A drama about betrayal, healing, growth, and understanding.

Holiday Love (ホリデイラブ) is a Japanese drama series directed with the same plot as its manga counterpart. There are many things to cover with this drama, and in the end, I will make comparisons between the JDrama and the manga series. Therefore, spoilers for the manga will be present. Starting with what I loved with this series: the storyline. I was hooked instantly from reading the synopsis and knew that this would be something right up my alley. I will never condone cheating, and it was wrong for the husband to have cheated on his lovely wife. The story was not all lovey dovey, and it was easy to see that every single character had their own issues in life, whether it was a struggle of man vs society, or man vs self. The reason why I've rated this drama so high is because the situations depicted are realistic. Even though some scenes are obvious dramatized, we have to understand that it is indeed, a drama. All the scenes could have happened to anyone in society: being cheated on, experiencing societal bullying, feeling the pressure of fitting societal standards, struggling to take care of children, struggling to help your own child, struggling to mend again with someone you thought you loved so much, and struggling to heal and understand. The next few factors that I really liked was the OST, drama opening, and the acting. The tarot cards were a beautiful touch to this drama, and I loved how they wrote Reika's character. Every time the opening came up, I had to rewind multiple times just to look at each character individually (definitely not because they all looked SUPER good... especially Kuori...). For those wondering, the ending song for each episode is "Chameleon Lens" by Porno Graffitti. I personally think the song is so soothing and sets that mysterious vibe to what's going to happen next in this drama series. Every actor/actress played their roles super well. As someone who have also read the manga, I believe they did a perfect job portraying their manga counterparts. I LOVED the character developments. It restored my faith and hope in humanity again. The ending was very satisfying, everyone got what they deserved :)

—DRAMA COMPARISONS W/ THE MANGA (SPOILERS AHEAD)—
First, I found it super interesting how they changed Reika's character. Originally, she was suppose to be Wataru Izutsu's sister (Rina's ex-husband). However in the drama, she was this love-match-tarot-mysterious person. She was suppose to be someone who helped out Rina and forced Kuori to take those photos of Azu. Furthermore, Azu was suppose to have met Kuori on a dating site, not some "soul twin mate" app Reika had made. However despite all that, I actually prefered this Reika than the manga Reika. It made the plot more interesting, and it just made the vilian of the story more obvious. Second, Kuori's manga character was suppose to be this 30-year-old man who had a beard. But you bet how grateful I am that they got this young, attractive man to play Kuori's part. (And he nailed it!) Anyway, overall, I'm very pleased with this drama adaptation. I believe the directors sticked very strongly with the events that happened in the manga, and they did a beautiful job executing Holiday Love.

Lees verder