Good Morning Call (Season 1 & 2) Review: An Entertaining Teenage Love Dorama

I had been avoiding Good Morning Call for the longest time. Whenever I looked up for drama recommendation, this dorama always popped up. After reading the plot I did not want to watch it because it gave me ‘Itazura Na Kiss‘ vibes. Now, Itazura Na Kiss or Playful Kiss is one of my most favourite dramas and I have seen almost all of its adaptations. Itazura Na Kiss is a drama where the main leads fall in love after living together. This drama too has the same concept except that living together made a lot more sense in Itazura Na Kiss where two families lived together but here it feels a little odd because we have only two teenage kids sharing a house. I found the concept too irrational so I avoided the show. However, one day while surfing through Netflix, I saw this drama and decided to give it a chance. And like always I was hooked. The concept is repetitive, the story arcs are predictable, the characters are clichéd which means I was bound to enjoy this drama. hehe. 😉

Good Morning Call (Season 1 -17 Episodes) (Season 2 – 10 Episodes)

Nao Yoshikawa (Haruka Fukuhara) lives alone in the city after her family leaves for their farm in the countryside. She rents a house in a plush locality for a very reasonable rent. However, the day she moves into the apartment she learns that the house has also been rented by another tenant, Hisashi Uehara (Shunya Shiraishi). The two then discover that they have been scammed by the dealer who has rented one house to two people. Since both of them have limited money to live by they decide to share the house and share the rent.

Let’s weigh this typically clichéd romantic dorama on our drama beam balance and see if it is fun to watch or no.

Good Weights

I enjoyed watching Good Morning Call because…

…I like the characters in the drama. Nao is a typical Japanese dorama heroine who acts anime-ish with her over the top reactions but she is adorable.

Uehara is our quintessential arrogant drama lead who has no expressions on his face but he has a presence that is swoon-worthy.

Of the supporting character, I love Marina who I wish was my friend. I also like Abe who is the comic relief in this drama. In season 2, I fell hard for Natsume who is the second-lead I always fall for.

…it is specially formulated for teenage female viewers. Its key ingredients, i.e. a good-looking arrogant male lead with a sad past, broken heart and arrogant exterior and a dim-witted girl who likes to help others, have always been popular with the teenage crowd. This is a mindless rom-com that is enjoyable because it offers lots of love, occasional laughs and full-on entertainment. What more do you want from a drama?

…I found it engaging. As mentioned above, the drama is entertaining. Its cliff-hangers would always compel me to keep going back to it. The drama is medium paced and every episode has an interesting character raising havoc in Uehara and Nao’s lives. The drama conflicts generate a lot of intrigue which is why you might end up binge watching it.

…I think season 2 was a little better than season 1. Season 1 is all about Nao and Uehara learning about each other and slowly developing feelings for each other. Season 2 is all about Uehara’s feelings growing stronger for Nao. Though both the seasons tend to get draggy and slightly boring in certain episodes it still manages to hold your interest.

Bad Weights

I did NOT LIKE Good Morning Call because…

…it is too predictable and overly far-fetched. Predictable because we have already seen a hot young, lonely, introverted guy, fall for the annoying yet cute and chirpy girl who brings light to his dark life. Far-fetched because what kind of parents will allow their teenage daughter to live alone with another teenage boy. Be it North South East or West, I have never seen this teenage ‘live-in’ concept being acceptable in any continent.

…it’s funny to see all the boys in the drama fall for one girl. Except for Mitsuishi every other guy in the drama likes the clumsy Nao. I know this is drama world and this happens in every drama be it Korean, Japanese or Taiwanese. The female lead will always have multiple men vying for her attention no matter how ordinary and annoying she is. In season 1 Nao has her best friend Diachi (also one of the most handsome guy in the school. Duh!) and her boss Issei madly in love with her. Now, these two guys were regular angles in a love triangle so I did not mind them getting rejected by Nao. But, my heart broke when Nao rejected the happy and lively Natsume in season 2. Why??? Why ??? WHY?????? These drama writers always do that. They create a very sweet, loving, caring, adorable second-lead only to be ruthlessly rejected by the leading lady. If you haven’t watched this drama yet then let me warn you that at some point you will certainly fall for Natsume’s charms.

He brings a lot of life to the drama in the first few episodes and then like a lot of other second-leads he falls for the main heroine and then undergoes a complete transformation which reduces him to a gloomy brooding extra character in the drama. In the second half of the drama, Natsume looks like he is terribly sick and wants to throw up. If there is anything I truly hate about this drama then it is how Natsume’s character turned out in the drama. I wish they hadn’t made his character so helpless and pathetic.

…the supporting cast has no other work than helping keep Uehara and Nao stick together. This is especially applicable for Marina who does not care about her own relationship and is always looking out for Nao. Supporting cast is supposed to ‘support’ the main cast but this is a little too much. I would have liked to see Marina and Mitsuishi’s love story too. But the drama was completely focused on Uehara and Nao so the other couples existed only to support them and had no other role to play in the story.

 

I give Good Morning Call 3.5 out of 5 rating. If you are a fan of Itazura Na Kiss, then this drama MUST be on your watch list. If you enjoy watching teenage love dramas then you should watch the hot and haughty Uehara fall for the sweet and lovely Nao.

 

All Images Courtesy: Netflix

Feature Image Courtesy: Fuji TV

 

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