5-ji Kara 9-ji Made Review

Title: 5-ji Kara 9-ji Made

AKA: 5→9 From Five to Nine

Genre: Romance, Comedy

Episodes: 10

Broadcast Period: Oct-2015 to Dec-2016

Cast: Ishihara Satomi, Yamashita Tomohisa, Tanaka Kei, Furukawa Yuki, Takanashi Rin, Saeko, Yoshimoto Miyu,

Sakuraba Junko (Ishihara Satomi) is a part-time teacher at an English conversation school who dreams of one day working in New York. Junko strives hard to achieve her dreams, but New York seems a far distant reality. She hasn't had much luck with romance for a while either. Things suddenly start to change when one day, Junko encounters a handsome Tokyo University graduate monk Hoshikawa Takane (Yamashita Tomohisa) at a funeral service. Due to numbness of her legs after sitting for a long time, Junko accidentally knocks over the bowl of ashes, which falls right onto the head of Takene. After such embarrassing mishap, Junko figures she would never see him again. However, the two end up meeting again in a matchmaking session that was set up by Junko's mother.

I don’t know what I expected, but I was definitely surprised by the plot. It’s not one of those typical japanese dramas, where you quickly figure out what’s going to happen. It keeps surprising you with all kind of plot twists. It really has a nice feeling overall. As usual, Yamashita Tomohisa nails the character on point. I loved all the small details he brought to it, and the way he interacted with “the outside world”, since he’s only used to the temple. The chemistry between the leads were so adorable, I liked how they developed feelings for each other quite naturally. All in all a successful drama, I read somewhere they were going to make a SP, (or maybe it was fan-wishing), but I hope they do it soon, because I can’t get enough of those two. 

☆☆☆☆½ / 4½ out of 5 stars

♥♥♥♥½ / 4½ out of 5 hearts