t know how to get rid of an aggressive, rich and attractive pursuer, your best bet is usually to get into a fake relationship with someone else to dissuade unwanted attention.
An official remake of the Thai series Your Sky, Japanese drama ‘Your Sky: Hare no Chi Koi’ stars Fukuda Ayuta as Funase Hinata, a cute and friendly freshman who’s being bullishly wooed by wealthy senior Katagiri Oji (Vasayegh Hikaru). Unfortunately, Hinata is terrible at turning people down, so when Oji-senpai puts him in an uncomfortable spot, his best friend’s older brother Hanamura Sora (Aihara Isshin) comes to the rescue by pretending to be his boyfriend. Thus begins their fake-dating saga, which, obviously is destined to turn into a real romance.
Since I’ve already seen the Thai version, I knew what to expect from this show, and for those who enjoyed the original, this Japanese remake is a fun enough one-time watch if you’re up for a rehash. Even though it isn’t quite as comedic as it could’ve been, Fukuda Ayuta and Aihara Isshin make a cute college couple as they navigate their “fake relationship” and work to convince everyone that they’re really dating. The influential Oji obviously doesn’t buy their act and constantly tries to spy on them to uncover the truth. Hinata’s bestie Hanamura Riku (Nakayama Keigo), who is also Sora’s younger brother, is much quicker to crack their facade, but thankfully agrees to keep their secret.
Fukuda Ayuta is cute as Hare no Chi Koi’s lead Funase Hinata, and the character isn’t quite as clueless or dumb as his Thai counterpart. Despite his mildly childlike personality, Hinata’s difficulty with saying “no” to people feels believable. He’s a hopeless people pleaser who cannot handle unpleasant conversations and tries to work on it, though not very successfully. Fukuda Ayuta reminded me a little bit of Korean actor Yoon Seo Bin, the actor from Korean BLs ‘Kissable Lips‘ and ‘Roommates of Poongduck 304’.
Aihara Isshin, on the other hand, plays the handsome, popular but emotionally aloof Sora-senpai and entertainingly captures the character’s familiar duality: cold with almost everyone, but soft and sweet with Hinata. He also makes it pretty obvious that Sora has a secret crush on Hinata, even though the junior assumes he’s simply being kind.
Actors Totaro and Nakabayashi Toui play Sora’s close friends Makoto and Yu, respectively, who help him run his family’s popular bar, which is also frequented by Oji. Naturally, a jealous Oji tries to create trouble there, while sparks begin to fly between Makoto and Yu. Their romantic subplot brims with possibility but isn’t fleshed out well. The same goes for Riku, who keeps visiting the library to check out his crush Moon Da-On (Park Min Seok), a gorgeous Korean exchange student.
Vasayegh Hikaru’s Oji isn’t the same over-the-top caricature of a villain we saw in the Thai version either, and the actor brings just the right amount of arrogance to the role of Sora’s love rival. Kurose Hina, who plays Hinata’s protective sister, doesn’t get much space here and is quite forgettable. In fact, given how much shorter this adaptation is, Your Sky: Hare no Chi Koi probably didn’t need to squeeze in two additional side couples at all. Riku and Da-On, in particular, get so little screen time that you could delete their scenes entirely and it wouldn’t make any difference to the plot.
Towards the end, Your Sky: Hare no Chi Koi throws in some family drama, although overall, it isn’t very different from the Thai original. It’s a cute, breezy little remake that benefits from its much shorter runtime, with just nine 30-minute episodes compared to the original’s 12 episodes of almost an hour each. Fukuda Ayuta and Aihara Isshin are charming together, and if you’re in the mood for some familiar fake-dating fluff, this is an easy one-time watch.
Watch ‘Your Sky: Hare no Chi Koi ‘ on Tver/WeTV/GagaOolala.
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